international intrigue

Hong Kong Protests Are a U.S. Conspiracy Plot, Says Russia

The streets of Hong Kong, courtesy the U.S. government. Photo: Dale de la Rey/AFP/Getty Images

The ongoing student-led protests in Hong Kong, still tens of thousands strong and showing no signs of abetting, are obviously the work of the meddling West, according to the Kremlin. State-run Russian TV, while initially ignoring the biggest international story of the moment, have since decided on the party line: “According to the Chinese press, the leaders of the movement received special training from the American intelligence services,” Rossiya 24 reported.

Although the Chinese Communist Party paper, the People’s Daily, has blamed a “gang of people whose hearts belong to colonial rule and who are besotted with ‘Western democracy’” for instigating the protests, Russia is going even further — and blaming it on Beijing.

Beijing has said the protest organizers are linked to the American State Department,” one anchor said, according to a Wall Street Journal report, despite the fact that China “has not explicitly made such an accusation.”

The conspiracy theories go even further:

In reports Tuesday, both First Channel and Rossiya 24 showed a video appeal by a young female protester in Hong Kong and compared it to a similar clip filmed by a young female protester in Kiev. The reports characterized the two clips as identical and suggested they were the handiwork of the U.S.

Ferguson, then, was probably just a false flag.

Hong Kong Protests Are a U.S. Plot, Says Russia