A People's Daily (February 6) article, while sharply criticising Jimmy Lai (aka - Li Zhiying) owner of Hongkong's Apple Daily as "leader of the Gang of Four" and sparing "no effort to mess up Hong Kong", also criticised the US. It said, "As the "senior agent" of the Western powers in the United States, Li Zhiying has also been fighting with hostile foreign forces for a long time. Under the banner of Western liberalism, they vigorously advocated extreme individualism and openly promoted "illegal justice", dragging Hong Kong into the abyss of "black violence" and "speculation" time and time again". It said Li Zhiying bluntly declared "fight for the United States" and put himself under the jurisdiction of the United States". The People's Daily reported that "in 2019, Hong Kong gangsters violently stormed the Legislative Council building and attacked the police. They were regarded as "beautiful scenery" by some American politicians and media, beautifying the mobs as "democracy fighters." ". But just last month, Trump’s supporters forcibly "breaked" the U.S. Capitol, but the mainstream media in the United States condemned this as a "violent incident" and immediately listed these people as "thugs" and "villains." . Comparing the two, the answer is self-explanatory: "Democracy" and "freedom" are just their hypocritical masks. The so-called "democracy" and "freedom" titles that can be defined and dressed as they wish are already worthless". It added "To put it bluntly, the anti-China forces in the United States and the West are deliberate and exhausted, but they use Hong Kong as the frontier and bridgehead of the anti-China and contain China's development by interfering and disrupting Hong Kong. Li Zhiying and the like, who have high self-esteem and persist in self-exaltation, are nothing but "chess pieces" carefully cultivated by the United States and the West to help them intervene in Hong Kong affairs".

(Comment: This sharp criticism of the US coincides with Beijing's efforts to reach out to the new Biden Administration in the US to try and repair China-US ties.)