China Slams ‘Barbaric’ U.S. Measures Against Hong Kong

Date: 08 August 2020 - 23:40

News ID: ۸۱۵۰۳

HONG KONG (Dispatches) -- Beijing’s top representative office in Hong Kong said on Saturday that sanctions imposed by Washington on senior Hong Kong and Chinese officials were "clowning actions” that would not frighten or intimidate Chinese people.
Separately, the Hong Kong government said the sanctions were "shameless and despicable” and represented "blatant and barbaric” interference in China’s internal affairs. "We will not be intimidated,” a government spokesman said.
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on Luo Huining, the head of China’s Liaison Office, as well as Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and other current and former officials.
The move accelerates rapidly deteriorating Sino-U.S. ties, more than a month after Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on Hong Kong to confront foreign-instigated sedition.
"The unscrupulous intentions of the U.S. politicians to support the anti-China chaos in Hong Kong have been revealed, and their clowning actions are really ridiculous,” the Liaison Office said in a statement. "Intimidation and threats cannot frighten the Chinese people.”
Luo, the most senior mainland political official based in the Chinese-controlled territory, said U.S. sanctions on him indicated he was doing what he "should be doing for my country and Hong Kong”, according to the statement.
As well as Luo and Lam, the sanctions target Hong Kong police commissioner Chris Tang and his predecessor Stephen Lo; John Lee, Hong Kong’s secretary of security, and Teresa Cheng, the justice secretary. Xia Baolong, the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in Beijing, was also named.
Police chief Tang told local media on Saturday that maintaining the security of the country and Hong Kong was his responsibility, and foreign sanctions were meaningless.
The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets of the officials, prohibit them from carrying out business in the country and generally bar Americans from doing business with them. Lam has previously told local media she has no assets in the United States.
Hong Kong financial regulators moved to calm market fears on Saturday, as banks in the city grappled with the implications of the sanctions. The markets watchdog said it was not aware of any aspect of the sanctions that would affect how financial firms carry out their normal operations in the city.