By: Azhar Azam
A shocking report by the Time magazine discovered that the Trump administration was deeply involved in inflaming violence and supporting rioters in Chinese Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) through less-known but very powerful US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees several internet freedom and foreign news initiatives including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
It further revealed that the US federal government had frozen roughly $2 million of funding, aimed to help the violent protesters in HKSAR to evade Chinese surveillance, just five days after Trump’s ally Michael Pack took the charge as the new head of the controversial agency. Pack believed that “bolstering (Chinese) firewall circumvention” was still “a top priority of his, indicating to continue the US disruptive backing for the subversive elements trying to destabilize the autonomous region.
Though Washington seldom respected international laws and basic norms governing international relations and has consistently been legislating over HKSAR that tantamount to its gross intervention in China internal affairs and sovereignty – the fresh epiphany was yet another irrefutable evidence of American involvement in the region to fuel violence and extremism in a bid to denigrate Beijing globally.
Distribution of funding by the US Congress through Washington-based Open Technology Fund (OTF), officially a non-profit organization but actually financed by the Congress with government insight, vindicated Chinese stance that the so-called pro-democracy protests in HKSAR had a veiled, profound US backing US with the sole intention to push the Asian financial hub into a havoc.
The findings also highlighted that the social unrest, vandalism, attacks on law enforcement agencies and street violence had its origins in a foreign country, which has been trying to spice things up in HKSAR, and the rioters, disturbing peace and playing with the prosperity of the Hongkongers, were only the puppets of a larger game plan that was conceived and controlled thousands miles away.
Washington claimed that the new security legislation to safeguard national security in HKSAR, proposed by the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) on May 22 and adopted on Tuesday, was a procedural step, contradicting the spirit and practice of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and “One Country, Two Systems” framework.
But the latest revelations showed that Chinese HKSAR legislation was a timely and rational decision by Beijing – to protect the city from secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country or external elements – as well as to ensure the basic human rights of a large number of citizens who were filled to brim because of widespread violence that has pushed their motherland to the brink of social and economic collapse and threatened their safety.
The joint- and welcome-statement "Non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an essential principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations” by as many as 52 countries at the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the adoption of the HKSAR law was an endorsement to China’s right to shelter its national security and prevent the city from a more intensified upheaval.
In the wake of growing chaos, the large-numbered peace-loving local residents were looking at their custodians in Beijing to take some solid peace-ensuring measures to make rioters accountable. The novel legislation would ascertain an environment where they could practice their rights freely and pursue work to improve the household economy without any tyranny of violence and vandalism.
Unsurprisingly, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came up with his entrenched spite toward China and said on Wednesday “This (HKSAR legislation) is outrageous and affront to all nations,” echoing to implement Trump’s directive to end HKSAR’s special status though failed to describe how the US would strip the territory of its privileges.
While the declaration, the legislative power on HKSAR security issues rests with China, by more than four dozen nations strongly opposed Pompeo’s hollow-uttered remarks, his secluded voice looked more to pressurize Beijing. About severing ties with HKSAR, the experts doubted that the move would hurt China, given the US extensive business interests in the region.
Professor of economics at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Mary E. Lovely said Trump’s’ Hong Kong policy was “dramatic but doomed,” which will do little harm to China and would further isolate Washington from its allies. Terming removal of HKSAR special custom “toothless,” she also blasted the US tariff campaign that stressed out American businesses and consumers rather than on someone they were intended for.
The Time detailed several other projects in HKSAR that were cramped by the US fund freeze and could just be the thin edge of a much larger wedge. Nevertheless, following better understanding of the territory’s issues at the internal arena, the violent protests in HKSAR are now gradually losing the momentum.
As the new law would further assist to curb social unrest and invoke stability and development in the city, it would help the people to regain their well-being that was lost due to the foreign intervention and the unruly activities of their pawns. The malicious US efforts in HKSAR anyways are now bitterly exposed.
It further revealed that the US federal government had frozen roughly $2 million of funding, aimed to help the violent protesters in HKSAR to evade Chinese surveillance, just five days after Trump’s ally Michael Pack took the charge as the new head of the controversial agency. Pack believed that “bolstering (Chinese) firewall circumvention” was still “a top priority of his, indicating to continue the US disruptive backing for the subversive elements trying to destabilize the autonomous region.
Though Washington seldom respected international laws and basic norms governing international relations and has consistently been legislating over HKSAR that tantamount to its gross intervention in China internal affairs and sovereignty – the fresh epiphany was yet another irrefutable evidence of American involvement in the region to fuel violence and extremism in a bid to denigrate Beijing globally.
Distribution of funding by the US Congress through Washington-based Open Technology Fund (OTF), officially a non-profit organization but actually financed by the Congress with government insight, vindicated Chinese stance that the so-called pro-democracy protests in HKSAR had a veiled, profound US backing US with the sole intention to push the Asian financial hub into a havoc.
The findings also highlighted that the social unrest, vandalism, attacks on law enforcement agencies and street violence had its origins in a foreign country, which has been trying to spice things up in HKSAR, and the rioters, disturbing peace and playing with the prosperity of the Hongkongers, were only the puppets of a larger game plan that was conceived and controlled thousands miles away.
Washington claimed that the new security legislation to safeguard national security in HKSAR, proposed by the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) on May 22 and adopted on Tuesday, was a procedural step, contradicting the spirit and practice of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and “One Country, Two Systems” framework.
But the latest revelations showed that Chinese HKSAR legislation was a timely and rational decision by Beijing – to protect the city from secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country or external elements – as well as to ensure the basic human rights of a large number of citizens who were filled to brim because of widespread violence that has pushed their motherland to the brink of social and economic collapse and threatened their safety.
The joint- and welcome-statement "Non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an essential principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations” by as many as 52 countries at the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the adoption of the HKSAR law was an endorsement to China’s right to shelter its national security and prevent the city from a more intensified upheaval.
In the wake of growing chaos, the large-numbered peace-loving local residents were looking at their custodians in Beijing to take some solid peace-ensuring measures to make rioters accountable. The novel legislation would ascertain an environment where they could practice their rights freely and pursue work to improve the household economy without any tyranny of violence and vandalism.
Unsurprisingly, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came up with his entrenched spite toward China and said on Wednesday “This (HKSAR legislation) is outrageous and affront to all nations,” echoing to implement Trump’s directive to end HKSAR’s special status though failed to describe how the US would strip the territory of its privileges.
While the declaration, the legislative power on HKSAR security issues rests with China, by more than four dozen nations strongly opposed Pompeo’s hollow-uttered remarks, his secluded voice looked more to pressurize Beijing. About severing ties with HKSAR, the experts doubted that the move would hurt China, given the US extensive business interests in the region.
Professor of economics at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Mary E. Lovely said Trump’s’ Hong Kong policy was “dramatic but doomed,” which will do little harm to China and would further isolate Washington from its allies. Terming removal of HKSAR special custom “toothless,” she also blasted the US tariff campaign that stressed out American businesses and consumers rather than on someone they were intended for.
The Time detailed several other projects in HKSAR that were cramped by the US fund freeze and could just be the thin edge of a much larger wedge. Nevertheless, following better understanding of the territory’s issues at the internal arena, the violent protests in HKSAR are now gradually losing the momentum.
As the new law would further assist to curb social unrest and invoke stability and development in the city, it would help the people to regain their well-being that was lost due to the foreign intervention and the unruly activities of their pawns. The malicious US efforts in HKSAR anyways are now bitterly exposed.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-04/Time-magazine-bitterly-exposed-the-U-S-malicious-activities-in-HKSAR-RQU8yrqkFy/index.html
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-04/Time-magazine-bitterly-exposed-the-U-S-malicious-activities-in-HKSAR-RQU8yrqkFy/index.html