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China vows retaliation after Trump ends preferential status for Hong Kong

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By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

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China vows retaliation after Trump ends preferential status for Hong Kong

Ha! Ha! Bring it on China!

HK status is ending. Huawei has thankfully been purged from the UK 5G system. India is banning China made apps and is thinking of imposing other measures with regards to chinese smartphones and tech. Tensions are rising with OZ and Canada.

Your world and your rise is crumbling all due to your greed, aggressiveness, and belligerence on the world stage. And I can't wait to see you collapse

24 ( +27 / -3 )

Bring it on China! Whining on and on will not stop the bad vibes you have created with many other "civilized" countries of the world. You did this to yourself!

20 ( +23 / -3 )

Trump should go further and hit US companies like Apple and TESLA with crippling taxes for continuing business with Communist China. Furthermore, Hong Kong officials and public servants should all be refused entry visas into the US due to the fact they are complicit in the detention of innocent citizens.

NO trade or tourism with Communist China or Hong Kong! Hit them hard!

16 ( +16 / -0 )

Foolish to think the world can allow the status quo to continue with Hong kong when china shows it's true fascist nature by taking the territory and imposing it's will.

China retaliation ? Huh retaliate to retaliation ?

This move by the US is to show you the world has taken notice and does not agree with the actions of the CCP once again.

China persists in dragging the world towards war antagonizing all of its neighbors and imposing its will, when others respond china plays the victim once again, pathetic tactics from the CCP.

Cut all ties with them pull all the financial institutions , manufacturing , technology and other business, bring your country men home before they become hostages, it's already been rumoured china may start claiming foreigners as being spies .

Wouldn't trust the CCP for one second and you can almost see their next move.

15 ( +15 / -0 )

I am no fan of trump for sure, but from what I am reading above this may be a good move, as I harp constantly, we need to STOP feeding the Chinese monster!

If western companies dont start getting OUT of China then perhaps western govts need to offer ""incentives"" to do so, or like this article, force the issue some, BUT, it needs to start happening sooner rather than later!

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Good on America for trying to stand up to the Chinese on HK.

14 ( +14 / -0 )

Your world and your rise is crumbling all due to your greed, aggressiveness, and belligerence on the world stage. And I can't wait to see you collapse

Stated very well!

12 ( +15 / -3 )

China is going to stop importing brand goods and wine?

And the world will stop buying all the plastic tat that China produces....

11 ( +11 / -0 )

To Joshua Wong, Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee and millions of other Hong Kongers who have championed liberty and justice for themselves and their fellow citizens: you may have lost this battle, but ultimately the Chinese Communist Party are going to lose the war. 

Be strong, and remain confident in the justice of your cause. It is our cause as well.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

As I have said before, we created this monster and it’s time to bring it down

10 ( +10 / -0 )

China again plays the victim card when the US has every right to determine who it give special treatment to. Because China has changed the law in HK, the US has now removed special status. If China wants that back it can rescind the new laws.

America's "special status" category is an internal American matter and China needs to back off and neither complain about the change nor claim to be a victim. It is reaping what it sows.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

re article: "China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday Beijing will impose retaliatory sanctions against U.S. individuals and entities in response to the law targeting banks."

It's no fault but their own for investing their business and finances their instead of in the US or elsewhere like countries who are loyal US allies. Go ahead do the US a favor and punish them. This only proves it was not a wise choice to the world to invest in China and those who did was a big a major lessons learned.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

China sucks, Honk Kong is not China.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

The US and the world can punish China all it wants, but the CCP will have an even tighter grip on its citizens and HKers the deeper this trade war goes. The Chinese will begin to eat exotic and domestic meats again (pangolin, pandas, pets etc) as the economy sinks further and further into a depression. China could even become more isolated like North Korea. Sad, but the CCP is just too stubborn to ever admit a mistake or reverse course on policy. These are sad times.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

If democrats win in the coming presidential election, can they continue to take hard attitude to China? Businesses of the west are already committed deeply to China. It is kind too late. Trump is great awaking the world about true nature of CCP and taking rigorous measures against them. Obama and the democrats adulated China and could not realize the true nature of CCP.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

China Logic per Xi the Pooh:

Proposition 1: Hong Kong is indistinguishable from mainland China.

Proposition 2: For this reason Hong Kong must be treated as mainland China.

Conclusion: Therefore Hong Kong is special and must be allowed to keep preferential status.

Can't have both ways declaring Hong Kong is just like mainland and must be treated as such, but the preferential status must be preserved. Hello China, that is why the rest of the world is pulling away from you.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I see the end of China as we know it.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

This hurts Hong Kong but it is necessary to win in the long run.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

venze Today 12:48 pm JST

When and how can we find a better world where peace, harmony, compassion, respect and tolerance prevail? Perhaps there has not been (or will never be) such a dream world..

It is merely a Dream and will remain so while people have the will to control , impose and dictate.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

As much as I support this move by Trump, in the long run, this will be the end of Hong Kong as we know it.

It'll speed up the devouring of HK by the CCP since they'll have nothing to lose and no more leverage by outsiders.

It's great to rah rah the fighting spirit of the Hong Kong people, but this doesn't sound good for the Hong Kong people either.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

"Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China," he added.

Hong Kong and Taiwan were paired Knights, and China is playing a long game of chess with the U.S. It's good that the US is showing its stance and ending Hong Kong's special status, but what it essentially does is take away a chess piece that is Hong Kong. The move also might have been played too early. A national security law in itself is not oppressive but abuse of the law and random interpretations and enforcement are. What will be the counter move when that happens? Asking US companies to leave China? More tariffs? Sanctions? With the security law, China aspires to show how it can stop the US incubating unrest. The US is not going to come to Hong Kong or Taiwan's rescue unless it wants to repeat Cuba 1962. Taiwan Missile Crisis?

As you look ahead in the match, the recent encroachment upon the Senkaku's are not meant to antagonize Japan but to force Japan to spend more on its military and eventually rely less on the US. As Japan's military strengthens, US leverage weakens and this move is akin to the King's Bishop gambit to stop both the Queen (US) and the Bishop (Japan) from coming over to the King's side of the South China Seas. Increase in military spending also helps delay the recovery of Japan's economy. It is both offensive and defensive.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

When and how can we find a better world where peace, harmony, compassion, respect and tolerance prevail? Perhaps there has not been (or will never be) such a dream world..

2 ( +4 / -2 )

about the only thing Trump has done that I can applaud him on.

Newsflash "Stopped clock tells the correct time".

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Having studied the CCP extensively in college (many years ago) I can say that it is irredeemably evil. It is a black hole of power and corruption.

If Communism could succeed anywhere in the world, it would be China; a country of poor people, a confusion history, and utter corruption in the past. And yet the only way the CCP stays in power is by locking up and/or killing anyone who dares to speak out against them.

I am a liberal Democrat and I warn everyone that the CCP is a nationalist, expansionist, aggressor. They want to creep forward and then present us with a dead end choice. They think we need China. China needs our markets, and we are militarily stronger (for now). It’s time to draw a line.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"What will China do with over $1 trillion of U.S treasury bonds it holds eh?"

What will the CCP do? Absolutely nothing. The CCP Party Congress and Central Committee are a billionaires club. Today one joins the CCP to hitch a ride on the gravy train, not out of any ideological attachment to Marxism or Mao's Little Red Book and Xi's more recent copycat missive. It is the path to wealth and social recognition. The members and their businesses would all suffer grave financial loss were they to sell of their holdings of US Treasuries. They are all heavily invested in the market. Furthermore, the sudden decline in US Treasury values would harm the financial positions of nations and companies all around the world. China doesn't want the world pointing the finger at them for causing other nation's economic problems. Finally, ask yourself why China even buys these bonds. They do it to soak up excess US Dollars earned from their trade surplus. Were they to sell their bonds, accumulating US Dollars would fall in value while the value of the Yuan would rise, making US exports less expensive in trade and Chinese exports more expensive in trade. China won't go there willingly. After a bond sell off China's terms of trade with the world would be permanently ruined. If anything the US should publicly dare China to sell their bond holdings just as the US dared Japan to sell theirs after a Japanese Prime Minister went on TV and threatened to do so. Everyone in the bond finance world knows China won't sell. I say call their bluff and make Mr. Xi look even weaker. The very worst thing the Chinese could do would be to sell, and if they do they have shot themselves in the foot. All those bonds will find new owners and rise in value in a couple of years. Meanwhile the terms of trade will be permanently disadvantageous for China, and better for the US.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"I am a liberal Democrat and I warn everyone that the CCP is a nationalist, expansionist, aggressor. They want to creep forward and then present us with a dead end choice. They think we need China. China needs our markets, and we are militarily stronger (for now). It’s time to draw a line."

I agree. For everyone else here the Democrats count a number of legislators who are the children of Taiwanese and Hong Kong immigrants. There is no love of the CCP among Democrats. None. Those Taiwanese and Hong Kong immigrant children know more than anyone the dangers of the CCP and are the least likely to be pushed around or be bamboozled by them. It has been big corporations from the US and western Europe who have pushed for the US and EU to be accommodating to China. Those big corporations still wield considerable political power. China is GM's largest market. Buick is the best selling car in China. A quarter of Boeing's sales are to Chinese airlines and they even have an assembly plant in China now. Some very big corporations are going to whine that punishing China harms jobs in the US. This has to be overcome. It won't be easy.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"I absolutely agree with you. I don't like the CCP but I also want China to be able to develop into a trusted ally of other major countries. Unfortunately, if it were, there'd still be some people unhappy. Communism is just a convenient excuse. Some countries think it's their god given right to have a monopoly on world power. As for China, change has to come from within. I've always wondered how China would be now had the students' demands in 1989 were met. It could all have been so different."

Change is coming. The demographics of China will force change. China's working age population peaked in 2014 and has been declining since. China's overall population peaked last year and will now decline rapidly. According to mainland Chinese university demographers interviewed by the South China Morning Post, China will lose half a billion, as in five hundred million, from it's population by the middle of the 21st Century. While the overall fertility rate in China is about 1.6, the fertility rate in northern China is only 0.5, meaning only one child is born for every four adults. China's population will age out rapidly and decline, leaving fewer and fewer workers to support a growing population of elderly. Their economy will stagnate or even decline. Their current urban living standard will become impossible to maintain and this has implications for political stability. Xi has only hastened the CCPs decline by angering so many both inside and outside China. He is supremely insecure. Study his life and how he arrived at the top posts and you begin to understand why. He stepped over a lot of seemingly more deserving and more experienced party members. Knowing he had made important enemies in the process he immediately went on an old fashioned purge in the guise of rooting out "corruption". He is as corrupt as any he has jailed. China runs on patronage. Those high party officials had patronage armies beneath them, all rising in the part as their patron rose to higher and higher positions. Xi cut off a lot of heads leaving those patronage armies with no patron to rise with. They are angry now. Xi beat back a coup attempt in late summer or early fall 2017. Almost immediately afterwards he declared himself President for life and eliminated the age limits on party service so he could keep his most trusted servants in their positions as they passed the age limit. Xi's insecurity explains his suppression of the Uygurs and now Hong Kong. He has none of the confidence his predecessors had. Xi has picked fights he didn't need to pick and I suspect he may end up being the last General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party unless he is deposed by an internal coup.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

China's going to shut down Ivanka's shoe factories, and the country is going to stop production of Trump ties, American flags and MAGA caps. Boo!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

The "Special Status" for Hong Kong hasn't been needed in a long time. Used to be most Chinese exports to America would go through Hong Kong to get around the lack of WTO membership by the mainland. Since they joined the WTO (and flout those rules), Hong Kong has become less and less important for trade with the outside world.

I don't want to see China fail.

I want to see a free, democratic, Chinese, with rights and freedoms similar to most other open and free societies in the world. Humans thrive in that sort of environment. A dictator for life is NOT the answer.

But I also want China to play fairly with the rest of the world AND with her own people. Their govt control and subsidies to many different industries is not a fair playing field. They've nearly taken over the steel production for the world by undercutting other companies thanks to the CCP subsidizing the true costs.

Theft of technology is a real problem. Currency manipulation is a real problem. 1-party is a real problem - heck, 2 parties are a real problem for a political system to accurately reflect what voters really desire.

China can do better, but not unless forced into it by the entire world. China only being able to deal with NK and Russia would be bad, but it may need to come to that point to get their attention.

We all know that China plans very long term, beyond the next quarter. They have 50 yr and 100 yr plans. Many of their leaders have process control and engineering backgrounds. If they have 10 different ideas for how to best accomplish something, they aren't afraid to try each of those on 25M people, figure out which is best, then back-port the best solution for the rest of China. That's good for technologies, provided what the West calls "basic human rights" are retained and supported.

The world needs for China to be productive, friendly, humane, successful part of the world, but we don't want to feel as though someone had to be screwed for them to achieve that goal.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

China needs to be confronted and only the USA can do this. However, other countries need to play their part and start to decrease their trade with China and reduce her influence. China has no intentions of allowing true democracy to flourish and the communist dictatirship is showing its true colors. Hit them where it hurts, in their pocket! Allowing China to grow and expnad will only delay the confrontation until there is a risk that the west loses.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

zaphod:

So in your mind, Ivankas shoes and Trumps caps are relevant factors in the China trade? LOL!

If it hurts Trump personally, then that is what they will do, because Trump is in it for himself. If you think he cares about his American peasants, you've got another thing coming. Everything he's done since entering the WH has been to his own financial benefit.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Perhaps there has not been (or will never be) such a dream world."

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. . . . "

Winston S. Churchill

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Speed

As much as I support this move by Trump, in the long run, this will be the end of Hong Kong as we know it.

It'll speed up the devouring of HK by the CCP since they'll have nothing to lose and no more leverage by outsiders

No. The idea that keeping HKs preferential status while the CCP totally violates it will somehow slow down the CCP makes no sense.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

theFu:

I absolutely agree with you. I don't like the CCP but I also want China to be able to develop into a trusted ally of other major countries. Unfortunately, if it were, there'd still be some people unhappy. Communism is just a convenient excuse. Some countries think it's their god given right to have a monopoly on world power. As for China, change has to come from within. I've always wondered how China would be now had the students' demands in 1989 were met. It could all have been so different. The Xis, Trumps, Bolsonaros, Kims and Abes of the world are evil.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Farmboy

This is a campaign advertisement to show strength, I think.

No, it is simply the necessary result of the freedom for HK act that Trump signed last November (and that our local Trump haters here predicted he would not sign). Nothing campaign advertising about it, it is simply acting upon a law.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

FreeHongKong is now allowed on customized NBA jerseys. China wont like that.

All kind of racist and hateful customization was allowed so they had no choice but to claim this one phrase was "inadvertently prohibited" (yeah right....)

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

re @: ZENJIToday  01:29 pm JST

"Creating chaos for a few remaining months, because he will not have to deal with the outcomes of his own making."

Correction, because POTUS had to spend so much time correcting the outcomes of past "do nothing" administrations that let countries like China take advantage not only of the US but many other countries and battling the major media attacks instead of being a solution and more of a problem.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Pukey2

China's going to shut down Ivanka's shoe factories, and the country is going to stop production of Trump ties, American flags and MAGA caps. Boo!

So in your mind, Ivankas shoes and Trumps caps are relevant factors in the China trade? LOL!

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

@KniknaknokkaerToday  02:41 pm JST

What will China do with over $1 trillion of U.S treasury bonds it holds eh?

The US can make it worthless like NK did with its own old currency and changed it. Got to hand it to them they sure showed the world how to clear their debt, make new money. Meanwhile its allies can be taken care of with an even swap for swap of the new currency. It's not personal just business.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Creating chaos for a few remaining months, because he will not have to deal with the outcomes of his own making.

Yes, he will. He will win ;-)

On a different note, how does this action help the theory that Trump is controlled by the Chinese? I hear this quite a bit. And the Russians as well, of course. I wouldn't dare claim that the left are conspiracy theorists so there must be a logical explanation...

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Retaliation = no egg noodles for the WH

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

So then, who or what is next.

To me, trump is doing everything possable to disrupt the next government(November)

Creating chaos for a few remaining months, because he will not have to deal with the outcomes of his own making.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

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