President Trump’s administration must “speak and act with caution” about Hong Kong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned Wednesday.
“We urge the U.S. side to stop the relevant wrong move and speak and act with caution on Hong-Kong related issues,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said during a press conference.
That rebuke followed the release of an annual State Department report on Hong Kong affairs, which is required by federal law. It’s the latest demonstration of the Asian power’s sensitivity about the region, which follows a pattern of more aggressive assertions of sovereignty within and without China’s official borders.
“I would like to point out in particular that Hong Kong a special administrative region of China, and Hong Kong affairs belong to China’s domestic affairs and brook no foreign interference,” Hua said.
Hong Kong is “a non-sovereign entity distinct from China for the purposes of U.S. domestic law,” as the State Department noted in the report. The last outpost of the British Empire, control over Hong Kong was transferred in 1997. Since that time, it has enjoyed one of the freest economies in the world, especially compared to the rest of Communist China. But Hong Kong authorities recently “turned down a U.S. fugitive surrender request at the behest of the Central Government” and delivered the individual into Chinese hands, according to the State Department.
“This was the first such instance since 1997,” the report said. “The Central Government has provided no information as to the disposition of its own case against the individual.”
That incident accompanied a broader critique of China’s posture towards Hong Kong, which is promised “a high degree of autonomy” under the nation’s Basic Law. “While the Central Government publicly and frequently reiterated its commitment to the ‘one country, two systems’ framework over the reporting period, including via statements by President Xi Jinping, other statements and actions by the Central Government were inconsistent with its stated commitment to Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy,” the report concluded.
That report follows a controversy over whether U.S. companies should comply with Chinese government dictates about how they refer to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The first two are largely autonomous — Macau was a Portuguese colony, until a 1999 handover — while China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that could be brought back under central government control by force.
“President Donald J. Trump ran against political correctness in the United States,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said this month. “He will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens.”
Hua repudiated the latest rebuke. “We are strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the US issuing the relevant report and making irresponsible remarks on Hong Kong affairs,” she said.
