THE TTALK QUOTES


On Global Trade & Investment
Published Three Times a Week (with occasional bonus quotes) by
The Global Business Dialogue, Inc.
Washington, DC  Tel: 202-559-9316
No.37 of 2020
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2020

Click HERE for the May 19 quote from
EU foreign minister Josep Borrell.
HONG KONG'S NEW REALITY

"I certified to Congress today that Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under United States laws in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997."

Michael R. Pompeo
May 27, 2020
CONTEXT
In December 1984, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher flew to Beijing where, on December 19, she signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration.  Zhao Ziyang, then the Premier of the State Council, signed for China, though Deng Xiaoping was the ultimate decision maker on the Chinese side. A formal treaty, the Joint Declaration stipulated that the UK would hand over its sovereign control of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997. It also included China’s commitment to Hong Kong’s self-government in domestic affairs and trade until 2047; this was under the now famous rubric of “one country, two systems.”

Earlier today in Beijing, the National People’s Congress approved legislation which, in effect, gives Beijing direct control over Hong Kong and its people, thereby undermining the premise of “one country, two systems.” The world knew this was coming, and it was in anticipation of it that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress on yesterday, May 27, of his decision to certify that Hong Kong no longer merits treatment that is separate from and preferable to that accorded to mainland China. Secretary Pompeo’s statement on the issue was short and is reproduced here in full. As usual, the emphasis is ours:

SECRETARY POMPEO’S STATEMENT OF MAY 27, 2020:
Last week, the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) National People’s Congress announced its intention to unilaterally and arbitrarily impose national security legislation on Hong Kong. Beijing’s disastrous decision is only the latest in a series of actions that fundamentally undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms and China’s own promises to the Hong Kong people under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a UN-filed international treaty.

The State Department is required by the Hong Kong Policy Act to assess the autonomy of the territory from China. After careful study of developments over the reporting period, I certified to Congress today that Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under United States laws in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997. No reasonable person can assert today that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy from China, given facts on the ground.

Hong Kong and its dynamic, enterprising, and free people have flourished for decades as a bastion of liberty, and this decision gives me no pleasure. But sound policy making requires a recognition of reality. While the United States once hoped that free and prosperous Hong Kong would provide a model for authoritarian China, it is now clear that China is modeling Hong Kong after itself.

The United States stands with the people of Hong Kong as they struggle against the CCP’s increasing denial of the autonomy that they were promised.
COMMENT
An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal laments Secretary Pompeo’s announcement – though it accepts that he had no choice – because, the Journal writes, “this action will hurt the Hong Kong people more than it will China.” Their preference is for an approach that would target specific individuals. That question may be worth revisiting at some point, but we are skeptical. As a general proposition, citizens of nation states cannot be shielded from the consequences of their country’s actions.

The second volume of Charles Moore’ s authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher includes several pages on the negotiations that led to the Joint Declaration. Two ideas from that period are worth recalling here. The first is that this was not one of those “unequal treaties” about which China so frequently complains. To the contrary, China had the upper hand. As Charles Powell, Mrs. Thatcher’s foreign policy adviser at the time, commented, “The Chinese could just have walked into Hong Kong,” had they chosen to do so and jarring as that would have been to Deng Xiaoping’s policy of hiding one’s strength and biding one’s time. In short, there is no question but that the agreement was one voluntarily entered into by the PRC, and so there is no legitimate basis for their failing to honor it. That’s one thought.

The more important of the two is this comment from Charles Moore himself:

[S]ince the British colony [Hong Kong] had always avoided introducing democracy, they lacked their own political champion. Mrs. Thatcher was the nearest they had to one.  She understood more clearly than colleagues that the confidence in capitalist Hong Kong which everyone, even the Chinese Communists, wished to maintain, depended much more on whether Hong Kong people believed in the future than on whether Britain and China could get all the sub-clauses right.

In the current context, this need not necessarily be a prescription for hopelessness. After all, there are still strong ties between the United States and mainland China, including an MFN trading relationship. That said, the fact that the unwelcome part of Hong Kong’s future has come so early is indeed disheartening.  
SOURCES & LINKS
An Announcement from the Secretary of State is a link to the above, May 27 statement by Secretary of State Pompeo as it appears on the website of the U.S. Department of State. This was the source for today’s featured quote. 

Beijing’s New Law is a link to a Wall Street Journal on this development. 

The Join Declaration is a link to the Wikipedia page on the Sino-British Joint Declaration of December 1984. It is this treaty, notified to the United Nations in 1985, which clearly embeds the promise of “one country, two system” into the fabric of international law.

A Better Option takes you to the Journal’s editorial arguing that it would be better for the United States to target specific individuals, a policy currently expressed in legislation being offered by Senators Van Hollen (D, MD) and Toomey (R, PA) than to deny Hong Kong its special status in U.S. law.

Margaret Thatcher At Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow is a link to the Amazon page for this book, which is the second volume of Charles Moore’s three-volume biography of the late Prime Minister. 


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