Beijing’s top official on Hong Kong affairs has taken aim at the United States, warning that the country “is after our survival” and calling the imposition of steep tariffs on Chinese goods “arrogant and shameless.”
Xia Baolong, the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO), made the remarks during a televised keynote speech at the National Security Education Day opening ceremony on Tuesday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
He pointed out that despite Hong Kong imposing no tariffs on any goods and the US enjoying a trade surplus with the city, Washington still placed high tariffs on products from the city.
“This is extremely arrogant and shameless!” Xia said in Mandarin. “The US isn’t after our tariffs – it is after our very survival.”
He also called the US “the biggest sinister manipulator undermining human rights, freedom, the rule of law, prosperity, and stability in Hong Kong” and warned Washington’s “attempts to suppress Hong Kong” would backfire.
“Let those American peasants wail before the 5,000 years of Chinese civilisation!” Xia said, in an apparent jab at US Vice President JD Vance’s comments about “Chinese peasants.”
In an interview earlier this month, Vance defended US President Donald Trump’s high tariffs on China, saying: “To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on most US trading partners on April 2 while imposing increasingly higher levies on China, intensifying the trade war between the world’s biggest economies.
The following week, Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs except on goods from China and Hong Kong. He also raised levies on Chinese imports to 145 per cent, as China hit back with 125 per cent levies on US products.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, who attended the same National Security Education Day event, also slammed the US tariffs in his speech.
“The United States’ reckless aggression against China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has descended into madness. The US can wield a machine gun but does not allow Hong Kong to have bulletproof vehicles,” he said in Mandarin.
“The most absurd part is that they even got the math wrong. Hong Kong has ‘zero tariffs,’ so if it were truly ‘reciprocal,’ it should also be zero.”
Xia also accused the US of “fabricating” the Hong Kong Policy Act Report 2025, issued last month, and slammed Washington for imposing sanctions on six local and Chinese officials.
In the report, the US Department of State said that Beijing and Hong Kong last year “took actions that eroded Hong Kong’s judicial independence and rule of law” and there was “no expectation” of a fair trial for national security cases.
On the same day, it also placed sanctions on Secretary for Justice Paul Lam, former police chief Raymond Siu, and four other officials whose work relates to national security.
Both moves “exposed the US’s bullying and hegemonic true colors,” Xia said.
