Besides sanctions, what other implications would this declaration realistically have?

Previously, Hong Kong had a status that let it trade with the US under terms very different from those mainland China is subject to.

Clear consequences have not, as near as I can tell, be spelled out yet. The gist is that US trade policy will stop privileging HK. US/HK trade seems to be something like $66 Billion a year, so this is potentially a major thing.

It's going to devastate the Swiss watch industry which is already in rough shape from COVID. Hong Kong WAS their No. 1 market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/fashion/watches-hong-kong...

But the Swiss arm industry probably made some good fortune during the protest by exporting equipment to HK police.

Not that I disagree with the act, but I love how politicians are trying to frame destroying Hong Kong's economy as supporting "Human Rights and Democracy."

In the post-nuclear world economic pressure is the only tool we have to deal with bad actors. It's why we sanction North Korea, Iran, and Russia.

It's a very bad tool for that particular job, as we discovered in Iraq -- it hurts the most vulnerable members of the society, and does very little to the elites making the policies we don't like.

In this case, sanctioning Hong Kong is part of sanctioning China, because it hinders technology transfer (eg to Huawei) and finance transfer (Hong Kong was previously not affected by trade tariffs on China, and has a huge stock market).

It remains to be seen if sanctioning China (partially) could bring about political change, as CCP is endorsed within China mostly for economic growth in the past three decades.

True.

But it's not the point; The intention is reduce the capabilities of the country as a global influence and generate internal state turmoil.

After decades of sanctioning Libya the united states finally got what it wanted by decapitating the state with violence; one wonders (global political dynamics aside) if for the unfortunate citizens of Libya, it would have just have been better to have gotten it over with earlier.

This will not really hurt the capabilities of China in the long term.

The CCP knows this and will gladly "rescue" Hong Kong from the "evil westerners" that screwed them over. Of course, Hong Kong will probably taken over by China eventually, so might as well make it very expensive for them.

This is what a lot of Hong Kong people advocated. By treating Hong Kong the same as China, it's hoped Chinese companies can no longer exploit Hong Kong's different system to export stuff cheaper than in China, especially when the economic warfare was going on before.

There is no longer an 'Hong Kong economy'. That is all.

Because that's exactly what it is? It is literally one of the main points that people in Hong Kong have been protesting for

If you think that the US is doing this for the protesters, I have a defense contract to sell you. This is in retaliation for China breaking international agreements.

> If you think that the US is doing this for the protesters

Is that really relevant?

I mean, HKers are getting screwed by a massively totalitarian and oppressive regime. Why is the interest of a third party relevant to the Chinese regime's devastation of Hong Kong?

... international agreements protecting democracy and freedom of expression in Hong Kong. The US isn’t doing this for protestors, and it will be terrible for HK, but it ultimately is because of China’s attack on HK freedoms

A thing can be for more than one reason at once.

Of course the US wouldn't have done this had it been against the US' interests.