Xia, the director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office under the State Council, said bullying had never worked on Chinese people, including those from Hong Kong.

Xia said that “let those peasants in the US wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilisation”.

“The Chinese people do not cause trouble, nor are they afraid of trouble.

“Pressure, threats and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China,” Xia said in a televised speech on Hong Kong’s National Security Education day.

The comments came after China hiked its levies on imports of US goods to 125%, hitting back at US President Donald Trump’s decision to single out the world’s No 2 economy for effectively raising tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%.

The US vice-president JD Vance said this month the US borrows and buys from “Chinese peasants”, remarks that drew condemnation in China.

Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, is subject to US tariffs imposed on China as it is no longer considered a separate trading entity by Washington amid a years-long crackdown under a sweeping national security law.

“Unlike the mainland, Hong Kong, as an international free trade hub, is not planning to impose any retaliatory tariffs on the US right now,” its leader John Lee said last week.

Beijing has dismissed the US president’s tariff strategy as a “joke.”