Michael Chugani

Opinion | If Hong Kong doesn’t like US ‘interference’, maybe it should give up its status as a separate customs area

Beijing and Hong Kong have accused a US diplomat of interfering in the city’s affairs. But the State Department has a duty under US law to monitor whether Hong Kong retains a high degree of autonomy and thus remains eligible for special status

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Kurt Tong, consul general of the US, speaks at Tai Kwun on February 19. He has angered China by saying Beijing is eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Michael Chugani

Published: 8:04pm, 6 Mar 2019Updated: 8:06pm, 6 Mar 2019

There’s a new “sinner for a thousand years” in town. He is Kurt Tong, the United States’ top diplomat in Hong Kong. Diplomats who represent their countries usually keep a low profile, unobtrusively assessing the local political and economic climate for their bosses back home.

But Tong is unlike any other consul general stationed here, and he is nothing like his predecessors. He tells it like it is. That’s why he reminds me of Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor. In pushing for greater democracy, Patten’s bluntness so infuriated Beijing that one senior mainland official called him a sinner for the ages.

But there’s where the similarity ends between Patten and Tong. Patten had such sway with John Major, Britain’s then prime minister, that he could virtually set his own Hong Kong policy.

Tong’s job as the top US representative here is to report to and follow policies set by his bosses, even though his input helps shape such policies. The current chill between the US and China has given him leeway to speak more forcefully on sensitive issues. But he still sensibly uses diplomat-speak.

That’s why I think Beijing was shooting the messenger when its foreign ministry issued a blistering statement against Tong last week. What exactly did he do to incur the wrath of Beijing, which accused him of distortion and defamation? He said in a television interview with me that Beijing is eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy by meddling in local affairs. He repeated his message a day later in a speech, saying Beijing is narrowing Hong Kong’s political space by being “intimately involved” in local decision-making.

In both the TV interview and the speech, he cited the disqualification of opposition candidates, the expulsion of a foreign journalist, the banning of a political party, and the increased emphasis on “one country” at the expense of “two systems”, which could dampen business confidence here.

Taking their cue from the foreign ministry, enraged loyalists accused Tong of interfering in the city’s internal affairs, local government officials insisted he had his facts wrong, and protesters outside the US Consulate demanded that Tong apologise and resign.