The Hong Kong government’s Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui is visiting the United States this week, meeting US business and civil society group leaders as well as the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
We the undersigned twenty-one Hong Kong groups in the United States oppose Hui’s visit. With the exception of Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November 2023, Hui’s visit is the first to the US by a top Hong Kong government official since a systematic crackdown began in Hong Kong in 2019. As such, it sets an unfortunate and alarming precedent. Hui’s visit is an attempt by the authoritarian Hong Kong government to normalize relations, legitimize itself, and whitewash the ongoing crackdown.
For this reason, we call on federal, state and local authorities as well as other US groups and businesses to refrain from meeting Hui or any other Hong Kong government officials. US officials and others should not participate in, facilitate, enable or condone the Hong Kong government’s attempts to whitewash its crackdown.
Since massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, the crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its puppet Hong Kong government has caused a drastic deterioration in human rights:
The rights to freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association and political participation have been especially severely infringed.
Hong Kong has been transformed from a relatively liberal to an authoritarian society.
Nearly the whole political opposition has been imprisoned or gone into exile. Only candidates who are deemed “patriots” (loyal to the CCP) are allowed to run in elections.
Dozens of civil society organizations, including many of the largest and most influential, have been forced to close due to repression.
Major media outlets have been closed down and journalists arrested. Sedition laws are used to punish speech. In the most infamous case, five trade unionists were imprisoned for 19 months each for publishing an allegorical children’s book about sheep.
All protests are effectively banned, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly has been suspended indefinitely.
Hong Kong has had the most rapidly increasing population of political prisoners in the world over the past four years: as of today, it stands at 1,841.
In 2020, the CCP imposed a “national security law” on Hong Kong, and in March this year, the Hong Kong government enacted its own “national security law.” Rather than addressing any credible national security threats, they are used to crack down on the people of Hong Kong.
In 2023, the Hong Kong government issued arrest warrants and HK$1-million bounties for exiled Hong Kong activists including some who live in the US, an act which the US government has rightly denounced as transnational repression.
And yet, only weeks after the passage of that most recent national security law, Christopher Hui dares to show up in the US. American officials and citizens should send a message loud and clear that neither Hui nor any other official of the authoritarian Hong Kong government is welcome here as long as Hong Kong citizens continue be rounded up and imprisoned for merely expressing their democratic and political beliefs and the Hong Kong government hunts down Hong Kongers living in the US.
We call on the President to issue an executive order sanctioning CCP and Hong Kong officials responsible for the crackdown in Hong Kong; we call on Congress to pass the Hong Kong Sanctions Act (H.R. 6153/S.3177) and Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act (H.R. 1103/S. 490); and we call on the American people to stand against repression in Hong Kong and stand with Hong Kongers in our fight for freedom.
Signed,
Arizona for Hong Kong (AZ4HK)
Call4HK
Chicago Solidarity with Hong Kong (CSHK)
Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP
Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation
Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Democracy Council
Hong Kong Forum, Los Angeles
Hong Kong Social Action Movements in Boston
Hong Kongers in San Diego
Hong Kongers in San Francisco Bay Area
Lamp of Liberty
New Yorkers Supporting Hong Kong (NY4HK)
Northern California Hong Kong Club
Philly4HK
SEArious For HKG
Students for Hong Kong
Texans Supporting Hong Kong (TX4HK)
US Hongkongers Club
Washingtonians Supporting Hong Kong (DC4HK)
We The Hongkongers