China has compared outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to a "praying mantis" in connection with the latest US sanctions against Beijing due to the arrests of Hong Kong activists, AFP reported. 

"Hong Kong's development from chaos to stability is unstoppable," Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said in its first response to the sanctions on Monday.

"People like Pompeo are nothing but laughable praying mantises who are trying in vain to stop the rolling wheels of history."

The metaphor comes from an old Chinese idiom describing futility in which the mantis tries to stop the chariot with its feet.

Calling the US sanctions "a political trick when all other tricks are exhausted," the office urged Pompeo to "wind up the show."

Earlier, the Hong Kong government called the sanctions insane, shameless and despicable.