WASHINGTON, DC (July 14, 2020) – Over the past months, HKDC has proposed and advocated several vital policies and executive actions to the Administration and Congress including sanctioning CCP and Hong Kong officials and banks, giving refugee and protective status to Hong Kongers and suspending the US-Hong Kong extradition treaty.

Today, in a Press Conference in the Rose Garden, President Trump signed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act into law. The new law toughens and broadens sanctions that are part of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, enacted last November. It would mandate sanctions for “repeated” offenders who have contributed to the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy, including banks that have conducted significant businesses and transactions with those individuals and entities. The President also signed an executive order revoking Hong Kong’s special status under the 1992 Hong Kong Policy Act, following up on the previous announcement just weeks ago.

Nearly 10,000 protesters have been arrested in Hong Kong since June 2019. Under the new National Security Law, everyday Hong Kongers have been arrested for merely shouting, displaying, or possessing articles that contain slogans deemed by the government to threaten national security.

For months, HKDC and bipartisan leaders in Congress have called on the President to take concrete actions. Today’s announcements by the Administration could not have come sooner for a city and people under siege – and we hope they are not too little, too late.

This weekend, more than 600,000 Hong Kongers waited in long lines, faced intimidation and harassment, and voted in the “Democrats 35+” Legislative Council primaries for pro-democracy candidates in Hong Kong – it is a clear sign that the people of Hong Kong have not given up on a free and democratic future.

More must be done to hold the CCP accountable – the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and the executive order revoking Hong Kong’s special status are important steps toward ensuring that the CCP, Hong Kong government and corporations, especially financial institutions, will not continue to profit off the gross violations and suppression by the CCP. HKDC will continue to advocate sanctions and stronger regulations of global and US-based companies who are choosing profit over human rights.

If the CCP will not honor its promise to Hong Kong, then China should not be able to profit through Hong Kong.

And if the CCP will not honor its promise to even its own Hong Kong people, then what reasons do we have to believe it will honor its agreements with the US and the rest of the world?

We hope today’s announcement will not be empty words and threats. HKDC look forward to more detailed plans from the administration. The people of Hong Kong need real actions. I urge Congress and the Administration to look into additional sanctions and regulations that would target China's economy and US-based businesses complicit in CCP's global aggression.

For so many of us, Hong Kongers overseas, we have lost our birthplace and homeland overnight. I could not return to Hong Kong today without risking arrest, secret trial, extradition, and a potential life sentence just because I have spoken out for Hong Kong’s future, the rule of law and freedoms.

Yet we will persevere - Hong Kong might not be a free city today, but we believe that it will be free again.”