Top US Envoy: China's Attacks on 'Foreign Forces' Threaten Hong Kong's Global Standing

HONG KONG - The top U.S. diplomat in Hong Kong said the imposition of a new national security law had created an "atmosphere of coercion" that threatens both the city's freedoms and its standing as an international business hub. 

In unusually strident remarks to Reuters this week, U.S. Consul-General Hanscom Smith called it "appalling" that Beijing's influence had "vilified" routine diplomatic activities, such as meeting local activists, part of a government crackdown on foreign forces that was "casting a pall over the city."  Smith's remarks highlight deepening concerns over Hong Kong's sharply deteriorating freedoms among many officials in the administration of President Joe Biden one year after China's parliament imposed the law. Critics of the legislation say the law has crushed the city's democratic opposition, civil society and Western-style freedoms.  The foreign forces issue is at the heart of the crimes of "collusion" with foreign countries or "external elements" detailed in Article 29 of the security law, scholars say.