After Hong Kong democracy act passes, US lawmakers still have 150 other China-related bills to deliberate
- Among the pending congressional legislation is a measure addressing ‘security threats’ caused by Beijing’s mass internment of Uygurs
- Other subjects of bills targeting China include cybersecurity, the fentanyl trade, political influence operations, Taiwan and the South China Sea
The US Senate’s passage on Tuesday of legislation that warns Beijing against encroaching on Hong Kong’s autonomy has focused attention on whether US President Donald Trump will sign the final bill into law.
While the recent spotlight has been on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, there remain more than 150 other pending bills that aim to counter China on multiple fronts – from the economic to the ideological – that could wind up on Trump’s desk.
The glut of anti-China legislation underscores the enthusiasm for one of the few issues that the two US political parties agree on, and one that Republicans are willing to foist upon their leader, who has been trying to wrangle a trade agreement with Beijing for more than a year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump’s most important ally in Congress, helped give the Hong Kong bill – which had broad bipartisan support – the push it needed this week. Senator James Risch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and others had publicly called on McConnell to work with him and the bill’s sponsor, Senator Marco Rubio, to move it towards passage.
The Kentucky Republican joined as a cosponsor of the bill on Monday as Rubio and Risch pressed for its approval. McConnell then urged Trump “not to shy away from speaking out on Hong Kong himself”. Also on Monday, he criticised Beijing for the government’s mass internment of ethnic Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.