Hong Kong’s ‘success’ based on years of back-breaking effort and mainland help, not a label Trump or others can strip away: foreign ministry

Commerce chief Edward Yau, meanwhile, reveals officials and legal experts studying WTO rule book over ‘Made in China’ dispute

City may use global body’s dispute resolution mechanism to challenge impact of US administration’s decision

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Whether or not Hong Kong is rated a ‘success’ is not up to US President Donald Trump, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 10:55am, 14 Aug 2020Updated: 11:39pm, 14 Aug 2020

Beijing hit back at Washington on Friday, asserting its contribution to Hong Kong’s prosperity, a day after US President Donald Trump suggested the city would “never succeed” under Chinese control and predicted its markets would “go to hell”.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a daily press briefing that the international financial hub’s “success” was not a title that could be stripped away by other countries.

“The status of Hong Kong as an international financial hub lies in the back-breaking effort by generations of Hongkongers, as well as perpetually enhanced reforms on the part of China, which provides the strongest and most forceful backing for Hong Kong,” he said.

Hong Kong officials are studying the World Trade Organisation’s rule book to see how they might challenge the US over its requirement that goods from the city are relabelled. Photo: AFP

Zhao was responding to remarks Trump made during an interview with American cable network Fox News on Thursday.

“Hong Kong can never succeed having China, as opposed to the thousands of geniuses that ran it, having China run it,” he said, adding that US markets would, as a result, make “a lot more money” and that Hong Kong’s markets would “go to hell”.