What is the impact of recognizing such in 1B and is there any risk to doing so?
It's largely symbolic and sets up further action; China has basically gotten away with (and Hong Kong by extension) allowing foreign companies & organisations to operate in Hong Kong as if it's an separate entity- the system (set up after the handover) is clearly dead & this at least formally acknowledges it.
What would further actions entail?
It depends; the route for Atlasia in terms of future steps would most likely be financial- either around sanctions on individuals or restrictions on the role of companies in Hong Kong.
I expect a more likely impact would be around the
soft power element; with the private sector, the third (charity/NGO) sectors & the wider the parts of civil society etc.
A lot of big multinational companies were based in Hong Kong (such as HSBC) and basically hide (and continue to hide to an extend) behind the myth of 'one country- two systems' which lets them pretend that Hong-Kong exists in a different political space, or reality to mainland China.
This sets it up as a good starting point & basically in my view says 'the old system is dead'... without saying now what we're going to do next. EDIT: because that's in my view for another thread- I wanted this bill to codify the EO into law & have a formal resolution condemning the actions against Hong Kong.
