SEOUL – The United States punished 24 Chinese officials on Wednesday for undermining Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms, acting days before the first scheduled meeting of Chinese and American diplomats since President Biden took office.
In diplomatic terms, the timing of the action was timely and clearly intentional, continuing a difficult start in relations between the Biden government and China, after four tumultuous years under President Donald J. Trump.
The State Department announced that it would impose financial sanctions on a number of officials, including a Communist Party Politburo member, Wang Chen, for an issue that Beijing has repeatedly said is an internal policy issue. Previous sanctions imposed by the Trump administration had prevented the same employees from traveling to the United States and frozen their assets in the country.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who is visiting Japan and South Korea, said the move follows China’s latest effort to erode Hong Kong’s autonomy by rewriting Beijing’s electoral laws and forcing changes through its flexible Communist Party-controlled legislature.
“This action further undermines the high degree of autonomy promised to the people in Hong Kong and denies the inhabitants of Hong Kong a voice in their own governance,” said Blinken in a statement released at noon in Asia, referring to the reform. electoral.
He added that Britain declared election changes a violation of the agreement that restored the former British colony’s sovereignty to the Chinese in 1997. Blinken and other government officials sought to highlight how China’s recent behavior on various issues is not only worrying for the United States, but also for other countries.
At the start of a meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister on Wednesday, Blinken mentioned China at the same time as Myanmar, North Korea and other countries, where he said that ruling governments are threatening democracy and stability .
“China is using coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in Hong Kong, undermine democracy in Taiwan, abuse human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet and enforce maritime claims in the South China Sea that violate international law,” he said. Blinken to Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong.
Mr. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III began their joint visit to Tokyo, where he strongly rebuked China for what he called “destabilizing actions”, including efforts to threaten Japan over the uninhabited islands of Senkaku.
Separately, one of Biden’s senior advisers in Asia, Kurt M. Campbell, told The Sydney Morning Herald that there would be no improvement in relations between the United States and China until Beijing relented in its undeclared war of economic coercion against Australia .
These observations encouraged traditional American allies and sparked anger in China, which has repeatedly asked the United States to abandon the confrontational approach. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Blinken are expected to meet with top Chinese diplomats, Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, in Alaska from Thursday.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said on Wednesday that Hong Kong’s latest round of sanctions “fully exposed the sinister intentions of the United States to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
Earlier in the week, he accused the United States of a “zero-sum mentality” that was “doomed to end up in the dustbin of history”.
“Those who wear colored lenses can easily lose sight of the right direction, and those who are rooted in the Cold War mentality will do harm to others and to themselves,” said Zhao on Monday.
The United States has already imposed sanctions against Chinese authorities under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by Trump last year. Among other things, it authorizes the State Department to restrict designated employees from using American financial institutions.
Wang Chen, a veteran party leader who led the legislative changes adopted last week, is the highest Chinese official targeted so far. The Trump administration previously imposed sanctions on Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, the chief of police and the secretary of justice.
The final impact on Chinese behavior has so far been minimal, but the latest assignments have significantly expanded the number of targeted employees.
In all, the latest American sanctions would affect 14 vice presidents of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which recently concluded its annual meeting in Beijing, and officials from the National Security Division of the Hong Kong Police Force and the Office of Security Affairs. Hong Kong and the National Security Protection Office.
“The law does not require them to act at any specific time,” said Julian G. Ku, a law professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in New York. “They decided to give up before the meeting in Alaska. So this is yet another message that Biden’s team will not worry about offending China in public. “
Foreign supporters of the Hong Kong opposition said the sanctions show the Biden government’s willingness to confront China. Samuel Chu, the managing director of the Hong Kong-based Council for Democracy in Washington, said in a statement that they were a “timely and clear rebuke to the evils” of the Communist Party and the government in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, the pro-democracy camp has been quietly on the move. Dozens of its most prominent members are in custody and accused of subversion for organizing elections last year, which officials said was a violation of the new national security law. The law itself makes it illegal to ask for foreign sanctions, which means that any positive comments in support of the movement can be held responsible for crimes.
Steven Lee Myers and Lara Jakes reported from Seoul, and Austin Ramzy Hong Kong. Claire Fu contributed research.