Hong Kong discounts U.S. threats
China within its rights to pursue law to stem unrest, it says
Hong Kong’s government said actions threatened by President Donald Trump are “unjustified” and that China is within its “legitimate rights” to pursue new national security laws that Beijing says will help quell months of unrest. Separately, the People’s
Daily, mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, wrote that the plans outlined by Trump at the White House on Friday were “gross interference” in Beijing’s affairs and were “doomed to fail.”
Also, China’s ambassador to the U.S. wrote in a Bloomberg Opinion editorial that the central government has the ultimate responsibility for upholding national security in Hong Kong and that the proposed legislation “will protect law-abiding citizens.”
The U.S. moves would include stripping Hong Kong of some of its privileged trade status as a result of Beijing’s crackdown on the island, and come as tensions simmer between the world’s two biggest economies over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and how the Trump administration characterizes China’s role in its spread.
Officials from Hong Kong wrote in a 949-word statement that they’re “not unduly worried” about the sanctions and trade restrictions proposed by Trump.
Hong Kong will continue to rely on rule of law, judicial independence, and a free and open trade policy, according to a statement issued Saturday night.
Officials defended the actions of China’s legislature, which last week approved a plan to draft legislation that China has called essential to national security, and which Hong Kong democracy advocates have said will curb freedom of speech and undermine an independent judiciary.
Those actions, on top of relations fraught by the pandemic, led Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to decertify the former British colony’s autonomy under U.S. law. Trump vowed “strong” and “meaningful” actions while providing few specifics.
The proposed legislation “does not give rise to fears of the loss of liberties by its people that will warrant international debate or interference by another country” and such fears are “simply fallacious,” the Hong Kong government said in its statement.
“We note with deep regret that President Trump and his administration continue to smear and demonize the legitimate rights and duty of our sovereign to safeguard national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region which in turn is aimed at restoring stability to Hong Kong society,” the statement said.
Cui Tiankai, China’s U.S. ambassador, wrote Saturday that Hong Kong was “a romantic fusion of the East and the West.”
“To our regret, such romance is evaporating,” the envoy wrote. The violent actions of protesters against police, citizens and property there had crossed “a red line” for Beijing, he said. “Hong Kong is in disarray. China’s national security is at risk. That is why the central government has chosen to act.”
Hong Kong has been roiled by protests, some of them violent, since last year as demonstrators have fought efforts by China and Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed administration to impose tighter security laws on the territory, which has had relative autonomy since being returned to China by Britain in 1997.
China’s rubber-stamp legislature Thursday approved a proposal for new national security laws for Hong Kong, but it could take Chinese officials months to sort out details of laws banning subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign interference.
The People’s Daily reported that China would be firm in responding to any U.S. moves, without specifying what actions Beijing might take.