Sanctions on China to remain even with Sino-US tensions set to ease under President Joe Biden: Hong Kong’s American Chamber of Commerce

Chamber’s new head in Hong Kong says Sino-US ties are likely ‘to see a reset or adjustment’

But sanctions are designed to run over the longer term so trade, financial punishments expected to remain

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Hong Kong has found itself at the mercy of the fractious relationship between the US and China. Photo: Sun Yeung

Published: 4:19pm, 22 Jan 2021Updated: 4:43pm, 24 Feb 2021

United States sanctions imposed on China over its approach to Hong Kong will remain for the foreseeable future, even with Sino-US relations set to improve under President Joe Biden, a powerful American business group in the city has predicted.

Jessica Bartlett, the new chairwoman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham), said on Friday that she expected US ties with Beijing and the local government to be less confrontational than they were under Donald Trump’s presidency.

However, she suggested the series of trade and political sanctions targeting the city and the country as a whole would stay in place for some time, with any review of the punitive regimes unlikely to conclude in the coming months.

“The new administration has shown they share many of the same concerns on what’s happening in Hong Kong that the Trump administration had,” she said.

“But we might see a reset or adjustment. This term uses the words competition and cooperation and [American diplomat] Kurt Campbell explicitly said this is not a second cold war.”

US-China relations over Hong Kong hit rock bottom in July last year when Trump revoked the city’s preferential trading status as stipulated by the Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, which recognised it as a customs territory separate from mainland China.

His administration has since sanctioned officials and other individuals judged to have played a role in the central government’s decision to impose the national security law on Hong Kong.

Trump said the legislation – which took effect on June 30 last year banning acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces – was trampling the city’s democratic development and the “one country, two systems” principle under which it was governed.