The US Senate, in a unanimous vote, passed legislation on Tuesday aimed at protecting human rights in Hong Kong amid China's crackdown on a pro-democracy protest movement that has gripped the vital financial centre for months.
- China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday criticized the U.S.after the Senate unanimously passed a bill supporting Hong Kong protesters.
- The “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” interferes in China’s domestic affairs, said foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, according to an online statement in Chinese.
- That bill now proceeds to the House, which already approved its own version of the bill in October.
The “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” interferes in China’s domestic affairs, said foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, according to an online statement in Chinese.
China “strongly condemns and resolutely opposes” the act of interference, Geng said hours after the bill was passed.
That bill now proceeds to the House, which already approved its own version of the bill in October. The two chambers of Congress have to work out differences between their bills before it can be sent to President Donald Trump.
The upper house of Congress also passed a separate bill banning certain munition exports to the Hong Kong police.
Hong Kong is a former British colony and returned to Chinese rule in 1997. As a special administrative region of China, the city operates under a “one country, two systems” structure, which grants its residents legal and economic freedoms that citizens in mainland China do not have.
China’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it has made stern representations to a U.S. embassy official in Beijing on Wednesday after the proposed legislation was passed in the Senate.
It said Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu summoned William Klein, the U.S. embassy’s minister counsellor for political affairs. Ma told Klein that Hong Kong’s affairs are the internal affairs of China, and demanded that the U.S. stop interfering.
“The ‘Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act’ and the other act on Hong Kong are unnecessary and unwarranted. They will also harm the relations and common interests between Hong Kong and the US,” a government spokesman said in a statement from the Hong Kong government.
“Since the return to the Motherland, the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) has been exercising ‘Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong’ and a high degree of autonomy in strict accordance with the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. The ‘one country, two systems’ principle has been fully and successfully implemented,” added the spokesman.
Under the Senate bill, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have to certify at least once a year that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to qualify for special US trading consideration that bolsters its status as a world financial centre. It also would provide sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations in Hong Kong.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said following the passage of the bill: "We have sent a message to President Xi: Your suppression of freedom, whether in Hong Kong, in northwest china or in anywhere else, will not stand. You cannot be a great leader — and you cannot be a great country — when you oppose freedom when you are so brutal to the people of Hong Kong, young and old, who are protesting.’
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