Ma: US sanctions on HK violate international law

HONG KONG - Politically-motivated sanctions imposed by the United States on Hong Kong blatantly violated international law, barrister Lawrence Ma Yan-kwok said in an interview with China Daily.

"Under the United Nations (UN) Charter, there is a clear provision that stipulates no country should intervene in the affairs of another country," Ma, chairman of Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, told China Daily in a one-on-one interview this past week.

He added the consensus-based provision is an important legal principle to deal with international relations and slammed the US move as a violation of the UN Charter.

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter, Ma noted, citing Article 2 (7) of the Charter.

Ma's remarks came after the US announced earlier this month it would sanction 11 central government and Hong Kong officials over the promulgation of the National Security Law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the SAR, Luo Huining, are on the sanctions list.

In the interview, Ma said he thinks Western countries led by the US constantly interfere in the political affairs of Hong Kong for political ends.

The sanctions are being used as a way by certain Western governments to use Hong Kong — the gateway to the mainland — as a pawn to contain the rise of China, according to Ma's analysis.

He added that the US has acted out of political considerations in issuing the sanctions because it is otherwise unreasonable to punish those whose job is to protect the city and national security.

Ma said that other moves such as labeling all Hong Kong goods exported to the US as "Made in China" — to take effect on Sept 25 — will also be ineffective.

That's because Hong Kong is no longer a manufacturing economy, and its exports to the US are limited, Ma reckoned.

In fact, the US has had a trade surplus as high as US$30 billion annually for the past decade with Hong Kong, according to the US Census and Statistics Department — among the highest with its trade partners.