US Should Sanction the CCP to Support Hongkongers

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The Chinese regime on May 28 passed a draft resolution on a national security law for Hong Kong, leading the United States to consider revoking Hong Kong’s preferential trading status and sanctioning China. Experts believe that imposing tough sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials involved in human rights abuses in the city can have a deterrent effect.

The so-called “national security law” would ban acts and activities in connection to secession, subversion, and terrorism, as well as activities related to foreign interference. Moreover, Beijing’s security agencies would be allowed to set up operations in Hong Kong.

White House National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien warned on May 24 that Washington will likely sanction the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) if it pushes through the Hong Kong National Security Law, making Hong Kong lose its special status.

Randall Schriver, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense, said: “The real challenge is one of the tools that the United States can use in response to that because a lot of what is available including what’s available on the Hong Kong Policy Act really punishes the people of Hong Kong when you really want the hostile position to hit the CCP and Beijing.”

Schriver stated recently that if the special trade status of Hong Kong is removed, it will hurt the interests of the Hong Kong people and American companies in the city. How to sanction the CCP in a targeted manner is the focus of discussions within the U.S. government.

Yang Jianli, the founder of Citizen Power, said that the United States received unanimous support from Hongkongers when the Trump administration passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last year. Hongkongers are willing to make sacrifices to preserve their freedom.

Yang Jianli, President of Citizen Power, said: “For Hong Kong people, they may also suffer certain economic difficulties. But Hong Kong people have made a decision that they are willing to make such sacrifices to stop the Chinese government from continually undermining freedom in Hong Kong, which will eventually turn Hong Kong into another Shanghai.”

Yang said that the pandemic and U.S.-China relations have undermined Hong Kong’s status as a financial, trade, and investment center, but the impact of sanctions on Hong Kong people has weakened. In addition, based on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the United States can specifically target Chinese and Hong Kong officials and hold them responsible for violations of human rights in Hong Kong.

Yang Jianli, President of Citizen Power, said: “This kind of punishment on individual officials will have a certain deterrent effect. If Beijing gets its own way, then the United States will definitely come up with a list of people to be punished before the end of the year.”

Now, the United States is closely following the CCP ’s actions against Hong Kong​ during the “Two Sessions”—​an annual meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature, National People Congress (NPC), and its advisory body to enact policies and agendas.

Experts believe the United States has the upper hand in terms of sanctioning the CCP.