President Trump is Hong Kong’s sudden hero.
Hours after he signed two bills to support human rights in Hong Kong, angering Chinese government officials, pro-democracy protesters in the beleaguered city held a “Thanksgiving Rally” Thursday night to commend him for taking the action.
And front and center at the rally were printouts of the president’s Wednesday tweet showing his head on Rocky Balboa’s chiseled body.
“Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” thousands of protestors chanted in a public square as they waved American flags and held up copies of the photo composite.
For the past six months, the former British colony has been rocked by mass protests that have spawned violence on both sides of the divide. More than 5,000 people have been detained since the discord began.
In the midst of a heated trade war between the US and China, Trump unexpectedly signed the two bills on Wednesday after they passed the House and Senate nearly unanimously, exacerbating Washington’s relationship with Beijing.
The new laws mandate sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials who carry out human rights abuses on the semiautonomous island, require an annual review of Hong Kong’s trade status and prohibit the export of specific nonlethal weapons to Hong Kong police.
Joshua Wong, a well-known pro-democracy activist who was among those who lobbied for the laws, told protesters Thursday their next goal is to get other Western leaders to follow in Trump’s footsteps in order to put pressure on the Chinese government to give in to their demands.
On the mainland, Chinese government officials were enraged by the new laws and said Trump is using Hong Kong as a pawn to hamper China’s growth and hit back at Beijing.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told US Ambassador Terry Branstad that Beijing sees the move as “serious interference in China’s internal affairs and a serious violation of international law,” a ministry statement said.
Le went on to call it a “nakedly hegemonic act” and urged US officials to not implement the laws to avoid more damage to US relations with China, the ministry said.
In response, the US Embassy in Beijing said China’s Communist Party “must honor its promises to the Hong Kong people.”
The protests started in June over a Chinese extradition bill that pro-democracy protestors believed whittled away the freedoms promised to them when China regained control of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1997.
With Post wires
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