China Threatens to Retaliate If U.S. Enacts Hong Kong Bill
China threatened unspecified “strong countermeasures” if the U.S. Congress enacts legislation supporting Hong Kong protesters, in a sign of the deepening strain between the world’s two largest economies as they attempt to seal a trade deal.
China’s foreign ministry issued the warning Wednesday after the U.S. House passed a package of measures backing a pro-democracy movement that has rocked the former British colony for more than four months. Among them was the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which subjects the city’s special U.S. trading status to annual reviews and provides for sanctions against officials deemed responsible for undermining its “fundamental freedoms and autonomy.”
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This only serves to complicate the US-China trade negotiations as it may now be possibly that both risks (Trade war and HK issue) are now inextricably linked. If anything, this only serves to confirm that the HK democracy movement have had implicit and now explicit support from the US- and to China, that tantamount to external interference.
