WASHINGTON - Official Chinese media reports about a U.S. diplomat who met with student leaders of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement"have gone from irresponsible to dangerous" and must stop, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said on Friday.
"I don't think that leaking an American diplomat's private information, pictures, names of their children -- I don't think that is a formal protest ... That is not how a responsible nation would behave," she told a briefing. The denunciations from the State Department are unusually sharp and have come as tensions between Washington and Beijing surge over an expanding trade war and military rivalry in the western Pacific, among other disputes.
The State Department has not identified the diplomat and has not elaborated on what kinds of private information or children's details were disclosed.