China understands the great importance of Hong Kong in international trade, a former number two official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States has said, making his point that Beijing could not possibly allow a repeat of the Tiananmen Square crackdown to happen in the city.

It was in China’s best interest to have Hong Kong “like it was before,” according to Admiral William Owens, who served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. Department of Defense under president Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Owens, who has Hong Kong residency, said the city was a wonderful place as a hub of Asia and the world, and the Chinese, such as Vice Premier Liu He, definitely knew this.

“They certainly understand the great importance of Hong Kong in the international trade and monetary systems, and I couldn’t imagine they would do anything like the Tiananmen Square [incident] or an involvement that seems too much,” he said on Wednesday morning during an online breakfast event held by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong.

The city had always needed a form of “national-security-law-like” legislation, he said, but “it’s too bad it has to happen that way.”

“I would pray that a year from now, we will not see as many issues of China interfering in Hong Kong as much as the Western press want us to believe,” he said, expressing his wish for the safety and security of Hongkongers.

For years, Hong Kong put off the enactment of national security laws, after a protest march of half a million residents in 2003 forced the government to abort its legislative attempt. Beijing eventually passed the legislation on behalf of Hong Kong on June 30 this year, so the city is now in the early stage of implementing the law, which punishes acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces with penalties of up to life imprisonment.

At the FCC breakfast event, Owens said that what made Hong Kong really work were the freedom of press and the judicial systems inherited from the British colonial era.

American business communities were still optimistic about the city, he said. “It’s not Singapore, it’s a better place than Singapore, in my view.”

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