Not without reason was I always warned during university days that “ontological” arguments can almost never be resolved, and can rarely usefully be waged. These are faith-based arguments based on convictions that cannot be tested against facts. Even when warring parties in an ontological argument look at the same facts, they still reach opposed conclusions. This in part explains why people like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Christian core gathered around President Donald Trump believe so fervently – even before release of the substance of the controversial new Hong Kong security law , or any hint on how it might be implemented – that Beijing is bent on suppressing the freedoms of the Hong Kong people, and has consistently ignored or abused the legally binding commitments embodied in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law – including its “high degree of autonomy”. This conviction, and the decision to penalise Hong Kong and its people as a means of punishing China, is based on a hard-wired presumption of mal-intent by godless communists stealthily pursuing an agenda to undermine the freedom-loving economies of the West, and above all its champion, the US. So it is that Scott Kennedy at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, was able to write here in the Post last Saturday that: “There is now near-universal agreement by those watching from afar that Hong Kong is in the midst of being prematurely stripped of its autonomy.” I – also from afar – watched Minneapolis burning last week, and a perfectly polite CNN journalist surrounded and arrested by heavily armed state police, and wondered what the nature was of the trauma eating at the heart of America. Recognising that, from afar, I am ill-equipped to judge, that complex issues can look simple, and that evidence is difficult to interpret accurately from afar, I have been seeking the local, more nuanced insights that might help me to understand. So, too, should Kennedy and his like stop relying on those who agree with him from afar about developments in Hong Kong, sharing their common ontological prism. From near, and using a separate but perfectly reasonable prism, his views are built on hard-wired opinions, not facts. On the contrary, Hong Kong’s autonomy remains intact, and is being robustly defended. There is no common view among “Hong Kong people”. Indeed, they seem as dangerously divided as the people of Minneapolis. And the assumption of Chinese mal-intent is poorly founded. Unlike the British government, whose colonial administrators ruled over Hong Kong until 1997, Beijing has, since the handover, clearly recognised how much it needs Hong Kong to thrive. For Britain’s Westminster politicians, Hong Kong was always distant and insignificant, out of sight and out of mind. That has never been so for Beijing. Since Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, Beijing has consistently seen Hong Kong as a critical bridgehead both to understanding of and engagement with the outside world. Hong Kong’s only true value is in its difference. “ One country two systems ” is not just a party trick to appease distrusting foreigners. It is a critical foundation for institutions and institutional knowledge enabling China’s restructuring economy to build the links needed to resume a meaningful and dignified role as a leading global power. Hong Kong’s fiercely independent legal system , its common law institutions, its foreign judges , its cantankerous and outspoken media, its internationally recognised and trusted accounting system, its sophisticated and efficient financial system and equity markets – these are as important to China today as they were in 1997, not just for international companies needing a base from which to do business in Asia or China, but for the growing thousands of mainland companies keen to build links into global markets. And these differences are as fiercely defended in Hong Kong as ever. When mainland officials say they are determined to preserve the autonomy of one country, two systems, they really mean it, no matter how thuggish they have been inside the mainland. They have bent over backwards to avoid undermining the letter or the spirit of the Basic Law. They have watched with growing alarm the self-destruction being wrought on Hong Kong streets since last spring, and have stepped in only as they have reluctantly concluded that Hong Kong’s administration and its Legislative Council show no progress in ending the self-destruction. I thought of this as I watched Minneapolis burning last week. I listened to Andrea Jenkins, vice-president of the Minneapolis City Council, insist that street protests were fine, but that wanton street-level destruction was not, and that after three successive nights of uncontrolled rage, she and other city officials were “totally exhausted”. I wondered how she and her colleagues would have felt after six months of such wanton street-level anarchy and destruction, and how she would have viewed the damage being done to thousands of Minneapolis livelihoods as shops and shopping centres burned. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her administration carry much blame for the dreadful place Hong Kong now finds itself in, but that in no way excuses the preposterous and nihilistic demands for independence. Her decision to press extradition legislation last year will go down as one of the most damaging and unnecessary mistakes in Hong Kong’s political history. Her administration’s failure to tackle pressing “bread and butter” problems linked with extreme inequality , a lack of access to adequate housing , stagnant wages and inadequate elderly care , remains inexcusable. But so, too, is the brazen outside interference. A significant proportion of Hong Kong’s population do not challenge Beijing’s demand for locally enforceable national security laws, in particular after so many people’s security – and livelihoods – has been put in peril by foreign-supported street anarchy over the past year. Most countries – including the US and Britain – have rigorously-enforced security laws, and the Hong Kong administration can be criticised for having failed in the 23 years since 1997 to deliver its Basic Law commitment to introduce such a law. None of us would have preferred for Beijing to enact such a law for us, and most will be deeply anxious about the precise letter of the new law, and how it will be enforced. But Pompeo and the Trump administration are wrong to jump the gun. The move was mischievous, even malicious, and probably counterproductive. But that is the nature of ontological arguments, and with an election to win in November, this was obviously not a time for scruples. David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view