My Take | Surely you must be joking, Mr President!
- Comic relief of the week: what’s happening in Hong Kong continues ‘to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States’
“Recent actions taken by the People’s Republic of China to fundamentally undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” Biden said.
Seriously?
Maybe you are supportive or critical of what Beijing is doing in Hong Kong. Maybe you think the Hong Kong government is helping or harming the city. But how can what the central and local governments are doing in Hong Kong, universally recognised as a Chinese territory, “pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy” of the US?
I know politicians are often inclined to exaggerate and make statements with hyperboles. But they are still constrained by grammar and meaning. What Biden is saying is that the domestic laws and policies administered by Chinese/Hong Kong officials in the city can somehow seriously threaten America’s interests as he understands it. Will he send in the US marines to Hong Kong or bomb Beijing? I have no doubt that if China were a banana republic, that’s what the Americans would do, or have been doing for two centuries in the Caribbean and South America.
But someone should point out to Biden that he is not dealing with a banana republic; and more competent and sensible policies are needed to define and defend America’s security and economic interests.