US may sanction banks doing business with those linked to Hong Kong crackdown
- Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong chief executive, is one of nine people named in the US State Department’s report to Congress
- The 10 ‘contributed to the failure of the government of China to meet its obligations under the Joint Declaration or the Basic Law’
Financial institutions doing business with those deemed responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy may face sanctions, the US government said on Wednesday.
The US State Department submitted a report to Congress “identifying foreign persons that the secretary of state, in consultation with the secretary of the Treasury, determined are materially contributing to, have materially contributed to, or attempt to materially contribute to the failure of the government of China to meet its obligations under the Joint Declaration or the Basic Law,” the US Treasury Department said.
Hong Kong Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah and the city’s commissioner of police, Chris Tang Ping-keung, were also identified. Stephen Lo, commissioner of the Hong Kong Police Force until 2019, was the only person included in the previous sanctions list not to be among those named in Wednesday’s report to Congress. No reason was given for his exclusion.
02:09
Trump signs Hong Kong Autonomy Act, ends city’s preferential trade status over national security law
“The Treasury Department will only identify FFIs that knowingly conduct a significant transaction with a foreign person identified” to have undermined Hong Kong’s freedoms, it said, adding that, under the HKAA, the report on foreign financial institutions violating the law will be completed within 60 days.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong is the agreement under which the two governments agreed China would reassume control of Hong Kong. The document, signed in 1984, guaranteed that Hong Kong would retain a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after the 1997 handover of the former British colony to China.