US targets more Chinese government officials with sanctions over Hong Kong crackdown
- Four more people targeted under Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Beijing over city’s national security law
The US government has issued fresh sanctions on four government officials deemed responsible for a crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists, expanding a list that has also targeted the city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in response to a national security law imposed there by Beijing.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong-based officials continue to dismantle the promised autonomy and freedoms of Hong Kong through politically motivated arrests,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday. The latest sanctions are “in connection with implementing the PRC-imposed National Security Law and threatening the peace, security, and autonomy of Hong Kong”.
The latest sanctions name Edwina Lau Chi-wai, who heads Hong Kong’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security, which is tasked with formulating national security policies; Li Jiangzhou, a deputy director of China’s Office for Safeguarding National Security; and Hong Kong Police Force senior superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah.
02:02
US sanctions over national security law an ‘inconvenience’, says Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam
Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, a cabinet-level body in Beijing’s government that serves as a liaison in Hong Kong, is also named. The office’s director, Luo Huining, was on a list of 10 other local and mainland Chinese officials, including Lam, issued by the US Treasury Department in August.
On November 1, Hong Kong police arrested seven opposition activists, including four lawmakers, on charges of contempt and interference with Legislative Council officers during a meeting in May that descended into shouting and scuffles.
The seven, including Democratic Party lawmakers Wu Chi-wai, Helena Wong Pik-wan and Andrew Wan Siu-kin, were accused of disrupting Legco’s House Committee meeting on May 8.
That meeting fell into chaos as 11 opposition lawmakers were thrown out by pro-establishment leader Starry Lee Wai-king, who took control of the committee to begin clearing a backlog of bills for review – a surprise move pan-democrats criticised as an abuse of power. She was later re-elected chairwoman of the committee.