China Warns Against Meddling After Trump Threat

Date: 27 May 2020 - 21:46

News ID: ۷۸۹۹۳

BEIJING (Dispatches) -- China will take necessary countermeasures to foreign interference regarding the new Hong Kong security legislation being deliberated, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made the remarks during a daily briefing in response to a question about U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments that Washington is working on a strong response to the legislation that will be announced before the end of the week.
Asked if he was going to impose sanctions on China over its actions in Hong Kong, Trump told reporters at the White House: "We’re doing something now. I think you’ll find it very interesting. But I won’t be talking about it today.”
"It’s something you’re going to be hearing about ... before the end of the week - very powerfully I think,” Trump said in response to a second question.
Threats by the U.S. won’t stop China from enacting the national security law in Hong Kong, analysts said on Wednesday.
"No, it won’t work, it won’t change China’s general approach to Hong Kong ... it certainly won’t change the approach to national security legislation,” Tim Summers, a senior consulting fellow at British think tank, Chatham House, told CNBC’s "Street Signs Asia.”
China last week announced a draft national security law for Hong Kong, aimed at prohibiting secession, subversion of state power, terrorism activities and foreign interference — but U.S. officials and Congress members have criticized Beijing’s move, with some threatening sanctions.
"We’ve already got a draft decision from the National People’s Congress that will be approved tomorrow,” he said referring to China’s parliament, which kicked off its annual meeting last Friday. "Those comments, those threats from the U.S. are not going to change Beijing’s mind on that act.”
In a post on Twitter late Tuesday, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said if China’s "rubber stamp legislature moves forward on Thursday,” the U.S. State Department "will have no option” but to certify that Hong Kong "is no longer autonomous” and "sanctions should follow.”
Rubio is the acting chairman of the influential Senate Intelligence Committee. Approval of the law will also be a threat to the "one country, two systems” framework, Rubio suggested.
Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is ruled under the "one country, two systems” policy. It gives the city self-governing power, a largely separate legal and economic framework from mainland China.