The US Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a bill to impose sanctions on businesses and individuals — including the police — that undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to Hong Kongers.
The bill targets Hong Kong police units that have cracked down on protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing strict national security legislation on the territory.
The measure would also impose sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.
The measure, sponsored by US senators Pat Toomey and Chris van Hollen, comes as tensions over Hong Kong have increased over the past year as China has cracked down on protesters and sought to exert more control over the former British territory.
“Today, the Senate stood up to the communist regime in Beijing and stood with the people of Hong Kong,” Toomey said. “The mandatory sanctions established in this bill will punish those in China who seek to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy or erode the basic freedoms promised” to Hong Kong residents under its “one country, two systems” principle.
Van Hollen said that the bill takes “meaningful action to hold China and its proxies to account for their ongoing efforts to extinguish liberty and democracy in Hong Kong.”
The legislation “sends a strong, bipartisan message that the United States stands with the people of Hong Kong,” he said.
Meanwhile, China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee is likely to vote on the national security legislation at a meeting starting tomorrow, a senior official said, even as a new poll showed that more than half of Hong Kongers oppose it.
The committee is “very likely” to pass the legislation before the scheduled conclusion of its session on Tuesday, said Maria Tam (譚惠珠), deputy director of the Committee for the Basic Law.
“Whether it would be ready before the meeting this weekend, we will only know when we arrive in Beijing, but it’s very likely it will be passed at this session,” Tam told Radio Television Hong Kong.
Fifty-six percent of Hong Kong residents oppose the planned legislation, according to a Reuters/Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute poll released yesterday.
The poll found that 34 percent of respondents supported the move, while 9 percent were uncertain.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from