The Chinese national flag and the flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region fly above the Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, China, Aug 5, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

Given that making trouble for China seems to be what the US administration considers to be its raison d'être, it is little wonder that it should regard China's move to safeguard national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as manna from heaven in its efforts to smear, demonize and pressure China.

Why? Because by suggesting that China's planned national security legislation and enforcement mechanisms targeting an extremely small minority of criminals who have been intent on causing mayhem in the SAR will undermine Hong Kong people's freedoms, it can do what every US administration does best — meddle in the internal affairs of another country while claiming it has the moral high ground for doing so.

The SAR is an inalienable part of China and any suggestion that China does not have the right to protect its own territory from the threats of separatism, terrorism and anarchy, which have been evident in the SAR thanks to some radical zealots and their foreign backers, is complete and utter tosh.

The US administration, however, despite having a plethora of national security laws of its own, is trying to portray the move as something untoward.

In doing so, the US president bestowed upon himself the justification to declare on Friday that he had directed his administration to "begin" the process of eliminating the full range of agreements that had given Hong Kong a relationship with the US that the Chinese mainland lacked, including exemptions from controls on certain exports.

He also said the US State Department would begin warning US citizens of the threat of surveillance and arrest when visiting the city, presumably in an effort to scare US businesses out of Hong Kong.

But with more than 1,300 US companies having operations in Hong Kong, providing about 100,000 jobs in the US, that is like blasting a shotgun into its own foot.

Yet despite this, the US administration is still determined to use China's legislative move as an excuse to further attack China.

Although the US president claimed that the legislation was a "tragedy for the people of Hong Kong", what has been the tragedy for Hong Kong and its people has been the encouraging and enabling of the violence in the SAR.

Rather than the actions of China's central government, it is the US administration's move to eliminate policy exemptions that give Hong Kong special treatment that degrades the territory's freedoms, as it is intended to enable the US to dictate whether US and other foreign companies can do business in Hong Kong.