New top US diplomat is no friend of Hong Kong

The appointment of Julie Eadeh as the new US Consul General in Hong Kong does not auger well for the city. In her previous posting here, she took an active role in the 2019-20 riots which rocked the very foundations of Hong Kong.

Photographs of her meeting with student activists Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and others at a hotel and at the consulate during the disturbances while she was head of the political department at the consulate went viral in the local and social media. It was seen by many at the time to be a direct US interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs.

Now she is being criticised for reaching out to far-left activists in Hong Kong within the first month of her tenure in her new post. Meetings with former Chief Secretary Anson Chan and former legislature councillor Emily Lau, both sympathisers of the rioters, have been seen as an indication of Eadeh’s priority in dealing with Hong Kong matters.

Chief Executive John Lee said at a media briefing on Tuesday that consuls should perform their duties in Hong Kong in a manner befitting their diplomatic status and refrain from interfering in China's internal affairs and Hong Kong's affairs under any pretext or in any form.

“They should respect China's sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong. I hope all consuls in Hong Kong will engage in constructive activities, not destructive activities,” he said. Of course he was referring to the US Consul General.

And Eadeh has been warned by Chinese authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong not to cross the “red lines” by interfering in China’s or Hong Kong’s affairs. The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) accused Eadeh of “being back in the old game” of disrupting the city. She is being closely watched.

Eadeh has taken over the consul general’s job from Gregory May who has been transferred to Beijing as the US’s deputy chief of mission there. May was very outspoken on China and Hong Kong policies during his Hong Kong posting and was berated many times for interfering in local affairs. Eadeh served under May as the consulate’s political director.

She has had a colourful career having served in Ankara, Doha, Shanghai, Bagdad, Riyadh, Beirut and, of course, Hong Kong. When she joined the foreign service in 2004, she covered human rights issues including the first ever elections in Saudia Arabia. She assisted in the largest evacuation of American civilians in Lebanon in 2006. She also speaks fluent Putonghua, which would have helped her in her Shanghai posting from 2010-2012.

Hong Kong has 70 diplomatic missions, of which 62 are consulate generals, meaning all, except one, answer to their embassies in Beijing. Eight are consulates.

The one exception is the US Consulate General which answers directly to China hawk, the new Secretary of State in Washington, Marco Rubio.

It will be Rubio who will direct Eadeh on the line to take in relation to Hong Kong affairs, including trade and political issues.

The combination of Rubio and Eadeh dictating the US’s role over Hong Kong is like vultures hovering over our skies looking for easy pickings. But it will not be easy for them. Hong Kong people are fully aware of their ill-defined intentions and will look at anything coming out of the consulate with caution and suspicion. It cannot be trusted.

Rubio, who served as a Republican congressman before accepting the Secretary of State job, sponsored the bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which required the U.S. government to impose sanctions on officials implicated in human rights abuses in Hong Kong.
Following the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions on Hong Kong's former Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other officials in 2020, China retaliated with tit-for-tat sanctions against Rubio and five other Republican legislators.

"China has decided to impose sanctions on individuals who have behaved egregiously on Hong Kong-related issues," the Chinese foreign ministry said at the time.

The Rubio/Eadeh relationship could spell disaster for Hong Kong and given her human rights background and previous Hong Kong experience during the 2019 riots, it appears she was placed in this new position on purpose – to fulfill the US objective of dismantling Hong Kong to slow down China’s rapid growth and development. Beware of the enemy within.

Mark Pinkstone

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

Hong Kong is facing a dilemma as more locals are spending their dollars outside of the city than what the visitors are bringing in.

Relaxed visa/permit restrictions for locals and foreign residents alike is making it easier for travel to the mainland while inbound traffic crossing the boundary is low budget and spending less on accommodation and food.

Tourism is an important pillar for Hong Kong’s economy. In pre-COVID times, tourism accounted for about four per cent of the territory’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provided for about six per cent of total employment.

In Hong Kong’s heydays, the city saw about 65 million tourists in 2018, of which 51 million came from the mainland. It was boom time for retailers and restaurants. Long queues of mainland shoppers would line the streets along Canton Road and elsewhere waiting to buy luxury items from Gucci, Prada, Tiffany’s and other high-end stores which set up shop in Hong Kong to tap this lucrative market.

Today many restaurants and retail outlets are closing down, especially in the boundary towns of Sheung Shui and Yuen Long. The market is no longer there, and high rental costs make it almost impossible to survive.

During the 2025/2026 festive season, Hong Kong saw a 25.6 per cent rise in inbound trips on New Year’s Day 2026 (664,338 trips), but this was still countered by a massive 515,954 outbound exits on the same day.

Winston Yeung, chair of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants & Related Trades, told local media that business was sluggish during the Christmas holiday, with some restaurant owners calling it “the slowest business at Christmas over the past 10 years.”

Unfortunately, the local market is not propping up the tourism outlets. Instead, the locals are traveling in large numbers to Shenzhen and Macau and other parts of China for day trips or extended holidays, thereby providing a leakage in the local economy.

While Hong Kong received more than an estimated 45 million visitors last year, more than about 100 million departures were recorded by the Immigration Department of locals leaving Hong Kong by plane, train or bus mainly to the mainland (75 per cent), and to other major Asian destinations.

Hong Kong has 320 hotels offering 92,907 rooms, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Despite mainlanders’ choice of more budget accommodation, occupancy rates for the hotel industry remained high at 88 per cent last year. The major hotels are not affected by the change in mainlanders’ preferences as they rely more on the affluent international tourist, visiting Hong Kong for business, conventions or holidays.

Property developer, Caldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE) says Hong Kong’s hospitality market currently presents various investment-ready assets including rare investment opportunities for upper upscale and luxury hotels. These high-end properties are particularly attractive due to their resilience, as they are less reliant on Chinese group travelers and enjoy sustained spending power among affluent individual travelers and international visitors. This makes them attractive for investors seeking stable returns in a dynamic market.

To encourage locals to spend more at home and at the same time provide a bonus for tourists, Hong Kong has organised a series of mega events, many held in the new sports stadium on the site of the old Kai Tak airport in Kowloon. Traditional events in 2026 will include the French May Arts festival in March, Hong Kong Book Fair in July, Hong Kong performing Arts Expo in October, the World Snooker Grand Prix in February, and, of course, the international dragon boat races in June.

Blockbusters will include BlackPink World tour in January, the Hong Kong marathon, which draws in runners and their supports from around the world, and the Hong Kong Tennis Open also in January.

That is good for the inbound and outbound tourists alike. But more needs to be done to tip the tourism scales to a surplus for Hong Kong’s economy to grow at a faster pace. As the saying goes charity starts at home, so it is up to us as local residents who have reaped the benefits of the city to spend more in local restaurants and retail outlets than spend it elsewhere. Support local enterprises. After all, the restaurants in Hong Kong are ranked among the best in the world and are tax free as against a value-added tax applied to restaurants and shops in the mainland.