Washington on Friday said it would impose new visa restrictions on a number of Hong Kong officials over the crackdown on rights and freedoms in the territory, including a new national security law, which has prompted Radio Free Asia to close its Hong Kong bureau.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that in the past year China has continued to take actions against Hong Kong’s promised high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and rights and freedoms, including with the recent enactment of a new national security law known as Article 23.
“In response, the [US] Department of State is announcing that it is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on multiple Hong Kong officials responsible for the intensifying crackdown on rights and freedoms,” Blinken said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
The statement did not identify the officials who would be targeted.
The US Hong Kong Policy Act requires the department to report each year to the US Congress on conditions in Hong Kong.
“This year, I have again certified that Hong Kong does not warrant treatment under US laws in the same manner as the laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1, 1997,” Blinken said, referring to when Hong Kong was handed back to China by Britain.
“This year’s report catalogs the intensifying repression and ongoing crackdown by PRC and Hong Kong authorities on civil society, media and dissenting voices, including through the issuance of bounties and arrest warrants for more than a dozen pro-democracy activists living outside Hong Kong,” Blinken said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
The Commissioner’s Office of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong said the report and statements issued by Blinken “confused right and wrong” and “stigmatized” Hong Kong’s national security law and the territory’s electoral system.
The threat to sanction Hong Kong officials “grossly interferes” in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs, a spokesperson said in a statement issued yesterday.
Meanwhile, the president of US-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Friday said that its Hong Kong bureau has been closed because of safety concerns.
Bay Fang, the president of RFA, said in a statement that it will no longer have full-time staff in Hong Kong, although it would retain its official media registration.
“Actions by Hong Kong authorities, including referring to RFA as a ‘foreign force,’ raise serious questions about our ability to operate in safety with the enactment of Article 23,” Fang said.
US Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed concern over RFA’s shutdown and said Article 23 “undermines media freedom and the public’s ability to obtain fact-based information.”
Cedric Alviani, the Asia-Pacific bureau director for Reporters Without Borders, called the broadcaster’s withdrawal “a consequence of the chilling effect applied on media outlets” by the new security law.
“We urge democracies to build up pressure on Chinese authorities so that press freedom is fully restored in the territory,” Alviani said.
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