The legislation requires the State Department to certify, at least annually, that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favourable US trading terms that have helped the territory grow as a world financial centre. Beijing warned that the United States would shoulder the consequences of China's counter measures if it continued to "act arbitrarily" in regards to Hong Kong, according to a foreign ministry statement. Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government said the legislation sent the wrong signal to demonstrators and "clearly interfered" with the city's internal affairs. Hong Kong police entered a sprawling university campus on Thursday at the end of a nearly two-week siege that saw some of the worst clashes between protesters and security forces to have rocked the former British colony. Demonstrators in Hong Kong are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Source: bd News24 November 28, 2019 02:26 UTC