Opinion | Hong Kong protests have dented EU-China ties, but the threat of global recession will prevent Europe from pressing Beijing further

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s exhortation that the crisis in Hong Kong should be resolved through peaceful means, and within the existing constitutional framework, provoked a sharp response from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during their meeting in Beijing last Friday.

Li warned the West not to interfere with the city’s (and so China’s) affairs. The anti-government protests gripping Hong Kong come as relations between Europe and China are already strained over everything from territorial disputes in the South China Sea to Beijing’s mass-internment policy in the western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, as well as trade and investment, and 5G technology.

The European Union, faced with a gloomy economic outlook, and therefore the need to boost trade with its second-largest trading partner, is terrified by the idea of dealing with a China that might suppress Hong Kong’s unrest in the same way it did the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Merkel’s tirade about Hong Kong adds to other European voices that have expressed concern about the authorities’ handling of the situation. Britain, the city’s former colonial master, has been loud and clear, for instance.

In a speech in the House of Commons on September 3, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country stood firm “in upholding Hong Kong’s way of life, guaranteed by one country, two systems”.