British Lawmakers Demand Sanctions on Hong Kong Leader Carrie Lam
LONDON
- British lawmakers are asking that so-called "Magnitsky-style” sanctions
be used against Chinese officials, including Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief
executive, in response to Beijing’s recent imposition of a security law on Hong
Kong.
Western
nations are ratcheting up their response to the new security
law, which severely limits the right to protest and criticize
the Chinese government. The law punishes acts of secession,
subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with the threat of
life in prison.
Britain, the United States and their allies are testing their leverage against China, a measure of global power as tensions rise between East and West.
Former
Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith is among several lawmakers
calling on the British government to take a tougher line on officials in
Beijing and Hong Kong.
"Carrie
Lam, as I understand it, whose family have British
passports — it needs to be made very clear to her that
the action she has taken in line with the Chinese government make it very
difficult for us to deal with her. And now, what we need to do is to
teach her that this is a very, very bad decision,” Duncan Smith told VOA in a
Skype interview July 10.
Duncan Smith has recently convened the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a multinational group of lawmakers, to scrutinize China’s global influence.
Opposition Labor MP
Chris Bryant echoed those calls in Parliament on July 7.
"I
strongly urge the foreign secretary to look at another clause, which would
include the repression of democracy and those rights of assembly and freedom of
speech, and therefore look very carefully at Opposition Labor MP
Chris Bryant echoed those calls in Parliament on July 7.
"I
strongly urge the foreign secretary to look at another clause, which would
include the repression of democracy and those rights of assembly and freedom of
speech, and therefore look very carefully at whether Carrie Lam shouldn't
be on the list,” Bryant told the MPs.
whether Carrie Lam shouldn't be on the list,” Bryant told the MPs.
Britain
signed an international treaty with China when it handed over the territory in
1997, purportedly guaranteeing Hong Kong’s political freedoms
for 50 years. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China’s
new law breaks that agreement.
"Beijing
said that for 50 years, they'd give the people of Hong Kong ‘a high degree
of autonomy.’ And you all have seen what's happened after only 23
years — empty promises made to the people of Hong Kong and to the
world,” Pompeo said at a news conference in Washington last week.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and announced visa extensions for Hong Kong passport holders in Australia.
"For
skilled and graduate visa holders, we'll be extending visas by five years from
today, with a pathway to permanent residency at the end of those five years,”
Morrison told reporters July 7.
The
Australian move mirrors Britain’s citizenship offer for its overseas passport
holders in Hong Kong. Duncan Smith said China should be confronted on
multiple other issues.
"The
Uighur population and forced sterilization and incarceration. You’ve got
the problem with Hong Kong stripping away the rights of people to protest and
to comment, which is astonishing, really. Their threats around
Taiwan. Their control of the South China Sea — even though the
U.N. tells them to get out. Their border clashes with India, and
their complete disregard for anybody in China who disagrees with them,” he
said, enumerating the issues.
Last
week, the United States sanctioned three Chinese officials over their
alleged involvement in the persecution of Uighurs in Xinjiang
province.
China has reacted angrily and said other countries should not interfere in what it calls "internal affairs."
Relations
between Beijing and the West appear destined to deteriorate further,
said China professor Steve Tsang of the School of Oriental and
African Studies at the University of London.
"In
Beijing’s perspective, (President) Xi Jinping cannot be wrong. Xi Jinping can
never admit he makes mistakes. And therefore, it’s very unlikely that
China will revise its policy towards either Hong Kong, or for that matter the
U.K.,” Tsang told VOA.
VOA.
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