Tuesday was Pearl Harbour Day in Washington - and a bad day for Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa. That anyone even attempts to connect the two reflects the present state of mind of a far right-wing Republican Party clique just over a week before a ceremony marking the United States handover of the Panama Canal.
Two events provided outlets for the more extreme of the anti-China crowd. While Hong Kong may rightly dismiss them as crackpots they nevertheless have the bit between the teeth at the moment. Hutchison and Panama is an issue that they just will not let go.
First came a congressional committee hearing into the economic impact of the handover on December 31 after about 85 years of US control.
As one of Hutchison's US commercial competitors sought to raise 'suspicions' over the firm's Panama port deal, California Republican Dana Rohrabacher told the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy how appropriate it was to discuss the issue on such a historic date.
'By using Hong Kong-based firms with close ties to the Beijing regime, the thin line between the People's Republic of China government and private companies is blurred,' Mr Rohrabacher said as SAR observers winced in the gallery.
'If we do nothing . . . within a decade a communist Chinese regime that hates democracy and sees America as its primary enemy, in partnership with the triads and the cartels, will dominate the tiny country of Panama and the Panama Canal.' A few hours later, across town at the Centre for Security Policy, a Reaganite think-tank, a gathering of 40 like-minded academics, former military and intelligence service brass and activists told itself how appropriate it was to meet on Pearl Harbour Day.