My Take | Hong Kong a national security threat to the US? You’ve got to be joking, Uncle Sam
- A ‘national emergency’ order on itself may be more useful as no country poses a greater danger to itself and others than the United States
Hong Kong continues to be a threat to the national security of the United States, according to the White House. That must be news to the city’s population.
In 2020, Donald Trump imposed an executive order that declared a “national emergency” on Hong Kong in response to the introduction of the national security law following riots the year before. Why was that any of Washington’s business? You have to wonder.
Anyway, his successor Joe Biden has again renewed the order this week.
In a note to the US Congress, Biden said: “The situation with respect to Hong Kong, including recent actions taken by [Beijing] to fundamentally undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.
“Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in [the executive order] with respect to the situation in Hong Kong.”
Wow, not just any threat, but “an unusual and extraordinary threat”! However hard I try to imagine it, I can’t quite see Hongkongers taking up AK-47s and putting on suicide vests to fight America to the death.