US, UN officials to attend Hong Kong forum on Sino-US ties in November hosted by Tung Chee-hwa’s foundation

Officials from both the US and the United Nations will attend a forum on Sino-US ties in Hong Kong next month hosted by a foundation established by the city’s first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) on Sunday said the Hong Kong Forum on US-China Relations would take place on November 9 and 10 at the St. Regis Hong Kong.

Tung, who served as the city’s first chief executive from 1997 to 2005, founded CUSEF in 2008 with the aim of helping both countries recognise and develop areas of common interest.

This year’s event will be held offline for the first time since July 2019. The 2020 iteration did not go ahead due to pandemic restrictions, and the forum was conducted online in the following two years.

Speakers include former US ambassador to China and ex-senator Max Baucus, former US Trade Negotiator Charlene Barshefsky and President of the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft.

James Chau, president of the foundation, said the forum was an opportunity to “renew global commitments at a global point of reckoning”.

“Forty-five years after they changed the world by normalising diplomatic ties, the US and China have a relationship of global consequences,” Chau said.

“But today, fear and suspicion are rapidly replacing trust and goodwill and slowing down progress for the world’s 8 billion people. We need to change that.”

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Chau’s comments come at a time when relations between both countries are increasingly under the political microscope.

Sino-US tensions escalated in August last year when then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. Tensions flared again a year later after Taiwanese Vice-President William Lai travelled to New York and San Francisco on his way to and from Paraguay.

Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu in July appealed to the US to stick to the established rules to invite leaders to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, after it was reported that Washington had decided to ban him.

Lee was one of several officials sanctioned by the US in 2020 after being accused of curtailing the political rights of Hongkongers.

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During the One Young World Summit in Belfast, which was held from October 3 to 5 and attended by Chau, several speakers called on the US and China to create a visionary “partnership for peace” through joint action on climate change and public health.

Asked how the two countries could build trust, one of the speakers, Professor Thuli Madonsela from the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, said they should be willing to collaborate.

“During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the economy was dying, and people were starving,” the law professor said. “At the end of the day, what do we value the most? We all value peace and we all value justice, but we also need to place pragmatism and shared humanity at the center of our global engagement.”

CUSEF in June brought the first US college delegation to Hong Kong and mainland China since both areas closed their borders during the Covid-19 pandemic.