The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act on July 13. If passed by both the Senate and the House, the bill would go to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature. If the President of the United States approves the bill, the relevant diplomatic privileges currently enjoyed by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office would be revoked, and the three Hong Kong offices in the United States would need to be closed within six months.
The “HKETO Certification Act,” proposed by Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, and Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon, was unanimously passed by the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs at July 13 meeting. It will now go to the full Senate for a vote, and a similar version of the bill has also been introduced in the House of Representatives.
The bill requires the President of the United States, within 30 days of the bill taking effect, to certify whether the current privileges and diplomatic immunities of the three Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco should be extended. If the President of the United States considers that these diplomatic privileges can no longer be justified, the three Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices will have to cease operations within six months. If the President believes that the said offices should continue to enjoy these diplomatic rights, Congress also has the right to propose a veto resolution. The resolution would force the executive branch to revoke the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices’ diplomatic privileges if passed.
The two lawmakers who proposed the motion issued a statement after the committee’s oral vote, pointing out that the series of privileges enjoyed by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in the United States is based on the fact that Hong Kong is not under the “authoritarian grip” of the CCP. But since the enforcement of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the United States can no longer recognize Hong Kong’s autonomy. The two lawmakers consider the “HKETOs in the United States now serve as another mouthpiece that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to obscure its long record of human rights abuses against Hongkongers and other groups that Beijing deems a threat.
Mr. Rubio criticized the CCP for continuing to destroy the fundamental freedoms of Hong Kong, and the city has now lost its autonomy and democracy. He urged the Senate to pass a bill as soon as possible to abolish the special privileges of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in the United States. Mr. Merkley added that the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in the United States have become the mouthpiece of the CCP, describing it as “the sad reality.”
