US cuts Hong Kong out of trade preferences to protest China crackdown
Donald Trump has unleashed new measures to protest China’s crackdown on Hong Kong as relations sink to a new low.
Donald Trump has unleashed new measures to protest China’s crackdown on Hong Kong as relations between the world’s economic superpowers sank to a new low.
The US President’s move to sign a bill that punishes Chinese officials who undermine the rights of Hong Kong residents is the latest in a series of US moves aimed at confronting Chinese aggression at home and abroad.
“We’ve all watched what happened (in Hong Kong) — not a good situation. Their freedoms have been taken away, their rights have been taken away,” Mr Trump said of Hongkongers during a Rose Garden press conference.
The President also announced he had signed an order ending US preferential financial treatment for Hong Kong, placing it on a par with the US treatment of mainland China. The move, which will hurt Hong Kong’s reputation as a financial hub, is punishment for China’s push to remove Hong Kong’s freedoms and special status.
Hours after Mr Trump’s announcement, China said it would retaliate, with its foreign ministry saying: “China will make necessary responses to protect its legitimate interests, and impose sanctions on relevant US personnel and entities.”
The moves came just a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo angered Beijing by formally declaring its disputed maritime claims in the South China Sea to be illegal.
China reacted angrily to Mr Pompeo’s move, with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian describing the US as a troublemaker that threatened peace in the region.
“The international world can see it very clearly that the US is the destroyer of regional peace and stability and is the troublemaker,” he said. “As an outside country, the US, out of selfishness and bent on causing chaos, resorts to all means to provoke trouble.”
Mr Pompeo further angered China on Wednesday AEST by welcoming Britain’s decision to ban Chinese telecom giant Huawei from 5G networks, saying the UK was joining countries such as Australia in “standing up for their national security by prohibiting the use of untrusted, high-risk vendors”.
Relations between the US and China have soured sharply in recent months over a range of issues, including China’s role in the coronavirus pandemic, ongoing trade frictions and disputes over cybersecurity and Taiwan.
Mr Trump, who accuses China of covering up the existence and severity of the coronavirus until it was too late, has toughened his rhetoric significantly.
“Make no mistake, we hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it on the world,” he said.
The President, who is under attack in the US for his handling of the pandemic which has so far killed more than 136,000 Americans, has said the US would have been better prepared if China had not been so secretive about the nature and spread of the disease early this year. Beijing denies any wrongdoing in its handling of the pandemic and launched economic retaliation against Australia when Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus.
Mr Trump also used his campaign-style address on Wednesday to accuse Democrat opponent Joe Biden of being weak on China.
Mr Pompeo has been leading the tougher US line against China in recent months, declaring on Tuesday that “the world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire”.
The move effectively abandons the official US position of neutrality on the issue and aligns Washington with those South-East Asian nations who are contesting China’s maritime claims.
“Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them,” Mr Pompeo said.
The West has accused China of effectively breaching the spirit of its “one country, two systems” agreement to preserve Hong Kong’s freedoms by undermining its autonomy over local issues.
Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia
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