More Hong Kong residents want a U.S. policy that treats the special administrative region differently than the rest of China, even as President Donald Trump moves to treat the territory as one and the same as the mainland, an exclusive Newsweek poll conducted by London-based polling firm Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed.
A plurality of 46 percent of respondents said that "the United States should treat Hong Kong differently to the rest of China" when given the choice of which U.S. policy more closely matched to their viewpoints. Fewer than a third, 31 percent, said that "the United States should treat Hong Kong in the same way that it treats the rest of China," and 23 percent said they did not know which they preferred.
The survey was conducted online for Newsweek with more than 1,000 Hong Kong adults from July 19-21. It examined a wide range of topics, including health, security, politics and the new national security law passed by China to curb political forces looking to further separate Hong Kong from the central government in Beijing.
The law has stirred controversy abroad, including from Hong Kong's former colonizer, the United Kingdom, and China's top economic competitor, the United States. As the Trump administration pushes for a tougher line on China, the president has repealed special trade status for Hong Kong, considering it no longer autonomous from Beijing as a result of the new Chinese legislation.
"We've all watched what happened. Not a good situation," Trump said at the White House last week as he announced his executive order on Hong Kong. "Their freedom has been taken away. Their rights have been taken away, and with it, goes Hong Kong, in my opinion, because it will no longer be able to compete with free markets."
"Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China: no special privileges, no special economic treatment, and no export of sensitive technologies," he added.
While Newsweek's poll showed there are more in Hong Kong who support sanctions the U.S. has levied against China than those who do not, more also anticipated that these measures would have a negative impact on their economic wellbeing and quality of life. They were also evenly split about whether or not such sanctions would actually have a meaningful impact.
In Beijing, the U.S. efforts have been dismissed as an effort to intervene in China's domestic affairs. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying responded to the sanctions by arguing that "Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs" and that the U.S. had no say in such matters.
"No foreign country has the right to interfere. China is firmly resolved to uphold its sovereignty and security, safeguard the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, and oppose external meddling in Hong Kong affairs," she told reporters at a press conference in Beijing. "The U.S. attempt to obstruct the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong will never succeed. In order to safeguard its legitimate interests, China will make necessary response and sanction the relevant individuals and entities of the United States."
Beijing has promised to preserve the "One Country, Two Systems" model granting Hong Kong partial self-rule since its 1997 handover from the U.K., but Washington officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have accused Beijing of breaking international law by exerting control over the territory ahead of a 2047 deadline for Hong Kong's autonomy as set by a 1984 treaty with London.
The issue is just one of many pressing geopolitical and economic disputes that have come to define the feud between the U.S. and China. After a speech in which he summoned "freedom-loving nations" around the world to rally against Beijing at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Pompeo went on Fox News to accuse Chinese President Xi Jinping of taking actions "that are aggressive and broken promises that are central to how great power nations behave."
"You remember he made a promise back in 2015 in the Rose Garden with President Obama," he added. "He said he wouldn't militarize the South China Sea—you can go look; there's now significant military activity there by China—and made a promise to the people of Britain and to the people of Hong Kong that they would have a 50-year deal of one country, two systems. He busted it. He broke it."
Hua compared Pompeo's remarks Thursday to "an ant trying to shake a tree" in a tweet later that day. "It's about time that all peace-loving people around the world stepped forward to prevent him from doing the world more harm," she added.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ... Read more
