Trump’s China response leaves room to de-escalate tensions

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s long-touted response to China for its crackdown on Hong Kong included a barrage of criticism
but stopped short of fully escalating tensions between the two nations.
While the US president’s speech was heated in rhetoric, it lacked specifics around measures that would directly impact Beijing. He announced the US would begin the process of stripping some of Hong Kong’s privileged trade status without detailing how quickly any changes would take effect and how many exemptions would apply.
The president also promised sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials “directly or indirectly involved” in eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy but didn’t identify individuals. The administration hasn’t yet decided under what authority it would implement that action, according to a person familiar with a matter, who declined to be named because the deliberations are private.
“Our actions will be strong. Our actions will be meaningful,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden.
US stocks erased losses and traded little changed as Trump stopped short of implementing more draconian measures against China, with the S&P 500 Index rising 0.5% at the close in New York.
Trump repeated a list of his grievances with China and punted tougher policy measures that his administration had discussed, including financial sanctions.
His remarks also didn’t include mention of legislation passed by Congress that could sanction Chinese government officials over the treatment of Uighurs, who have been forcibly detained in internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region.
“This binds the president to nothing with regards to China,” Derek Scissors, a China analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“With regards to a Hong Kong policy, it is a non-event. Nothing happened.”
The Trump administration and China for weeks have been trading barbs over who’s to blame for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the US and Republican lawmakers have been pushing Trump to hold the country accountable.
More hawkish advisers wanted the president to take decisive action against Chinese Communist Party officials for alleged human rights violations in the city.
Trump’s announcement came after China’s legislature approved a plan to draft legislation that Hong Kong democracy advocates say will curtail freedom of speech and undermine the
island’s independent judiciary, and after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo decertified the former British colony’s autonomy under US law.
That certification determination, however, doesn’t mean the US has to treat Hong Kong exactly like mainland China for purposes of tariffs, sales of sensitive technologies or visas. Instead, the administration has a wide spectrum of options for actions to take — but most of them do little harm to Beijing and instead hurt not only Hong Kong but also the US.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng said it’s within the central government’s rights to pass national security laws since the city is part China, even though it operates under a separate administrative system.
“In so far as the national security is concerned, as in any other country in the world, this is a matter that belongs to the central authorities, whether it is a unitary or federal state,” according to a government transcript of her comments to the media.