No U.S. president may have been able to stop China from reasserting full control of Hong Kong, but Trump has made it easier
President Trump on Friday. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images After a week of run-up asserting that Washington would announce measures to push back on Beijing’s announcement that it will impose a national security law on Hong Kong, President Trump stepped to the podium Friday afternoon and spoke for several minutes before mentioning the fight for democracy in that small territory.
Looming over the event was his silence — up that point broken only by tweets condoning violence against protesters — on the killing of African-American George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer and the demonstrations that have followed. Seldom has the fate of democracy at home felt so tragically linked to that of democracy abroad.
That alliance was always at risk of fraying, as the protests and mainland Chinese reactions caused the Hong Kong economy to shrink. Coronavirus, and the economic collapse that came along with it, brought that day faster. Of course, it’s not easy to imagine this administration executing a delicate maneuver of international face-saving, especially as Trump appears to call for the execution of protesters on Twitter at home. Instead, actions like banning some Chinese students and pulling out of a U.N. organization do nothing, or less than nothing, to make it harder for China to control and reap profit from Hong Kong.
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