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US-China relations
China

US House panel on China vows to hold Beijing, Hong Kong accountable for targeting activists abroad

  • Hearing featuring testimony of alleged victims of transnational repression comes hours before announcement of new HK$1 million bounties
  • Informal targeting ‘carried out organically’ by Chinese Communist Party supporters, says US-based law student who protested against Beijing

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Witnesses testifying at the US House select committee’s hearing in Washington on Wednesday (from left): Sophie Richardson, a human rights expert; Jinrui Zhang, a Georgetown University law student; and Anna Kwok of Hong Kong Democracy Council. Photo: House Select Committee on China
Bochen Hanin Washington
Members of the US House select committee on China pledged in its final hearing this year to do all they could to hold Beijing accountable for any cross-border targeting of activists, hours before the Hong Kong government announced HK$1 million (US$128,000) bounties on five more opposition figures.
“We will do everything in our power to hold the [Chinese Communist Party] accountable when it violates human rights and silences speech here in America,” said Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the bipartisan panel.

Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and the committee’s chair, said: “We lose nothing by putting human rights at the forefront of our agenda.”

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The hearing, titled “CCP transnational repression: the Party’s effort to silence and coerce critics overseas”, sought to feature first-hand testimony from alleged victims and generate ideas for legislative action.

Supporters and critics of Chinese President Xi Jinping converge outside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco on Nov. 15. A congressional commission has asked the US Justice Department to investigate the role of the Chinese government after anti-Beijing protesters claimed they were beaten and harassed. Photo: AP
Supporters and critics of Chinese President Xi Jinping converge outside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco on Nov. 15. A congressional commission has asked the US Justice Department to investigate the role of the Chinese government after anti-Beijing protesters claimed they were beaten and harassed. Photo: AP

Wednesday’s witnesses included Anna Kwok of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council; Jinrui Zhang, a Georgetown University law student; and Sophie Richardson, a former China director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

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