| Greetings, I'm Andy Browne, Editorial Director of the Bloomberg New Economy. Almost five years after protesters in Hong Kong fought and lost a battle for democratic freedoms, they've launched a new struggle to protect the territory's status and legal safeguards.  At last, bankers and brokers in the city are waking up to the threat that students, rights activists and lawyers have long perceived: A proposed law allowing extradition to mainland China risks exposing Hong Kong residents to the mainland's arbitrary justice, imperiling the city's status as a global financial center. At stake is Hong Kong's irreplaceable role as a go-between, a place where Chinese companies flock to raise international capital, and where the world can safely do deals with the mainland, secure in the knowledge they will be protected by courts and judges who aren't under Beijing's thumb. The rule of law is Hong Kong's last line of defense. It must be preserved -- and businesses should get behind the effort. One senior executive at a global investment bank in Hong Kong told Bloomberg that some professionals now question whether the city will remain a safe place to live and work. "We all have back-up plans in case of a dramatic change," the banker said. Singapore no doubt features in this kind of crisis planning: It is an attractive alternative for multinationals looking for a regional headquarters. Some families are already shipping out of Hong Kong. Tara Joseph, the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong,told CNBC that "the credibility of Hong Kong is now on the line." The U.S. has warned that passing the extradition bill could threaten Hong Kong's special trading status, which among other things gives it access to sensitive technologies denied to mainland China and exempts it from U.S. trade tariffs. Although many of Hong Kong's high-powered deal-makers still don't acknowledge this, their fortunes were very much linked to the unruly students and others who dragged barricades across roads leading to the soaring office towers of the Central business district during the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. Those demonstrators fought -- and some were later jailed -- in an effort to establish an administration rooted in the popular will, not Beijing's political desires. Their goal was true local autonomy as promised in the "One Country, Two Systems" formula established after the British relinquished their onetime colony in 1997. Theneed to defend that principle has become clearer to the business community now that the extradition law has raised the prospect of Chinese authorities reaching across the border to snatch Hong Kong residents, including foreigners, or even just travelers passing through the airport. In China, countless entrepreneurs have disappeared into detention amid President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive. It is not uncommon for business owners, even foreign nationals, to languish in custody for years on trumped up charges linked to commercial or political disputes. Two Canadian nationals -- one a businessman -- were picked up as apparent retaliation for the detention in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology giant, Huawei Technologies Co. They are still in prison. Chillingly, China's threatened "unreliable entities" blacklist -- a catalog of those who supposedly support U.S. moves to damage Chinese firms such as Huawei -- include both foreign companies and individuals. Hong Kong authorities insist that an impartial judiciary will safeguard the integrity of the extradition process, and that the territory's leader, currently Carrie Lam, will have the final say. But that's small comfort given that Lam was elected by a committee of Beijing loyalists -- precisely the cozy political arrangement that students in 2014 sought to head off. Today, as rubber bullets and tear gas canisters fired by police ricochet around Hong Kong's glitzy financial heart, it is not too late for businesses to join the resistance.
 This time around, young protesters are supported by large sections of the public -- a million or so citizens, one in seven of the population, joined a recent rally. Their voices should be amplified by those who derive their fortunes from Hong Kong's status as a rules-based entrepôt. Opposition from the business community may at least give authorities a good excuse to hold up -- perhaps indefinitely -- a hastily conceived piece of legislation that the city can easily do without. If chants and placards won't change minds in Beijing, perhaps some straight-talking by pin-striped bankers will. A New "Red Scare" The battle against cancer is global. Dedicated researchers around the world freely exchange data and ideas in search of therapies; the quest for cures transcends all other considerations, including national loyalties. This is why the case against Xifeng Wu, an award-winning epidemiologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, is so alarming. The story of how Wu was hounded out of her position due to her professional links with China, revealed by Bloomberg Businessweek's Peter Waldman, demonstrates how the Trump administration's obsession with the China threat is damaging the innovation networks that are tackling the world's biggest problems, including cancer. Alas, Trump's legitimate desire to protect U.S. intellectual property -- and defend against national security threats -- is morphing into a new Red Scare. Who's Winning the Trade War? In the short term, it seems, the U.S. is steamrolling China in the trade war.  Longer term, as many have noted, what China perceives as a U.S. effort to contain its rise is forcing the country to focus even more on technological self-reliance -- the exact opposite of what the Trump administration's tariffs and export controls are intended to achieve. Moreover, aggressive U.S. actions -- endangering the survival of Huawei, for instance, by denying the company key U.S. components and software -- is likely to encourage Beijing to seek security by establishing its own global institutions, rules and standards. That would be another own-goal for America. In reality, an open-ended trade war has no winners. Like Turning Points? Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access. You'll get our unmatched global news coverage and two premium daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close, and much, much more. See our limited-time introductory offer. Download the Bloomberg app: It's available for iOS and Android. | 
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