CE Says She Hopes US Will 'come Back To Normalcy'

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Friday that whoever wins the US presidential election must put a stop to the country's "unreasonable" and "unjustified" interference in Hong Kong affairs.

Lam told reporters in Beijing that the election had not come up for discussion in her talks with mainland leaders this week, and she did not want to get herself involved in US politics.

But she said every country should respect the jurisdiction of other countries and territories, and she would appeal to the winner of the presidential race not to meddle in the SAR's business.

"For the past year or so, the American administration and officials have been repeatedly interfering with internal affairs of the People's Republic of China and the internal affairs of Hong Kong. That is totally unreasonable and cannot be justified in international relationships," she said.

"Worse still, they have chosen to unilaterally suspend some bilateral agreements, and they have unreasonably imposed sanctions on government officials, including myself. So I hope that they will come back to normalcy and accept that the relationship has to be built on mutual respect and cooperation."

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump declared that Hong Kong was no longer sufficiently autonomous from the mainland to justify the special status the US afforded the SAR.

In July, he signed an executive order revoking the preferential treatment, linking his move to the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing.

Lam and 10 other Hong Kong and mainland officials were subsequently hit with US sanctions over their roles in the implementation of the new security legislation.