Last week, the Chinese official media claimed that the arrested businessman Henry Li acted as a “middleman” to arrange for Hong Kong protest leaders such as Law Kwun Chung to meet with American dignitaries, which Law refuted as a smear campaign. Hong Kong’s independent English-language media, “Hong Kong Free Press” reported that the Hong Kong government has spent nearly 100 million Hong Kong dollars in recent years to hire a number of U.S. lobbying groups to arrange meetings with U.S. lawmakers. However, the U.S. Congress passed a number of bills related to Hong Kong.
“The HKFP found that a week before the vote on the Hong Kong Bill of Rights, on September 12, 2019, Hong Kong’s Commissioner General for Economic and Trade Affairs in the United States, Mr. David McDowell, arranged to meet with then-opposition Democratic California Congressman Alan Lowenthal, the former Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak’s Former Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak’s lobbying group Venable LLP acted as a “go-between”.
In the same week, Hong Kong protest leaders Wong Chi-fung, Ho Yun-sze and Cheung Kun-yang went to the United States to attend the hearing, and Bart Stupak sent three more emails to arrange lobbying for the Hong Kong government. Finally, on September 25, the motion was passed almost unanimously.
Bart Stupak then met on September 26 with Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who issued a statement strongly supporting the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. It is not known if McDavid attended the meeting. On the same day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the bill.
The above meetings were funded by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. McDowell is part of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Hong Kong Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. Under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, the lobbying expenditures and actions of foreign political organizations in the United States must be registered and made public, so the Hong Kong government’s lobbying activities are recorded and available online. Similar lobbying by foreign political organizations is normal and common in the United States.
In addition, in March this year, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council again for HK$ 2.8 million and another lobbying group BGR Government Affairs contract, “to promote Hong Kong’s independent economic and customs status. But last year, the former U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo, when he was in office, has indicated the abolition of Hong Kong’s special status.
The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau replied to “HKFP” that the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington has been taking the initiative to visit different channels, including intermediary groups and their own contacts, to refute the misunderstanding of Hong Kong.
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