The US said Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, pictured in July 2020, is "directly responsible" for implementing Beijing's policies of suppression of freedom and democracy. File photo/AFP/Isaac Lawrence
By Shaun Tandon and Rob Lever, with AFP in Beijing | AFP
ON THE WEB, 7 August 2020
The United States slapped sanctions Friday on Hong Kong’s leader after effectively forcing Chinese internet giants TikTok and WeChat to end all US operations in a twin diplomatic-commercial offensive set to grow ahead of US elections.
In the toughest US action on Hong Kong since Beijing imposed a security clampdown on the territory, the Treasury Department said it was freezing US assets of Chief Executive Carrie Lam and 10 other senior officials.
The move criminalizes any US financial transactions with the 11 officials, who include Hong Kong’s police commissioner, its security secretary and China’s top official in the international financial hub.
“Today’s actions send a clear message that the Hong Kong authorities’ actions are unacceptable,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Pompeo said China’s security law — which bans subversion and other perceived offenses in Hong Kong — violated promises made by China before Britain handed back the territory in 1997.
“The United States stands with the Hong Kong people,” Pompeo said.
The Treasury Department said Lam “is directly responsible for implementing Beijing’s policies of suppression of freedom and democratic processes.”
The security law was imposed in late June, following last year’s huge pro-democracy protests.
Since then, authorities have postponed elections, citing the coronavirus pandemic, and, according to Beijing, issued arrest warrants for six exiled pro-democracy activists.
Beijing wants Trump out?
The US measures come three months ahead of 3 November elections in which Trump, who is behind his rival Joe Biden in the polls, is campaigning hard on an increasingly strident anti-Beijing message.
On Friday, William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said China wants Trump to lose.
“We assess that China prefers that President Trump — whom Beijing sees as unpredictable — does not win reelection,” he said in a statement Friday.
As public disapproval has grown for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis ravaging the United States, Trump has pivoted from his previous focus on striking a trade deal with China to blaming the country for the pandemic.
Late Thursday, Trump made good on previous threats against WeChat and TikTok — two apps with major audiences that US officials say pose a national security threat.
In an executive order, Trump gave Americans 45 days to stop doing business with the Chinese platforms, effectively setting a deadline for a potential, under-pressure sale of TikTok to Microsoft.
The move also threw into doubt the American operations of WeChat’s parent firm, Tencent, a powerful player in the video gaming industry and one of the world’s richest companies.
China voiced outrage at the move, which comes as Trump also steps up pressure on the trade and security fronts.
“At the expense of the rights and interests of US users and companies, the US… is carrying out arbitrary political manipulation and suppression,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Tencent dives
The new restrictions sent Tencent shares tanking as much as 10 percent at one point in Hong Kong trade, wiping almost $50 billion off its market capitalization.
Trump’s order claims TikTok — whose kaleidoscopic feeds of short video clips feature everything from hair-dye tutorials to dance routines and jokes about daily life — could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage.
TikTok, which has repeatedly denied sharing data with Beijing, said the order was “issued without any due process.”
The app owned by Chinese-based ByteDance vowed to “pursue all remedies available” to seek what it called fair treatment.
WeChat is a messaging, social media and electronic payment platform and is reported to have more than a billion users, with many preferring it to email.
Repercussions for US?
Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said the US actions were likely to be counterproductive.
“There is no security justification for banning an app merely because it is owned by a Chinese company,” Castro said.
“Allegations of security risks should be backed by hard evidence, not unsubstantiated innuendo. American tech companies stand to lose significant global market share if other countries follow a similar standard and block US tech companies from their markets because of concerns about US government surveillance.”
Trump has effectively set a deadline of mid-September for TikTok to be acquired by a US firm or be banned in the United States, leading Microsoft to accelerate its talks to buy it.
The TikTok mobile app has been downloaded about 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world.
The latest US actions follow a protracted battle over Huawei, the Chinese network and smartphone giant accused by the Trump administration of being a tool for espionage.
The United States slapping sanctions against Carrie Lam means nothing. Ridiculing the move, she has said that she has no properties in US and has no intentions to go to US. It’s all deception by Trump for reelection.
Carrie Lam got stuck in the middle. What has happened in Hong Kong in recent past is something nobody wants to be associated with. It will go down in history on the dark side. Lam may have collaborated with Beijing for power, but I don’t see any relation between her to Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal.
PhunWang was a reformist and a revolutionary. He was a socialist, and wanted to see Tibet transform into a modern socialist country. It happened that he wanted change, and China had started marching into Tibet. He joined them to bring that change, but it’s not him who made the decisions, and therefore the change didn’t happen in the way he envisioned. When he tried to correct the new boss, he landed in prison.
To say PhunWang, a common man, bring China to occupy Tibet is like a story coming from a novel. Mao had already set his agenda to make the moves for invasions. He first invaded and occupied East Turkistan, and then Tibet.
The Khampas are a fiercely independent people. They neither wanted to be bothered by the Lhasa Government nor the Chinese. Besides, the communists were even more hated because of their irreligious ideology of rabid anti-Buddhism.
Ratruk Ngawang, one of the prominent Khampa leader and SFF commander says in one of his interviews: “when an insect is killed unintentionally, we feel sorry for them and say, Om mani Padme Hung. But when we kill a Chinese, we don’t feel sorry”. That’s the sort of animosity most Khampas had for the Chinese communists.
Even to this day, most Khampas stand steadfast to fight rather than give in to the demands of the CCP. Khampas are known for their courage and valour and have jealously guarded their territory for centuries.
Bawa Phuntsok Wangyal used his own Khampa identity to assuage the fear and animosity of Khampas towards the PLA forces so they relent and stop resistance against the invader. This paved a smooth PLA invasion of Kham and take Chamdo and threaten the Lhasa Government for negotiations.
At the end of the day, what did Phunwang’s collaboration with the CCP benefit Tibet and its people? Occupation? Genocide? Is this his so called “vision”?
If we romanticize, even Nathuram Godse has become a hero in India’s Hinduvata Movement. Collaborating with the enemy to dismantle the Tibetan Government surely can’t be a gallant and noble deed for a Tibetan.
The notion that he engineered the basis of today’s U-May Lam is a spin to make it more appealing to the young Marxist population in occupied Tibet. Tibetan leaders have never relinquished the unification of Tibet. Shatra Kalon P Dorje ceded Tawang to the British in return for their recognition of Kham and Amdo to be recognised as Tibet during the Simla Convention.
how can you say something bad about a Tibetan visionary like bawa phuntsok wangyal who spent 18 effing years in chinese prison where he was reduced to feeding on banana peels thrown into his cell by the prison guards?
If bawa pw wasn’t there, china wouldn’t have anyone to guide the army to tibet? No chance. He was cooperating with the chinese and supporting the invasion of tibet because if he didn’t support the invasion, Tibet would still be invaded. So people like phuntsok wangyal and ngabo showed high level of political dexterity that provided the maximum possible benefit for Tibetan peoples while conceding to the chinese.
Carrie Lam will be judged by history as the lady Macbeth of Hong Kong. Like the Shakespearean character, she is ambitious, manipulative and ruthless.
She was a supporter of democracy in her younger age but power intoxicated her and she was happy to commit the crime of putting the rights of the Hong Kongers on a platter to be gobbled up by the blood thirsty CCP.
Today, Hong Kong is a city living in fear like occupied Tibet. When the CCP sent a team of COVID-19 testing team to HK, Hong Kongers are fearful that in the guise of helping HK, the CCP is in fact collecting DNA for surveillance like they did in ETurkistan. It is conducted by Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) which is blacklisted by the US for their role in “conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uyghurs”.
The election which would have put many Democrats in the Legco was deliberately postponed because she feared a coup to topple her with no confidence vote. She is the Currie lamb of Xi!
It is unbelievable that people fall into such delusion driven by ambition and hunger for power. I think we Tibetans have a similar story in Bawa Phuntsok Wangyal. He helped the CCP to consolidate its power over restive Kham.
He told his fellow Khampas, that the communists were different from the Kuomintang and will bring great things to Tibet. He actively participated and hired one hundred thousand yaks and men to transport communist forces through Kham to Lhasa.
He was the Tibetan face in the CCP delegation responsible for forcing Tibet to sign the infamous “17 point Agreement”. His naivety that made him collude with the CCP soon back fired. When his usefulness was over he found himself in a prison for many years. Lady Macbeth regretted her crime. Wonder if the other two did.