New area of conflict between the US and China

The relations between the US and China keep deteriorating. After bilateral trade, the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Taiwan, a new area of conflict between them has already emerged and its name is Hong Kong. And it might be-come the most sensitive one and therefore more harmful, even dangerous, than all other confrontations for China.

US-China tensions have heightened. Photo: Sgt. Mikki Sprenkle

So far, after the trade dispute, the new wave of conflicts between the US and China has to do only with the WHO and Taiwan over the coronavirus pandemic. In no way it has in-volved Hong Kong. Until China begins working on a new security law for this territory that the US started a new attack against China. The Trump administration has proceeded to remove the US’s special treatment for Hong Kong “as a separate customs and travel territory from the rest of China”, as the president put it, and announced US sanctions measures against some Chinese entities and officials involved in this law. This decision of Trump would implicate the termination of differential treatment for Hong Kong in rela-tion to mainland China and US preferences and privileges for the territory would be stripped off. And the British government would reportedly follow suit.

This move from the US side deals a blow with far-reaching consequences for China and for the relationship between them. It would be very hard for Hong Kong and China to maintain the territory's reputation and credibility as one of the major economic, trade and financial hubs in Asia and in the world. Hong Kong would gradually cease to be an economic growth engine and China would immediately lose one of its most important economic and trade prosperous regions. In other words, from being China’s most significant gate to the world’s trade and finance, Hong Kong would be demoted to the category of just a backdoor.

And not only that. This US move implicated that the US begins to assess China's model "One Country, Two Systems" for Hong Kong as a failure. Through considering Hong Kong no longer an autonomous territory from mainland China, the model "One Country, Two Systems" would cease from being such. And this would cause more and most political pains to China to the point it would leave deep wounds and attack the soul of this country.

By opening of a new area of conflict with China, Donald Trump obviously showed that the US from now on will be even tougher on China.