US-China trade deal is closer but we’re watching Hong Kong, says Trump - South China Morning Post

US President Donald Trump has been vague about whether he would sign or veto US legislation to back protesters in Hong Kong. Photo: AP

He said that he hoped district elections in Hong Kong would proceed without violence. “That would be a good sign,” he said.

Asked what would be the reaction of the US if China cracked down hard on the protests, O’Brien said on Saturday: “I’m hoping that doesn’t happen. We’ve already seen too much violence in Hong Kong.”

SUBSCRIBE TO SCMP TODAY: INTL EDITION

Get updates direct to your inbox

“The real question is what is the world prepared to do about China if there is that sort of a crackdown? The United States will do its part,” he said.

O’Brien declined to say what specifically the US would do if there were a crackdown in Hong Kong that rivals the Tiananmen Square in 1989. More than 100,000 Americans and over 300,000 Canadians live in Hong Kong.

“I don’t want to get into tools or what the US might or might not do,” he said

“But much of the world and many or our allies, and many of the countries represented at this conference, have been willing to forget Tiananmen Square and are heavily engaged in business with China.”

O’Brien also criticised what he says is silence from the rest of the world over China’s confinement of more than 1 million Muslims in reeducation camps, linking the lack of a global outcry to China’s economic clout.

“Where is the world? We have over a million people in concentration camps,” O’Brien said. “I’ve been to the genocide museum in Rwanda. You hear ‘never again, never again is this going to happen,’ and yet there are reeducation camps with over a million people in them.”

O’Brien said the lack of criticism is especially surprising from Islamic states. China is estimated to have detained up to 1 million minority Muslims Uygurs in prisonlike detention centers.

O’Brien also urged Canada on Saturday not to use Huawei 5G technology, saying that doing so would put in jeopardy intelligence sharing with the US and expose Canadians to being profiled by the Chinese government.

A Huawei company logo is pictured at the Shenzhen International Airport in Shenzhen, China. Photo: Reuters

Intelligence sharing “would be impacted if our close allies let the Trojan horse into the city,” O’Brien said in Halifax.

The question of whether Huawei’s 5G equipment could contain back doors allowing access to Chinese spying is dividing Canada and its partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.

The United States, Australia and New Zealand have bans in place, while Britain is taking a less firm line, indicating Huawei’s 5G products could be used in less sensitive areas.

“We are going to take our time so that we can appropriately examine all potential threats,” Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, who is also in Halifax, said.

Trump on Friday said he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that crushing the Hong Kong protesters would have “a tremendous negative impact” on efforts to reach an accord to end a 16-month trade war.

He has been vague about whether he would sign or veto US legislation to back protesters in Hong Kong, and boasted that he alone had prevented Beijing from crushing the demonstrations with a million soldiers.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had said in October that US and Chinese trade negotiators were working on nailing down a “phase one” trade deal text for their presidents to sign in November.

But the deal’s completion could slide into next year, trade experts and people close to the White House said this week, as Beijing presses for more extensive tariff rollbacks, and Washington counters with heightened demands of its own.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Top stories - Google News
November 27, 2019 at 01:30AM
https://ift.tt/2OPm9jX

US-China trade deal is closer but we’re watching Hong Kong, says Trump - South China Morning Post
Top stories - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FLTecc
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini