Trump won’t spare Hong Kong in his anti-China agenda so Carrie Lam had better start working on a Plan B

Michael Chugani says the Hong Kong chief executive does not seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation in her reaction to a critical US congressional report

If the US chooses to use Hong Kong as a chess piece in its trade war against China, and removes its special trading status, the city will be severely hit

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks during the Post’s China Conference in Admiralty in January. Lam’s recent response to a US congressional report questioning whether Hong Kong should continue to enjoy special customs status has raised eyebrows. Photo: Nora Tam

Michael Chugani

Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host

Published: 3:03am, 29 Nov 2018Updated: 7:40am, 29 Nov 2018

China-bashing reached new heights in the US Congress after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. I saw it upfront as a Washington correspondent in the 1990s. But even though the hostility – driven by disgust at the bloodshed – was bipartisan, it had a bottom line.

Most Democrats and many Republicans were against granting favourable trading status to China. But every time Congress tried to downgrade China’s trade status during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, there either weren’t enough votes to pass it or to override a presidential veto after passage.

Back then, the White House and enough lawmakers from both sides felt punitive trade measures were not an effective tool to retaliate against China’s human rights behaviour. Does that bottom line still exist? If it does, no one seems to know where it lies with Donald Trump as president.

Trump couldn’t care less about Beijing’s human rights record but has made reversing America’s huge trade deficit with China a top priority. Add his trade hostility towards China to his dogged resistance to President Xi Jinping’s determination for China to replace the US as the dominant superpower and what we, in effect, have is a cold war.

As such, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor should understand the real possibility that the US could use the city as a chess piece in its efforts to thwart China from becoming the pre-eminent global power. Her dismissive reaction to a bipartisan congressional report highly critical of Hong Kong’s eroding freedoms suggests she doesn't understand the precarious position we are in.