Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the violent protests across the United States are an example of foreign governments applying a “double standard” when it comes to China’s approach to quelling a year of anti-Beijing protests.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last week that it no longer considers Hong Kong autonomous from China’s autocratic rule after the mainland’s rubber-stamp parliament approved a bill that would prevent and punish acts of “secession, subversion or terrorism activities” that threaten national security, and allow Chinese national security organs to set up agencies in Hong Kong.
Lam told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. and other governments who have criticized China “are very concerned about their own national security, but on our national security...they are looking at it through tinted glasses.”
People walk past extra barricades that have been erected near the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on May 26, 2020, ahead of planned protests.
She called reporters’ attention to the reaction in the U.S. over the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong last year, and compared that to how local governments in the U.S. are handling the unrest sparked by the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis last week.
With 1,300 American businesses operating in the financial hub, Lam warned the United States will be “hurting their own interests” if the Trump administration suspends Hong Kong’s preferential status that has made the city a top U.S. trading partner.
Hong Kong’s government announced Wednesday that Lam will lead a delegation of senior Hong Kong officials to Beijing on Wednesday to present her views on the planned national security laws to Chinese government officials.