US lawmakers ask Biden to explain Apec invitation to Hong Kong’s John Lee

Name: Hong Kong leader John Lee expected to be banned from next Apec summit by the US
Uploaded: 2023-11-07T01:59:48.000Z
Duration: 1 min 59 s
Description: Hong Kong leader John Lee expected to be banned from next Apec summit by the US

Republicans Mike Gallagher and Marco Rubio suggest that State Department pledge not to invite Lee may have been a ‘lie’

Joint letter goes on to say that Hong Kong financial secretary should also be blocked from the multilateral leaders summit

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Two of China’s most vocal critics in the US Congress are questioning whether Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu was invited to this month’s Apec summit, contrary to State Department assurances. Photo: Dickson Lee

Robert Delaney

Published: 9:59am, 7 Nov 2023Updated: 3:47pm, 7 Nov 2023

Two US lawmakers are demanding answers from President Joe Biden’s administration about the Hong Kong government’s claim that its chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, was invited to this month’s Apec summit in San Francisco.

Republicans Mike Gallagher, who represents Wisconsin and chairs the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken whether he would publicly deny that Lee received such an invitation.

In a joint letter to Blinken, they noted that “despite the State Department’s assurance” that Lee had not been invited, the Hong Kong government said on November 1 that its chief executive had “personally received” an invitation from the United States but was unable to attend for “scheduling reasons”.

“If true, this would mean that the State Department either deliberately lied to or misled Congress in July or later caved to the PRC demand, or both,” said the two lawmakers, who are among Congress’s most vocal critics of China’s government.

In June, Blinken’s department walked back a statement indicating that Lee would be invited to the Apec summit. That move followed then-deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman’s written response to members of the Foreign Relations Committee that the US would waive its entry restrictions on Lee.

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Hong Kong leader John Lee expected to be banned from next Apec summit by the US

The city’s former secretary of security has been under US sanctions since 2020 for his role in implementing what Washington has described as a “draconian” national security law imposed by Beijing. Lee was among 11 Hong Kong and mainland Chinese government officials to be sanctioned by the US over the law.