Report urges US Congress to speak out for Hong Kong autonomy in wake of bookseller saga
Draft of annual report by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission expresses doubts about city’s independent legal system and ‘one country, two systems’
The recommendation is contained in the latest draft of the annual report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, to be released on Thursday.
In its annual report to Congress, the commission expressed doubts over the city’s independent legal system, citing the Causeway Bay Books saga in which five booksellers who sold banned books on the mainland appeared to have been abducted by the Chinese authorities.
Watch: Bookseller Lam Wing-kee wants to live a normal life
It said that the bookstore saga had put in question “the state of Hong Kong’s ability to maintain its independent legal system” and its autonomy under the “one country, two systems” model.
“Some observers ... are beginning to question [Hong Kong’s] future as a global financial centre due to the deterioration of the ‘one country, two systems’ framework resulting in large part from the booksellers incident over the past year.”