My Take | The world’s biggest rogue state looks to sanction little Hong Kong

A sketch from the late 2000s British comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look became one of the internet’s most viral memes. In the skit, a Nazi officer suddenly realised the cause he had been fighting for might not be good after all. “Are we the baddies?” he asks in astonishment.

I wonder if US senators Dan Sullivan, Jeff Merkley and John Curtis or House representatives Young Kim and Jim McGovern have ever seen it.

It probably makes no difference, though. Your typical American politician doesn’t have any mental capacity remotely reaching this level of moral self-awareness. In fact, it’s probably a job requirement that they don’t, otherwise how could they advocate for all the iniquities and destruction their country has wrought around the world under the guise of defending democracy, freedom and human rights?

Whatever your view on the Hong Kong and mainland governments’ responses to the unprecedented anti-government riots across the city in 2019, they are hardly Washington’s business. Imagine if Beijing starts sanctioning US Supreme Court justices and top prosecutors at the Justice Department for their handling of the January 6, 2021 riots. Wouldn’t the average American be outraged and naturally ask, “How is it any business of the Chinese communists?”

These are the same US politicians who supported a bill that aimed to sanction Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and his most senior staff. But they were beaten to it by the Donald Trump White House, who levelled its own sanctions after a panel of ICC judges in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza.