This is the Tom Hartman program.

Welcome back, Tom Hartman here with you.

I have spent probably accumulatively several months in Hong Kong going all the way back to the

late 1970s.

It used to be one of my absolute favorite places on Earth.

It's an extraordinary city. it went through a major change at the

end of the 90s when it was handed back over to China in part but it was supposed to be

semi-autonomous this seems to be breaking down and Mike Pompeo has just

the New York Times reporting. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on

Wednesday that he told Congress that the State Department no longer considered

Hong Kong to have significant autonomy

under Chinese rule.

This is a huge story.

This could pre-Sage not just local crises in that part of the world,

but frankly, this looks to me like the beginning of the

classic Thucydides trap here.

I wanted to get somebody out

who really knows what they're talking about in this context.

Wilford Chan is on the line with us, a contributing writer with The Nation magazine.

He was a reporter in Hong Kong, covered the umbrella movement there for quite some time.

He's now based in New York.

Wilford, welcome to the program

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