With the predictable remorselessness of a bad Hollywood movie script, Washington's "game plan" to destroy the prosperity of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and attempt to use it to wreck the stability and prosperity of China itself continues to grind along, though its clichés and lies are becoming increasingly more obvious to the entire world.

Although the riots continued in the SAR for more than five months, the rioters had been losing support after their main complaint－amendment to the extradition law－was addressed.

This of course did not end the protests but only exacerbated them. Demands of the protesters became ever more amorphous and sweeping. But the extremely patient resolution of the police and security forces continues to maintain law and order.

Part of attempt to topple stable governments

What is clear is that the protests and the orchestrated political and economic support for them from Western governments, most especially the United States and the United Kingdom, have been following exactly the same pattern as the drumbeat of support for the "color revolutions" across Eurasia: They are all pretexts to topple stable governments and instead set up sycophantic US puppet regimes dedicated to scrapping social safety nets and impoverishing entire populations around the world.

Most recently, having been successfully applied to seize control of the largest democratic nation in the Western Hemisphere, the same formula was used to topple Edo Morales, president and successful leader of the indigenous people of Bolivia after he won four consecutive free and fair elections in the past 14 years.

Therefore, the US and the UK should not see Sunday's District Council elections in Hong Kong as a triumph, but a shattering and humiliating defeat.

Washington fanning the flames of riots

The reason Hong Kong was targeted for destabilization in the name of democracy and human rights is very clear: Having been a British "colony" for a century and a half until 1997, it still has British and US influence－from major economic structures to intelligence networks－which can be easily turned into the business of fanning the flames of riots.

This is no secret, yet it has been celebrated in American and British popular novels and movies including most strikingly in The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carre, in which the secret oath to penetrate China for the British and US secret services ran through Hong Kong thanks to the novel's hero, spymaster George Smiley. And Smiley was no myth, Le Carre modeled him on the very real MI6 or Secret Intelligence Service chief Maurice Oldfield.

On Nov 20, the US Congress, in its usual witless knee-jerk reaction to the electric shock stimuli routinely used to galvanize members, passed two measures targeting the territory and economy of Hong Kong for economic sanctions. On Wednesday US President Donald Trump signed into law two congressional legislation despite strong opposition from China.

Rioters used as puppets by their Western masters

This action alone should serve as a wake-up call to the remaining radical demonstrators on the streets of Hong Kong as what they really mean to the "masters in the West". They are puppets, drones, cannon fodder to be raised and then discarded at the most convenient opportunity.

But for now they are still a valuable resource. They serve as an excuse first to target the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, whose continued success and growth under Chinese rule has been a humiliation and source of rage to British and American policymakers and ideologues for 22 years.

The pundits from the West have been predicting or warning of sinister crackdowns, economic depression, stagnation and a "new dark age" for the people of Hong Kong.

Exactly the opposite has happened. Until the current protests erupted in June this year, the prospects for the SAR had never been brighter. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-gnor started a farsighted program long ago to integrate Hong Kong into the Belt and Road Initiative. Visions of growth and prosperity in a peaceful, global framework beckoned－and they still do.

SAR's success anathema to some in West

But such a future is anathema to some Western countries still suffering from a Cold War mentality. They are also alarmed that the US president might actually prove serious about peacefully resolving the trade conflicts he has triggered with China. And that is something the vested interests in the West don't want to happen.

Therefore, the riots had to be provoked, and a global climate of condemnation against the central and Hong Kong governments manufactured. And when both failed, then that old standby－US economic sanctions－h(huán)ad to be brought into play.

In terms of damage to China's overall economy, the effects of the so-called sanctions will be peripheral. The US needs China's industrial output vastly more than China needs US high-tech products and parts. China long ago passed the critical mass of exceeding the US economy as the biggest source of industry and resources for global foreign direct investment.

End of riots will prevent firms from leaving HK

Unfortunately, the real victims of the US Congress will be the people of Hong Kong.

Inevitably, foreign direct investment and major business organizations that have flourished in Hong Kong will quietly relocate to Shanghai, or elsewhere in China. The danger of this happening has been reduced now that the street protests have stopped. But if they resume, and especially if their orchestrators succeed in compensating for the loss of popular support by manipulating outbreaks of violence, then Hong Kong will lose its primacy in East Asia and leadership in business and entrepreneurial resources which it has boasted for so long.

Hong Kong's true friends are the leaders who have demonstrated great responsibility and with restraint run and protected its affairs both locally and in Beijing.

Hong Kong's enemies are the armchair heroes of the US Congress－eager as always to inflict misery and suffering halfway round the globe so long as they can look in a mirror and deceive themselves into believing they are "brave and wise". For Hong Kong residents, the choice of whom to follow and whom to reject should be very clear.