Congress passes China sanctions over Hong Kong crackdown
WASHINGTON - The Senate passed a bill Thursday to impose sanctions on China over its ongoing crackdown on Hong Kong, where officials this week began imposing a sweeping national security law that allows Beijing to target political opponents in the once-autonomous city.
Senators approved the bill without objection after similar action Wednesday in the House - a sign of how widespread bipartisan anger is in Washington over China's hostile takeover of Hong Kong's judicial system.
"It's not only an effort to shield freedom-loving Hong Kongers from this continuing escalation of aggression," Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., who wrote the legislation with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on the Senate floor Thursday. "The bill is a larger signal to China. . . . It's a message that our patience has run out."
The legislation that now heads to President Donald Trump's desk mandates travel bans and asset freezes for individuals who work to facilitate implementation of China's new national security law for Hong Kong, as well as stiff penalties against financial institutions that do "significant" business with sanctioned people and entities.
The move follows an announcement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week that the United States would placing visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party officials considered responsible for the Hong Kong national security law.
While the sanctions in the legislation Congress passed Thursday would be mandatory, the president would designate which entities they should target.
Toomey and Van Hollen also acknowledged that the legislation is unlikely to force China to repeal the national security law at the center of Washington's objections. But they indicated that the threat of penalties could affect how China chooses to implement it.
"The danger with this [Chinese] law is that it's very broadly written," Van Hollen said. "They have a lot of discretion in how they move forward."
On Wednesday, the first day the new law's implementation, Hong Kong police arrested 370 people, including several protesters demonstrating against the clampdown. Under the new standard, Hong Kongers who are deemed guilty of "subversion" face a possible life sentence in prison - the same as political dissidents in mainland China.