HK pressure spreads as far as Trump

The political dilemma in Hong Kong keeps becoming a bigger and harder nut to crack. Protests have disrupted the Chinese special territory for weeks. After clashes with police outside government buildings, demonstrators upped the ante by turning one of the world’s leading airports into a target.

Some violence occurred as police tried to remove protesters and tourist travel was disrupted. It brought a mixed bag of attention to the protesters’ cause.

Both the local administration and China’s Government have been under immense pressure. Even before the past week Hong Kong had Beijing tied in a knot of calculations.

Now the crisis has also settled deep into wider concerns over the US-China trade war and whether a global recession is on the horizon.

Hong Kong’s importance lies in its international past and present and uneasy semi-autonomous status. It’s a front porch for China’s economic dealings with the world. It has a more stable and transparent legal system than the mainland beyond.

China has heavily invested in developing relationships with other countries through trade. In both political and economic ways, it can’t afford to mishandle the former British-held territory.

Singapore is an obvious, calm and nearby port for nervous credit and travellers. Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents have repeatedly been prepared to show opposition to any erosion of freedoms and demand more. A smaller group of innovative activists are thwarting their government and security forces while testing the limits of the surveillance state.

Behind China’s crude video warnings of a Tiananmen-style crackdown from across the border is the obsession with maintaining control on the mainland in ever more high-tech ways. And that’s even aside from factoring in Beijing’s relationship to Taiwan, the second subject of the old “one country, two systems” formulation.

So far, China has maintained a distance. President Xi Jinping is also not the only one under pressure. The background tariff battle between China and the US has created anxiety, instability and now a new political dimension.

Last week a US economic indicator raised a red flag that a recession could occur in the next two years. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have been low even with a well-performing economy — his best re-election card.

To win in November 2020, Trump needs a facesaving way out of the trade dispute. He backed off a threat to impose new tariffs on China on September 1. He called Xi “a good man in a tough business”. He tweeted: “Of course China wants to make a trade deal. Let them work humanely with Hong Kong first.” Trump has the power to add to Xi’s plate by rescinding Hong Kong’s status in a US law as a preferential trading partner. But criticising China over Hong Kong could jeopardise his need to resolve the trade war.

He is in effect signalling that if there’s a torpedo that could sink his re-election bid, it’s in Xi’s hands.