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Exclusive | China risks US reaction by intervening in Panama Canal ports sale, former senior diplomat says

Daniel Kritenbrink tells Post that Beijing should treat the transaction as a private deal, the first comment of its kind by a former top official

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Daniel Kritenbrink, former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Photo: Nathan Tsui
Kawala XieandWilliam Zheng
China risks further measures from the United States unless it treats a deal by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison to sell its Panama Canal ports to an American firm as a “private transaction”, a former US senior diplomat has told the Post.

In an exclusive interview on Thursday, Daniel Kritenbrink, former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said that if Beijing tried to intervene in the deal, it risked “further complicating” US-China relations.

Kritenbrink, a career diplomat who served under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is the first former US official to issue such a statement.

Hutchison, a leading port operator owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, has been caught up in the latest round of US-China tensions, with Trump previously claiming China “operates” the Panama Canal.

The company has agreed to sell its ports at either end of the waterway to a consortium led by US investment firm BlackRock in a deal worth US$23 billion.

Trump hailed the deal, saying Washington was “reclaiming” the canal, which he had previously vowed to take over.

But the agreement prompted a backlash. Beijing’s top offices overseeing Hong Kong affairs have reposted several articles by a pro-government newspaper criticising the move as harming national interests and bowing to “American hegemony”.
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