Washington threatens to deprive Hong Kong of several privileges granted by the United States

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington May 20, 2020. NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP

Hong Kong, already threatened with losing part of its fundamental freedoms and legal independence with the future Chinese national security law, risks losing all or part of the economic privileges guaranteed by its special status with the United States.

Following Beijing's decision, validated on Thursday by the National People's Congress, to impose a national security law on Hong Kong, Washington declared that the special administrative region no longer enjoyed the same degree of autonomy as during the retrocession to China in 1997, a fact which legally forces the United States to review its status. Since 1992, under the Hong Kong Policy Act, Hong Kong has been treated differently from the rest of China in its trade, visa policy, and tax and technology agreements with the United States.

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The US decision fell to Hong Kong around midnight after another day of tension in three neighborhoods between protesters and law enforcement, which resulted in at least 360 arrests. "I certified to Congress that Hong Kong no longer deserves the same treatment" Washington has granted it so far, said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

As Beijing continues to decry the "Foreign forces" who, according to him, manipulate the Hong Kong demonstrators in a perspective of destabilization of Chinese power, Mr. Pompeo justified his decision by considering that"Given the reality on the ground, no one can decently claim today that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy from China".

Beijing's growing interference

Since the US Congress' near-unanimous adoption in late 2019 of the Hong Kong Democracy and Human Rights Law, the end of special economic status hung like a sword of Damocles over the special administrative region. Because the context of recent years, marked by increasing interference from Beijing in the affairs of the territory, made inevitable, sooner or later, the observation made by Mike Pompeo. Washington had also decided to wait for the Chinese parliamentary session to make its decision, perhaps imagining inciting the Chinese government to moderation.

Read our analysis: Why China wants to impose its security law on Hong Kong

The opposite happened. Beijing, on the contrary, went further than expected in its increased takeover of Hong Kong, making it a point of honor to take the word of the American government, which in fact has no interest in implementing this threat. Because it is American interests in Hong Kong and the financial center that risk paying the price for this countermeasure taken under cover of preserving the territory of the Chinese yoke. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has always argued in favor of maintaining this special status. The territory hosts approximately 85,000 American citizens and more than 1,200 American businesses, three-quarters of which are regional headquarters.

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