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’s ambitious Northern Metropolis has received a shot in the arm with a HK$150 billion (US$19 billion) fund launch to kick-start the high-tech park’s development.

The site is massive, covering some 30,000 hectares, which is about one third of Hong Kong’s total land area and about the size of Philadelphia in the USA, or Edinburgh in Scotland.

And before the ink has dried since the announcement of the plan, more than 60 firms have moved into the first two buildings in the Phase 1 development of the San Tin Technopole, the centrepiece of the entire project. The infrastructure is already well in place: drainage has been laid, internal roads built with slip roads connecting to the main highway, electricity has been connected and buildings are sprouting like stalagmites while construction cranes dot the skyline. The area is a hive of activity.

When completed, the project will create 650,000 jobs and house 2.5 million people.

Naturally, such a project will require money, and Hong Kong has plenty of that. Hong Kong is the world’s top capital market, ranking the top spot for Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in 2025. A combination of revenue earned from IPOs and bond sales, pushed Hong Kong’s 2025-26 budget to a surplus to some $3 billion (US$383 million). As Hong Kong is the envy of the world for its monetary management, raising the necessary funds for the $224 billion ($28 billion) project should not be difficult.

Normally, surpluses go into the government’s exchange fund, currently standing at $4.1 trillion ($524 billion), which is used to maintain the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar. But with such ambitious plans afoot, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po has proposed taking some $150 billion ($19 billion) from the exchange fund to support the Northern Metropolis. Investment returns from the exchange fund last year topped $300 billion ($38 billion). This, he sees, as an investment, not an expenditure. After all, he said, this is only half of last year’s profits.

In his Budget speech last week Chan announced the setting up of a “Northern Metropolis Urban-Rural Integration Fund” which will entail an initial capital of $200 million ($25.5 million) to boost rural tourism in the area. Hong Kong is rich in heritage, and some 200 villages will benefit from the scheme. Another $1 billion ($128 million) will be earmarked for a heritage conservation fund for revitalzation projects and maintenance of historic buildings.

The government will also inject another $10 billion ($1.27 billion) into an adjacent project known as the Hetao Hong Kong Park, otherwise known as the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park. A dedicated company for this development, set up by the government in 2023 is seeking public-private partnerships to take up its offer to occupy some 1 million square metre gross floor area on 87.7 hectares of land. It is expected this site alone will provide some 52,000 innovation and technology jobs.

Although the metropolis is mainly high-tech, it will also house a university town with accommodation for students and a training hospital, as well as possibly earmarking some land for private hospital development. Applications will soon be open to develop campuses in the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen area with an offer of $10 billion ($1.3 billion) in loans to the successful applicants. Tertiary education bonds are likely to be issued to support the construction of the university and its facilities. The universities have the capacity to issue bonds with their substantial financial reserves and profitable self-financing programes. After all it is normal for universities elsewhere to raise capital by the issuance of bonds. The government can provide a guarantee for the bonds, allowing them to receive a credit rating equivalent to government bonds which currently stands at AA+.

Investors can rest assured the Chinese Central Government will do everything in its power to preserve its southern treasure for generations to come with Hong Kong being the pinnacle for the Greater Bay Area.