By an overwhelming majority, the US Congress supports Hong Kong in the conflict between some of its inhabitants and China by adopting a pro-democracy resolution. A document that Donald Trump, engaged in a trade war for several months with Beijing, has yet to ratify.

The US Congress overwhelmingly adopted Wednesday a resolution supporting "human rights and democracy" in Hong Kong against Beijing and threatening to suspend the special economic status granted by Washington to the former British colony. The text has yet to be signed by Donald Trump to be promulgated. The US President could veto it, but the broad support of the senators implies that it could then be overridden in the upper house. This vote comes in full arduous negotiations between the first two world economic powers to get out of their trade war.

The "brutality" of China

The House of Representatives approved Wednesday the resolution by 417 votes against one after its unanimous adoption in the Senate on Tuesday. This vote had angered Beijing, China threatening retaliation for final adoption. "America is with you, and America will always support you," Hong Kong MPs Michael McCaul, a Republican minority MP, denounced the "brutality" of China. The Congress also approved a measure that would ban the sale of tear gas, rubber bullets and other equipment to the Hong Kong police to suppress demonstrations: unanimously in the Senate and by 417 votes out of 435 parliamentarians, and no vote against. "I urge the president to sign this decisive law as soon as possible," Republican Senator Marco Rubio, one of the biggest advocates of the text, wrote.

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The goal of the United States is "to support extremists and anti-Chinese elements who are trying to wreak havoc in Hong Kong," said in a statement on Tuesday the spokesman of Chinese diplomacy, Geng Shuang. Beijing on Wednesday also summoned Chargé d'Affaires ad interim of the US Embassy, ​​William Klein, for "a solemn protest" and "rise" against this text. Hong Kong is bound to Washington by a special economic status that allows the territory to be exempted from the restrictions applying to mainland China. In particular, the text makes the maintenance of this special status conditional on the State Department approving annually a situation deemed appropriate for the respect of rights by the Hong Kong authorities.