The Biden Administration is Failing Hong Kong

Here's why I'm frustrated, and why both Hongkongers and Americans should feel let down by the Administration's response to Hong Kong's Article 23 NSL

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Hong Kong’s rubber stamp Legislative Council votes—without opposition—to pass the repressive Article 23 NSL on March 19, 2024

Today, 24 US Hong Kong advocacy orgs released a statement calling out the Biden Administration for its astoundingly tepid response to Hong Kong's new Article 23 National Security Law. In this post, I'll explain a bit more from my own perspective why we're upset.

The joint statement released today by Hongkonger groups in the US

Last Friday, the US State Department announced its response to the Art. 23 NSL: a secret list of Hong Kong officials would be handed US visa bans. We don't know who is on the list, but it is almost certainly people who wouldn't visit the US anyway. In other words, it has no actual effect on the officials, the Hong Kong government, or Beijing.

Slapping US visa restrictions on officials with no actual interest in a US visa has zero deterrent effect in Hong Kong or Beijing. To the contrary, it signals to Beijing that the US government is uninterested in confronting Beijing's aggression against free societies in the region. That will certainly be noted by Beijing as it seeks to test the limits of what it can get away with geopolitically.

After the Hong Kong government imposed the Art. 23 NSL, DC-based Hong Kong advocacy orgs jointly wrote to Secretary Blinken and Secretary Yellen's offices requesting a meeting to discuss an appropriate response. This request was ignored.

What's particularly galling here is that someone within the Biden Administration explicitly decided NOT to issue blocking sanctions against Hong Kong officials responsible for the Art. 23 NSL (i.e., adding them to the Specially Designated Nationals list). After the 2020 NSL, the US issued blocking sanctions that severely restricted the targeted officials' ability to access global financial markets, travel, raise money, and even open a bank account. Additional blocking sanctions on those responsible for the even more repressive Art. 23 NSL should have been the bare minimum response, yet the Administration decided not to sanction even a single official.

It's surely no coincidence that it was announced two days ago that Secretaries Yellen and Blinken are planning to visit China, nor that President Biden spoke to Xi Jinping by phone on the same day. Presumably, the Administration is refusing to stand up for Hongkongers because they don't want to interrupt these ongoing friendly conversations with an authoritarian dictatorship that has no real interest in friendship with the democratic world. This approach is naive and dangerous.

President Biden’s announcement on Twitter of his call with Xi Jinping on April 2

So, suffice to say, I'm angry. A lot of us are. Many of us feel abandoned by an Administration that has claimed to lift the torch of human rights while in recent months appearing asleep at the switch on multiple human rights crises across the world (not just in Hong Kong).

Americans should expect better from their leaders. It's not too late for the Administration to change course and stand up for human rights and democracy in Hong Kong. But we're also calling on Congress to act where the Administration has failed. If you’re in the US, you can go to https://www.call4hk.us/campaigns/a23 and use our templates to contact your Congressional representatives calling for action. It takes 30 seconds.