US sanctions 14 more high-level Chinese officials over Hong Kong crackdown
DHARAMSALA, 8 Dec: The US has announced sanctions against 14 high-level Chinese officials for undermining democratic processes in Hong Kong.
“Beijing’s unrelenting assault against Hong Kong’s democratic processes has gutted its Legislative Council, rendering the body a rubber stamp devoid of meaningful opposition,” the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said in a statement after the State and Treasury department announced the sanction against 14 high-ranking members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.
The top US diplomat who called the Chinese Communist Party a “Marxist-Leninist monster” and added that the US is “not finished yet” when it comes to getting tough on China further called out China for violating the ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong.
“These actions demonstrate once again Beijing’s complete disregard for its international commitments under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a U.N.-registered treaty,” he said.
The officials at the receiving end of the US’ latest sanctions that freeze any assets they may have in US jurisdictions and bars them and their families from travelling to the United States include Wang Chen, Cao Jianming, Zhang Chunxian, Shen Yueyue, Ji Bingxuan, Arken Imirbaki, Wan Exiang, Chen Du, Wang Dongming, Padma Choling, Ding Zhongli, Hao Mingjin, Cai Dafeng, and Wu Weihua.
The US already imposed a round of sanctions on officials in China and Hong Kong as well as East Turkistan and Tibet over Human Rights violation.
The development came at the heel of the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court in Hong Kong pronouncing three prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activists; Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam to varying prison terms for organising an unauthorised protest outside police headquarters in Wan Chai last June.
The US-China relationship has been deteriorating at many fronts, with the ongoing trade war, China originated COVID-19 pandemic as well as China’s Human rights violations and the imposition of the controversial new security law in Hong Kong among others.
