Hong Kong people could feel ‘most of the pain’ from US human rights act, American experts warn
- The bill, which is awaiting approval from the US Senate, is designed to ensure China does not undermine Hong Kong’s special autonomy status
- But American experts suggest that if the US uses the ‘one-off’ tool it would needlessly punish the city’s residents and lose leverage over the situation
American politicians have been warned that “most of the pain” from US legislation that could put Hong Kong’s special treatment under greater scrutiny would fall on residents of the city, rather than officials in mainland China or the local government.
Several US lawmakers are pushing for the US Senate to quickly approve the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, which would allow sanctions against individuals deemed responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s special autonomy status, among other measures.
But a panel of experts have said that American policymakers would be wading into a veritable minefield by passing the law, which is ostensibly seen as a way of determining whether the city exercises “autonomous decision-making”.
“I think it's a really hard policy problem for the United States in part because there needs to be some sort of rule here of ‘Do no harm’,” Ely Ratner, deputy director of national security for former vice-president Joe Biden, said during a discussion hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations in Washington on Monday.
“There are parts of that bill that are important in terms of some of the reporting requirements, but this lever of the autonomy status of Hong Kong is a very difficult question because the United States removing it would inflict some pain upon certain actors and some on China, but most of the pain would fall on the Hong Kong people and it would be a one-off after that, it wouldn't be possible.”
Ratner was echoing the views of other China watchers, including Susan Thornton, until recently the most senior US diplomat in East Asia, who warned that the act would “punish the wrong people”.
They’re wielding it like a club, and they don’t seem to understand that the club is basically going to whack the Hongkongers upside the head
“I don’t think they think about it much, but they just have this one bill that has Hong Kong in it, and they’re wielding it like a club, and they don’t seem to understand that the club is basically going to whack the Hongkongers upside the head, and the Beijingers will be dancing in the streets,” Thornton, previously US President Donald Trump’s top envoy on Asia, told the South China Morning Post in October.