(OPINION) Michael Snyder – A new “cold war” has officially begun, and it could potentially throw the entire world into a state of chaos. As you will see below, China is warning the U.S. to “rein in the horse at the edge of the precipice” as the conflict between our two nations threatens to spiral out of control. This week, the Senate and the House of Representatives both passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019”, and this new law is essentially a public declaration that the U.S. government fully supports the protesters in Hong Kong.
For the past five months, violent protests have been rocking the streets of Hong Kong, and this week we witnessed the worst violence yet. Hong Kong police conducted an extended siege of protesters that were holed up at a university campus, and the horrific human rights violations have shocked the whole planet. Since the beginning of the siege, hundreds of protesters have been injured and more than 1,000 of them have been arrested. It is a major crisis, and our representatives in Congress felt compelled to do something.
But to the Chinese, this move by Congress is being viewed as a direct intervention in their internal affairs. The protesters in Hong Kong want independence from China, and that is a very noble goal, but the communist Chinese government will never, ever allow that to happen. For Chinese leaders, the status of Hong Kong is something that must never be questioned, and so when the U.S. Congress publicly sided with the protesters it felt like an insult to their national honor. In essence, over in China this new law is being viewed as a direct assault on Chinese sovereignty, and it has created a tremendous uproar. But here in the United States, most Americans don’t even know that the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” was unanimously passed by the Senate on Tuesday and then passed by a vote of 417 to 1 in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. READ MORE
