Exclusive | Steve Bannon takes a trip down memory lane in Hong Kong
Former Trump strategist recalls visiting the city as a US sailor in the 1970s
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon says he still remembers the day he approached the shores of Hong Kong on a US destroyer four decades ago.
“We were anchored right out here, about 1,000 yards out,” he said, looking out the window of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Wan Chai across the harbour.
“I fell in love with it right away. It was the Orient. It was the whole mystery out there,” Bannon said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.
Widely known as one of the White House’s most hawkish voices on China during his brief stint at US President Donald Trump’s side, Bannon said it was his “tremendous admiration” for the country since childhood that drew him to Hong Kong when it was still a colony under British rule.
“As a little boy, I’d always wanted to come to China. That’s one of the reasons I joined the Pacific Fleet. It was to serve my country but also to make sure I got in the Pacific Fleet not the Atlantic Fleet because I wanted to come to Asia,” he said.