A safety team
looks through a gymnasium, used by protesters to sleep, for explosives and chemicals at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in the Hung Hom district of Hong Kong yesterday.
BEIJING (AP) — China reacted furiously to US President Donald Trump’s signing of two bills on Hong Kong human rights and said the US will bear the unspecified consequences.
A foreign ministry statement yesterday repeated heated condemnations of the laws and said China will counteract. It said all the people of Hong Kong and China oppose the move.
It’s still unclear, however, how China will respond exactly.
Trump signed the bills, which were approved by near unanimous consent in the House and Senate, even as he expressed some concerns about complicating the effort to work out a trade deal with China’s President Xi Jinping.
“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong,” Trump said in a statement. “They are being enacted in the hope that Leaders and Representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long term peace and prosperity for all.”
Congress approved the bills last week following months of unrest in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Before Wednesday’s signing announcement, Trump would only commit to giving the measures a “hard look.”
China’s foreign ministry called the laws a “naked hegemonic action” that seriously interfered in Hong Kong and China’s internal affairs, violated international law and “fundamental norms of international relations.”
“The US side ignored facts, turned black to white, and blatantly gave encouragement to violent criminals who smashed and burned, harmed innocent city residents, trampled on the rule of law and endangered social order,” the statement said.