NEW YORK, Aug. 15 -- Acts of violence and chaos by saboteurs in Hong Kong are hurting stability and hindering the economic development of the special administrative region of China, a renowned U.S. expert has said.

"It's just affecting the ordinary Hong Kong people's lives ... It's hurting stability, which is needed for development," Robert Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, told Xinhua in an interview Tuesday.

"I don't think it's helpful to the interests of the Hong Kong people in any sense," Kuhn said.

Calling Hong Kong one of "the best places in the world" to do business, Kuhn said such violence would bring sufficient chaos to Hong Kong and "undermines itself, its stability, its rule of law, its capability to be all the things that Hong Kong has been for years."

"Hong Kong has been the vehicle by which foreign investors, corporations have done business in China," Kuhn said, adding that the return of the special administrative region to the motherland in 1997 represented "China's territorial integrity and great civilization."

Speaking of the unlawful assembly at the Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday evening, during which two residents from the mainland were assaulted and unlawfully detained, Kuhn said it was "very extreme" and "just unacceptable."

"You can't have that. No country can allow that to continue to happen," Kuhn added.

"It's hard if we have the kind of disturbances continuing ... It hurts Hong Kong's capacity to do well for itself and continue to be a participant ... in building all of China, and particularly (China's) Greater Bay Area," he said.

Noting that the Chinese central government has faithfully implemented the principle of "one country, two systems," Kuhn said it is important to understand that "the central authorities will do everything possible to support the local government."

Those "who think that the central government's motivation is to control Hong Kong in a more repressive way completely misunderstand how the central government looks upon Hong Kong," he said.

"It's completely wrong," he added.