It’s amateur hour in Washington

Beijing has double-dared the US with new security law over Hong Kong and leaves it with no good options on how to respond

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00pm, 22 May 2020Updated: 11:34pm, 22 May 2020

The problem with megaphone diplomacy like that of US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is that you paint yourself into a corner with no wiggle room to manoeuvre.

On the novel coronavirus pandemic, Pompeo said China deliberately hid the crisis from the rest of the world. Likewise, on Hong Kong, he has accused Beijing of breaching the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law, “one country, two systems” and the guarantee of “a high degree of autonomy”. Even Britain has never gone so far.

He said this week: “Actions like these make it more difficult to assess that Hong Kong remains highly autonomous from mainland China.”

It was interpreted as a warning to the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing, but it sounds more like a confession that he has left Washington with no good options.

For if his accusations against China were true, the United States should end its special preferential treatment of the city on trade, investment and technology transfer. And if Americans did nothing about it and continued to grant Hong Kong that special trade status, it would prove all those loud protestations from Washington were just bombast and hot air.

In a double dare, Beijing has made known – in the highest-profile and loudest way possible – its plan to bypass the city’s legislature and unilaterally insert a national security law into the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.