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My Take | How to weaponise Hong Kong against China
- The opposition have got more than they bargained for, now that US President Donald Trump has stripped the city of its special trade status to treat it the same as the mainland
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It would have been amusing if it weren’t so tragic. US President Donald Trump has signed into law the Hong Kong Autonomy Act as well as an executive order ending the city’s preferential trade and special customs status. This is, apparently, to preserve and fight for Hong Kong’s freedoms!
The act will require sanctions against foreign individuals and banks for supposedly helping to erode Hong Kong’s autonomy. HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China, note-issuing banks one and all, watch out! I hope you don’t have Carrie Lam as your customer.
“Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China,” Trump said. “No special privileges, no special economic treatment, and no export of sensitive technologies.”
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It’s hard to see how any of that will help Hong Kong, its people and their “autonomy” by treating it as part of China. Surely this couldn’t have been what the opposition and protest movement had in mind when they openly urged Washington to sanction Hong Kong and Beijing. They had wanted the threat, not the execution, in the belief that Beijing would back off.
But Beijing wasn’t about to compromise when it considered Hong Kong’s stability and governability a core national security concern, especially after the prolonged violent unrest of last year.
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