 Pompeo says Trump to act on Chinese students Washington (AFP) May 29, 2020 - The United States will take action to prevent alleged espionage by Chinese students, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday, ahead of an expected announcement by President Donald Trump. Trump earlier said that he will hold a press conference Friday about China amid soaring tensions between the two powers, including over the status of Hong Kong and the novel coronavirus pandemic. Asked about a report in The New York Times that Trump was considering throwing out thousands of graduate students, Pompeo said that Chinese students "shouldn't be here in our schools spying." "We know we have this challenge. President Trump, I am confident, is going to take that on," Pompeo told Fox News, while declining to say if action would be announced on Friday. "We have an obligation -- a duty -- to make sure that students that are coming here to study... aren't acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party," Pompeo said. The New York Times said that the Trump administration was considering annuling visas for thousands of graduate students linked to China's military. The move would be certain to draw criticism from universities, which rely increasingly on tuition from foreign students -- of which China and India are the largest sources -- and have already been hit hard by the COVID-19 shutdown. Asian American activists have long voiced concern that the targeting of Chinese students impacts their own community, with US citizens of Asian ancestry coming under unjustified suspicion. "This isn't a red scare, this isn't racist. Chinese people are a great people," Pompeo said when asked about the concerns. "This is like the days of the Soviet Union. This is a communist, tyrannical regime that poses real risk to the United States," he said. Trump, in remarks to reporters, declined to preview the press conference on Friday but said, "We're not happy with China." The press conference will come two days after Pompeo certified to Congress that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous from China, as promised by Beijing before Britain handed over its colony in 1997. China has been pressing forward the drafting of a security law that Hong Kong activists say will end freedoms enjoyed in the financial capital, which was rocked by months of pro-democracy protests last year. Washington and Beijing are already clashing over responsibility for the extent of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China but has spread worldwide and caused devastation in the United States. Domestic critics accuse Trump of mismanagement and say that the 100,000 US deaths and massive unemployment were the result of a slow, patchy federal response to the virus' spread across the world's biggest economy. But Trump blames the crisis on China and for a long time insisted on calling the COVID-19 sickness the "Chinese virus." He has threatened to cut off US funding for the World Health Organization, accusing the UN body of bias toward Beijing and assisting in a cover-up.
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China faced growing international pressure Friday over its move to impose a security law on Hong Kong that critics say will destroy the city's autonomy, with the United States and Britain placing the issue before the UN Security Council.
The US, Britain, Canada and Australia led criticism of the planned law, which would punish secession, subversion of state power, terrorism and acts that endanger national security, as well as allow Chinese security agencies to operate openly in Hong Kong.
China's rubber-stamp parliament on Thursday approved the plans for the law, which followed seven months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.
After China fended off initial American efforts this week to have the controversy put on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, the US and Britain succeeded in securing an informal discussion about it for Friday, diplomatic sources told AFP.
Beijing's proposed security law "lies in direct conflict" with China's international obligations to guarantee certain freedoms in Hong Kong, the two countries said in a joint statement with Canada and Australia on Thursday.
"The proposed law would undermine the One Country, Two Systems framework," they added, referring to Hong Kong's special status within China under the terms of its handover from Britain in 1997.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also said the UK would widen its rules around the rights of British National (Overseas) passport holders -- a status offered to many Hongkongers at the time of handover -- if China went ahead with the new law.
The Chinese parliament's vote came just hours after Washington revoked the special status conferred on Hong Kong, paving the way for the territory to be stripped of trading and economic privileges.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the status had been withdrawn because China was no longer honouring its handover agreement with Britain to allow Hong Kong a high level of autonomy.
US President Donald Trump also announced he would hold a press conference on Friday about China, with Hong Kong and a series of other flashpoint issues -- including the coronavirus, espionage and trade -- almost certain to be brought up.
"We'll be announcing tomorrow what we're doing with respect to China," Trump told reporters on Thursday.
"We're not happy with China."
- 'Safe environment' -
China has remained defiant in the face of Western criticism on Hong Kong, insisting "foreign forces" are to blame for fuelling the pro-democracy movement and creating turmoil in the city of 7.5 million people.
Li Zhanshu -- chairman of the NPC Standing Committee which will now draft the law -- said Thursday the move was "in line with the fundamental interests of all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots".
Under the "one country, two systems" model agreed before the city's return from Britain to China, Hong Kong is supposed to be guaranteed certain liberties until 2047 that are denied to those on the mainland.
The mini-constitution that has governed Hong Kong's affairs since the handover obliges the territory's authorities to enact national security laws.
But huge protests blocked an effort to do so in 2003, and Hong Kong's government then shelved it while watching the pro-democracy movement grow.
China's state-run media on Friday said the law was in the interests of protecting peace and autonomy in Hong Kong.
"For (Hong Kong residents), safeguarding national security is a must, rather than a choice," the official news agency Xinhua in a commentary.
Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily said in an editorial that law would only target "a small minority of people who are suspected of committing crimes that endanger national security."
But rather than diminishing the rights of Hong Kong residents, including freedom of speech, the law will "further safeguard those legal rights and freedoms in a safe environment," the paper said.
In Hong Kong, the pro-democracy movement voiced the opposite sentiments.
"It's the end of Hong Kong," pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo told AFP.
"They are cutting off our souls, taking away the values which we've always embraced, values like human rights, democracy, rule of law."
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