Chinese leaders accuse Washington of meddling in Hong Kong, more
The US bill imposing mandatory sanctions on Chinese individuals and entities who “materially contribute to the contravention of China’s obligations” to Hong Kong’s autonomy – and banks that do “significant transactions” with them – was passed unanimously by the Senate on Thursday, with the House of Representatives working on its own version; the final bill gets passed to President Trump, who either signs it or vetoes it – in which case it has a veto-proof majority anyway.
This, as Rabobank’s Michael Every wrote, is the constitutional dynamic that has been described several times in the last 12 months for China-focused bills with serious consequences for not just international relations, but international business and finance.
“So far the results have not hit markets: but this bill cuts out the middleman and takes us straight to the biting sanctions”, Every concluded.
But while we await the sanctions to kick in, moments ago we learned once again that China is hardly impressed by the latest developments, and in “quietly delivering a message” to Washington, Chinese leaders have “accused Washington of meddling in areas such as Hong Kong, where China is imposing a sweeping national-security law, and Taiwan.”
According to a report in the journal, during a meeting between Mike Pompeo and China’s top diplomat last week in Hawaii, Yang Jiechi listed these actions as well as China’s “strong dissatisfaction” with a bill President Trump signed last week mandating sanctions against Chinese officials and entities deemed responsible for mass detention of Uighur Muslim in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.
