Hong Kong Is Not Tiananmen, And Trump Is Not Bush: Asia Expert

Penny Zhou
By Penny Zhou
August 18, 2019Hong Kong
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The Chinese Communist Party’s recent hint of using force to quell Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests has raised concerns in the international community. People worry Hong Kong could turn into another Tiananmen Square Massacre where 30 years ago, the regime sent in tanks to quell the student protest.

Walter Lohman, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asia Studies Center, said the chances are still low because Hong Kong is a very different city from Beijing in 1989 and the current U.S. president has a very different attitude towards the Chinese regime than the president at the time.

After the Tiananmen Massacre, then president George H. W. Bush vetoed an effort by Congress to punish China by striping the communist state of its most-favored-nation status.

Lohman told NTD that he didn’t believe President Donald Trump would veto such an action, adding that if Chinese troops entered Hong Kong, “it would just be the end of one country and two systems.

“It would put U.S.-China relationship in a deep freeze for a very long time,” he said.

Lohman said that China has to consider the ongoing U.S.- China trade war before letting the People’s Liberation Army cross the border and start a crackdown, which “is going to affect U.S.-China relations across the board.

“And truth is, we will have no trade agreement. So it doesn’t have to be a contentious policy or a tie. It’s just the bottom line,” he said.

Another factor, he added, is the over 30,000 armed police force in Hong Kong.

Though Hong Kong police haven’t shied away from firing tear gas and bean bag bullets at protesters, “in the case of an international conflict, in the case of the Chinese coming in like that, I’m not sure that would stay the same,” he said.

“Do they fight for loyalty to Beijing, or do they fight loyalty to their families and their friends?”

Simon Gao contributed to this report.

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