The announcement follows the United States’ annual review (representative) of Hong Kong’s autonomy
Washington:
Days after the new national security law came into effect, the United States announced on Friday that it would “take steps” to impose new visa restrictions on Hong Kong officials responsible for a crackdown on rights activists in the city.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that over the past year, Beijing “continued to take actions against Hong Kong’s promised high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and rights and freedoms.”
He said the crackdown included the recently passed “Article 23,” a national security law that targets crimes such as treason, rebellion, espionage, and theft of state secrets.
In response to “increased repression” and restrictions on “civil society, media and dissident voices,” the U.S. State Department “is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on multiple Hong Kong officials,” the statement added.
Blinken did not elaborate on the visa measures that would be taken or which officials would be targeted.
His announcement follows Washington’s annual review of Hong Kong’s autonomy, a status promised by Beijing when Britain handed the city over in 1997.
“This year, I demonstrated once again that Hong Kong does not enjoy the same treatment under U.S. law that applied to Hong Kong before July 1, 1997,” Blinken said.
Washington has previously imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on Hong Kong officials, accusing them of eroding the rights and freedoms that distinguish Hong Kong from the rest of China.
In 2020, the United States also revoked the financial hub’s special trade status in response to the suppression of massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong “strongly condemned” Washington’s latest move, saying it was discrediting the new national security law and interfering in China’s internal affairs.
A spokesman for the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the annual review of Hong Kong’s autonomy was “a farce that no one buys… and should be consigned to the dustbin of history”.
In 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong to quell protests.
Section 23, which came into effect last week, is an additional homegrown national security law that officials say is needed to plug security holes.
Separately, on Friday, Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-funded news organization, said it had closed its Hong Kong office after the new law was enacted, citing concerns about the safety of its staff.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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