President Trump revoking Hong Kong trade privileges, membership of WHO
June 2, 2020 Category Foreign trade, Weekly
The U..S. government will begin eliminating special policy exemptions it grants Hong Kong, following its determination that the city is “no longer autonomous” from mainland China, President Donald Trump announced on May 29. The move will affect “the full range of agreements” the U.S. has with Hong Kong “with few exceptions”, Trump said in the Rose Garden at the White House, including its extradition treaty with the city and economic privileges enshrined in U.S. law that differentiate it from mainland China. “We will take action to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential treatment as a separate customs and travel territory from the rest of China,” said Trump, indicating that the State Department’s travel advisory for the city would be updated “to reflect the increased danger of surveillance and punishment by the Chinese state security apparatus”. The U.S. would also take steps to sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials “directly or indirectly involved in eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy”, he said. The announcement came a week after Beijing declared it planned to institute a new security law tailor-made for Hong Kong that would prohibit acts of subversion, sedition, secession and foreign interference. Trump accused Beijing of replacing its “promised formula of ‘one country, two systems’ with ‘one country, one system’”. He did not give any indication when the new measures would be enacted, the South China Morning Post reports.
Trump announced the policy after his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had declared to Congress that Hong Kong was no longer suitably autonomous from the government in Beijing. After Trump’s announcement, many Hong Kong residents started panic buying U.S. dollars. The U.S. Consul General for Hong Kong and Macao Hanscom Smith said that the measures and sanctions would not adversely affect Hong Kong residents. But a Hong Kong government spokesman warned that any sanctions imposed on Hong Kong-U.S. trade would affect more than 1,000 American companies in the city.
In a joint statement, the U.S., UK, Australia and Canada criticized China over the national security legislation for Hong Kong. The four countries’ joint statement claimed the national security law would “curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, dramatically erode Hong Kong’s autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous,” and believed it would undermine “one country, two systems.” Chinese embassies in the US, UK, and Australia strongly condemned the joint statement, stressing that Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs and China does not tolerate foreign interference.
Donald Trump has announced the severance of all U.S. ties with the World Health Organization (WHO), three weeks ahead of a deadline he laid down earlier in May, claiming that “China has total control over” the WHO. On May 19, Trump sent a four-page letter to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warning he would permanently cut U.S. funding of the WHO and reconsider U.S. membership if the organization did “not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days.” He announced U.S. withdrawal only 10 days after his ultimatum. However, U.S. funding of the WHO is mandated by Congress and Trump does not have the authority to revoke it. The move appeared to confirm the suspicions of many in the WHO and in western capitals that Trump never intended to seek reforms or open a dialogue with the WHO, but left the body for political reasons. He has sought to blame it for the depth of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, The Guardian reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump also announced he would deny visas to some Chinese students wanting to study in the U.S. and revoke visas of those already in the country. Potentially affected students are those studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), which according to the U.S. government pose a threat of technology theft. China denounced the measure as political persecution, racial discrimination and a serious violation of human rights. Three Republican lawmakers have introduced the Secure Campus Act to prevent Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the U.S. for graduate or postgraduate studies in STEM fields. “We’re taking seriously the threat of students who come here who have connections deeply to the Chinese state. They shouldn’t be here in our schools spying,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News. There were more than 360,000 Chinese students in the U.S. in the 2017-18 academic year.
Chinese students who have completed their studies in the U.S. are facing difficulties to return home due to the scarcity of flights. There were 325 weekly scheduled flights between China and the U.S. in early January, a number that dropped in mid-February to 20 flights operated by four Chinese carriers, then rose to 34 in March. Meanwhile, U.S. carriers have suspended passenger flights to China since early February. Four Chinese carriers – Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Air – currently fly direct routes from China to the U.S. Chinese authorities said charter flights by Chinese airlines to bring Chinese students back home were delayed because the U.S. had not approved flight applications, the South China Morning Post reports.
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