Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday that“certain people on the US side have always wanted to disturb Hong Kong."

US officials, he charged, were trying to "disturb its socio-economic development, disturb the normal order of its residents' lives, and even use the Hong Kong issue to interfere in China's internal affairs."

China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang

“This can only be futile,” he warned. “The only effect it will have is to cause Chinese people to go on alert and have a bad reaction."

The warning came after the US Department of State released a report on Wednesday, saying Hong Kong’s autonomy was “being eroded under expanded influence and interference from Beijing.”

Lu asserted that Hong Kong was a part of China and no other country had a right to interfere in its internal affairs.

Hong Kong that was a British colony was handed over to China back in 1997.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said on Thursday that the town has been exercising a high degree of autonomy “since the return to the motherland.”

China accuses Washington of meddling in its internal affairs as well as regional issues.

Last month, Beijing rejected a US request for an aircraft carrier group to make a port visit to Hong Kong.

China prevented the group, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, from docking despite a "long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong," said the Pentagon.

The South China Sea has become a source of tension between China, the US, and some other regional countries who are seeking control of trade routes and mineral deposits there.

China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, which is also claimed in part by Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

China says the US is interfering in regional affairs, deliberately stirring tensions in the South China Sea.

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