Americans’ awareness of Hong Kong situation ‘thin’, former consul general says

Former US envoy to Hong Kong Kurt Tong has said Americans’ awareness of the actual situation in the city remains “thin” due to a lack of understanding, with some business executives even asking him about the safety of visiting.

But he cautioned that more American businesses might quit the financial hub if the national security imperatives “get in the way” of the free flow of information or internet business.

Tong, who was the United States consul general in Hong Kong from 2016 to 2019, is now a managing partner at the Washington-based consulting firm The Asia Group.

He told a lunch held in Hong Kong on Tuesday that many Americans had been saying “sorry” to him after they learned he used to live in the city.

“I end up spending usually longer than the person that made that comment wanted to hear, telling them about the actual situation in Hong Kong, the pros and the cons, the complexity of it all, how it fits into US-China relations, et cetera,” he said. “But that awareness is very, very, very thin.”

US media has covered national security trials and political changes in Hong Kong with no information or very little reporting about other aspects of wider society and economy, he added.

Tong also blamed the US State Department for putting out an “inaccurate description” of the risks of travel to the city, which had led business executives to ask him “is it safe to travel to Hong Kong?”.

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The department in its latest advisory appealed to American citizens to exercise increased caution and keep a low profile on visits to Hong Kong “due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws”.

Tong observed that various stakeholders had responded differently to the overseas portrayal of the city. He said the American Chamber of Commerce had chosen to display confidence in the strengths of the city and its “one country, two systems” governing principle in a consistent way.

“I see a lot of wisdom in that approach,” he said. “Within the constraints, confines of one country, and the necessity to stress ‘one country’, there is flexibility.”

One country, two systems is the principle governing relations between Hong Kong and mainland China.

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Tong told the audience one opportunity afforded by the system was the application of Hong Kong rules in business dealings in the Greater Bay Area that he considered to be “really interesting and very dynamic”.

On the risk side, he highlighted the city’s planned legislation for Article 23 of the Basic Law, which would involve national security offences not covered by the Beijing-decreed national security law, and separate cybersecurity legislation for critical infrastructure.

“It would be, I think, quite harmful if Hong Kong’s national security imperatives, I’m not denying the legitimacy of those, get in the way of the free flow of internet information or internet businesses,” he said. “There is potential that the global companies, as we’ve seen a little bit in AI, could walk away from Hong Kong, and that would be very detrimental to the economy and the situation going forward.”

Hong Kong should invite think tanks and other opinion leaders in Washington and elsewhere to visit the city, Tong suggested.

He admitted such visits would likely bring mixed reviews, but that the results would be “better than nothing.”