Beijing accused the envoy of making “irresponsible talk” regarding the Article 23 bill.

“The United States has ignored its own stringent network of national security laws and severe related penalties while defending it as a secret,” a spokesman for the office said.

“However, they were pointing fingers and spreading gossip on Hong Kong’s constitutional duty to enact its national security law.”

‘Lai’s tabloid ran articles to promote US sanctions after Hong Kong Autonomy Act’

The agency also expressed its “strong disapproval and resolute opposition” to US politicians’ targeting of the bill, urging Washington “to halt its botched political performances”.

It slammed US politicians for “turning a blind eye” to their own country’s “deplorable record” of violating human rights and limiting free speech, while sparing no effort to “smear” others and call for sanctions against them.

“To the minority of people who threaten national security, this legislation is a sword hung high; to the majority of Hong Kong citizens and foreign investors, this law is a guardian protecting their rights, freedoms, property and investments,” it said.

Burns told Bloomberg News in an interview on Thursday that Washington had “serious concerns” about the proposed legislation.

“The concerns are about the right of people to dissent, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the [US] State Department’s been very clear about that concern that we have over the last several weeks,” the envoy said.

The chairs of the US Congress’s House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and monitory body the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called for sanctions against Hong Kong and for “additional steps” to be taken to protect the country’s businesses and interests.

The prospect of sanctions was raised in a letter addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and they would be the first to target Hong Kong since 2021 if they are approved.

Both US bodies also accused Hong Kong’s three economic and trade offices (HKETOs) in the country of becoming “propaganda arms” for Beijing.

They said they would seek to pass the “Transnational Repression Policy Act” and the “Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act”, empowering US authorities to close down the offices and strip them of “certain privileges, exemptions and immunities” if the city was deemed to have lost its high degree of autonomy.

“HKETOs have become propaganda arms of the [People’s Republic of China], obscuring the truth about increasing repression in Hong Kong, defending the permanent erosion of the rule of law and spreading PRC misinformation,” the bodies wrote.

The commission made similar calls in May last year.

Hong Kong’s Article 23 bill targets five new offences: treason; insurrection; theft of state secrets and espionage; sabotage endangering national security; and external interference.

Hong Kong hits out at fugitive Ted Hui after he calls for sanctions on officials

It has been fast-tracked at the Legislative Council after being gazetted last Friday. The bills committee scrutinised the original 181 clauses as well as the amendments in more than 40 hours of meetings spanning seven days.

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung, who was serving as police commissioner at the time, was also sanctioned by the US.

Commenting on the fresh call for sanctions, the security minister told reporters on Friday that Hongkongers would not be deceived by the “intimidation-style scam” by “anti-China politicians”, stressing that 98 per cent of the submissions in last month’s consultation was in support of the domestic national security legislation.

“I know many Americans living in Hong Kong, including businessmen,” he said. “They all know that the Article 23 legislation will only protect their safety. They also told me that living in Hong Kong is much safer than living in the US.”

The US also imposed sanctions on 24 Hong Kong and mainland officials following Beijing’s overhaul of the city’s electoral system in 2021.