Coronavirus: Donald Trump pledges ‘powerful’ action on Hong Kong

Donald Trump has threatened to take action ‘before the end of the week’ over Beijing’s new security laws for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong riot police form a road block against protesters in the city’s Mongkok district on Wednesday night. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump has threatened to take action “before the end of the week” as China’s political elite passed draft legislation that would impose Beijing’s security apparatus on Hong Kong.

The city — which was returned to China from Britain in 1997 — has become the latest flashpoint in the escalating confrontation between the world’s two biggest economies, which in recent days has spread to Canada’s Supreme Court and Britain’s 5G network weeks after it engulfed Australia’s beef and barley farmers.

On the evening before President Xi Jinping and the elite of the Chinese Communist Party approved the new Hong Kong security law on Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had advised congress the city could no longer be considered to have a high degree of autonomy from China. “While the United States once hoped that free and prosperous Hong Kong would provide a model for authoritarian China, it is now clear that China is modelling Hong Kong after itself,” he said.

Mr Trump said the retaliation would be announced “before the end of the week — very powerfully”.

Demonstrations by more than a million Hong Kongers last year and rolling protests made the passage of stricter security legislation a priority for Beijing.

A draft of the new law, which prohibit acts of secession, subversion, terrorism or conspiring with foreign influences, was passed in Beijing on Thursday afternoon shortly before the end of National People’s Congress, China’s most important annual political event.

At a press conference at the end of the gathering, Premier Li Keqiang said the new law was needed to ensure “Hong Kong’s long term prosperity and stability”.

“The central government has all along fully and faithfully implemented ‘one country, two systems’ under which the people of Hong Kong govern Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy,” he said.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index closed down 0.8 per cent as investors braced for details on Washington’s response.

The day before the passage of the bill, hundreds of protesters were dispersed by pepper-gun wielding police outside Hong Kong’s parliament.

Six of Hong Kong’s richest citizens this week released statements supporting the legislation, which would allow Beijing to set up its own security agencies in the city. The richest of them, Li Ka-shing, said Hong Kongers should not “over-hypothesise” the new law.

“Hopefully, the proposed new law can allay the apprehension the central government feels about Hong Kong and from thereon, a positive outlook can begin to prevail,” said Mr Li, whose CK Asset Holdings includes gas and electricity infrastructure in Australia.

The 91-year-old said Carrie Lam’s Hong Kong government had a “mission-­critical task” to strengthen the confidence of residents and to reinforce the international community’s trust in “one country, two systems”.

Hong Kong police are preparing for demonstrations on June 4 to mark the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and on June 9 to mark the first anniversary of the march by Hong Kongers protesting an extradition bill championed by Ms Lam. During the NPC, China’s propaganda machine has ratcheted up its campaign against Hong Kong’s protest movement after last week running a campaign against its school system.

Writing in the China Daily, Li Peiwen, a researcher at the Centre for Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions of Shenzhen University, said the US was using the protest movement to gain the upper hand against China in the trade war. “Several Western countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have also poked their dirty nose in Hong Kong and therefore China’s internal affairs,” wrote Li.

British communications regulator, Ofcom, said this week it was considering a statutory sanction against state-run China Global Television Network for its biased coverage of the protests.