Tuesday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) commented on the ongoing tensions in Hong Kong with what appears to be police threatening to crack down on protesters.
Cotton said if conditions broke down and China imposed martial law or any other kind of dramatic action that violated the 1984 joint agreement with the United Kingdom, he would propose measures similar to those taken by the United States in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“[I]t’s appropriate that you cite Tiananmen Square. Many of your listeners have seen the photographs and videos of thousands of PAP, the People’s Armed Police, who are mounted the border of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. If Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party were to impose martial law on Hong Kong or take other kind of dramatic action to crack down and violate their obligations under the 1984 joint declaration with Great Britain, it would be an irreparable breach in the relationship between the United States and China. If that were to happen, I would suggest we take the kind of actions that we ought to have taken 30 years ago after the Tiananmen Square massacre – halting trade negotiations, sanctioning senior Community Party officials, revoking their visas, kicking them out of international organizations, and reconsidering the Hong Kong Policy Act.
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