US lawmakers urge sanctions against Hong Kong officials behind Article 23 national security law
- Influential congressional figures also looking at expediting legislation to strip the city’s American-based trade offices of special privileges
- Existing statutes ‘overflowing with provisions empowering the administration to take action right now’, says co-chair of China-monitoring body
US lawmakers urged the White House to sanction Hong Kong officials responsible for passing the city’s new domestic national security law, hours after it came into force, while pledging to expedite legislation to strip the city’s American-based trade offices of special privileges. Separately, America’s top diplomat expressed “deep concern” over the new law’s “opaque provisions”.
“We need a whole new wave of sanctions coming from the [Biden] administration,” said Republican congressman Christopher Smith of New Jersey, co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), on Friday.
“We need new laws, no doubt about it. But we have existing statutes that are built overflowing with provisions empowering the administration to take action right now,” Smith said.