Days after a new national security law went into effect, the United States declared on Friday that it was “taking steps” to impose additional visa restrictions on Hong Kong officials who are in charge of restricting rights in the Chinese city.
Beijing has “continued to take actions against Hong Kong’s promised high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and rights and freedoms,” according to a statement released by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
He claimed that part of this crackdown is the recent enactment of “Article 23,” a national security law that targets, among other things, treason, rebellion, espionage, and theft of state secrets.
The State Department “is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on multiple Hong Kong officials” in response to “intensifying repression” and limitations on “civil society, media, and dissenting voices,” the statement continued.
Blinken did not go into detail about the authorities to be targeted or the steps to be done in relation to visas.
Following Washington’s yearly assessment of Hong Kong’s autonomy—a status Beijing guaranteed when Britain turned over the city in 1997—he made his pronouncement.
“This year, I have again certified that Hong Kong does not warrant treatment under U.S. laws in the same manner as the laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1, 1997,” Blinken stated.
Washington has repeatedly accused Hong Kong officials of undermining the freedoms and rights that set the city apart from the rest of China and has imposed penalties and limitations on visas.
The financial hub’s special trade status was also revoked by the US in 2020 as a reaction to the large-scale, occasionally violent pro-democracy protests that took place in 2019.
The Hong Kong-based envoy of China’s foreign ministry “strongly condemned” Washington’s latest action, which it claimed was tarnishing the new security law and meddling in China’s domestic affairs.
“A farce that nobody was buying… and should be sent to history’s trash heap,” an official from the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said of the yearly assessment of Hong Kong’s autonomy.
To put an end to the demonstrations, Beijing enforced a broad national security ordinance on Hong Kong in 2020.
Another domestic national security regulation, known as Article 23, went into effect last week. According to officials, it was necessary to close security gaps.
Separately on Friday, the US government-funded news organization Radio Free Asia announced that, due to worries for the security of its employees, it has shuttered its Hong Kong office following the passage of the new law.
Leave a Reply