U.S. Capitol, January 15, 2021.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan resolution on Friday (Feb. 19) condemning the Chinese Communist government and the Hong Kong government for their violations of human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.
Lead sponsors of the Hong Kong resolution include House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Greg Meeks (D-CA) and the panel’s ranking Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).
Specifically, the resolution introduced Friday encourages the administration of President Joe Biden to work with other countries to hold the Chinese government accountable through multilateral forums and to ensure that U.S. companies are aware of the risks that the Communist Party’s version of national security law poses to U.S. Security, citizens and long-term business interests.
The resolution does not contain specific sanctions and amounts to an opinion on behalf of Congress.
The U.S. Congress has recently been increasingly calling on the Biden Administration to urge China’s Communist Party leaders to respect human rights, and Friday’s resolution is one of them.
Representatives reintroduced a cross-bipartisan bill Thursday (18) that would ban imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless it is proven they are not produced by forced labor, while allowing the U.S. government to impose further sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials who mistreat Uighurs in Xinjiang.
A national security law imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020 by the Communist authorities is a blunt instrument for stifling Hong Kong dissidents, curbing media freedom, and limiting other freedoms. The “Hong Kong version of the National Security Law” calls for stricter regulation and oversight of the media.
When sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred to China in 1997, the Chinese Communist authorities promised that Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms would remain unchanged under the transfer of sovereignty agreement.
But since the introduction of the “Hong Kong version of the National Security Law,” many prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and politicians have been arrested, even songs and slogans have been banned, and any school activities that might be considered political have been ordered to stop.
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