Hong Kong authorities have condemned American lawmakers’ reintroduction of a bill urging sanctions on the city’s top officials, judges and prosecutors, calling the move “political grandstanding.”
Central Government Offices. Photo: Kelly Ho/HKFP.
In a statement on Saturday, the government responded to US Representatives Young Kim and Jim McGovern’s updated Hong Kong Sanctions Act.
The bill, published last week, asks US President Donald Trump to determine if the 48 people named have violated human rights, and whether sanctions should be imposed on them.
The latest bill adds four top officials who were hit with sanctions by Washington in August 2020: Chief Executive John Lee, Chief Secretary Eric Chan, Secretary for Security Chris Tang, and director of the central government’s liaison office Zheng Yanxiong.
It also includes other top officials such as Secretary for Justice Paul Lam; police chief Raymond Siu; Chief Justice Andrew Cheung; and national security judges Esther Toh, Amanda Woodcock, Victor So, and Peter Law.
Kim said in a Friday statement that the Beijing-imposed national security law was a façade used by the Chinese Communist Party to “promote authoritarianism and exert control in Hong Kong.”
“I refuse to let Beijing silence the voices of freedom-loving people,” Kim wrote. “The Hong Kong Sanctions Act demonstrates the United States’ commitment to uplifting the voices of Hong Kongers and holding officials accountable for human rights violations.”
American Representative Young Kim. Photo: Wikicommons.
In response, the Hong Kong government said the lawmakers behind the bill had “demonstrated typical political hegemony and hypocrisy with double standards.”
“The HKSAR Government strongly condemns their political grandstanding rife with ill intentions, which have been seen through by all,” the statement continued, adding that the national security law had helped boost the city’s economic competitiveness after the protests and unrest in 2019.
The new bill removes prosecutor Alice Chan, who was no longer in that role by the time the Hong Kong Sanctions Act was introduced in November 2023.
The government said it “usually does not comment on movement of individual officers,” but clarified “to set the record straight” that she had submitted her resignation in September that year.
Following Beijing’s imposition of the national security law, the US has implemented policies under which those in Hong Kong and China deemed to have infringed on human rights can be sanctioned. So far, 11 individuals have seen hit with sanctions, all of them imposed in August 2020.
The move blocked any assets that they may have in the US, meaning that while they still own their property, they must seek permission from a government agency if they wish to sell, transfer or take any action.
Then-chief executive Carrie Lam and then-justice chief Teresa Cheng were among those sanctioned. At the time, the government said the sanctions were “shameless and despicable.”
