Trump signs order against China
President also rips Biden as abettor of Beijing’s ‘plunder’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed legislation and an executive order that he said will hold China accountable for its oppressive actions against the people of Hong Kong, then shifted his speech in the Rose Garden into a broadside against Democratic rival Joe Biden.
The legislation and order are part of the Trump administration’s offensive against China for what he calls unfair treatment by the rising Asian superpower, which hid details about the human-to-human transition of the coronavirus.
“So Joe Biden and President Obama freely allowed China to pillage our factories, plunder our communities and steal our most precious secrets,” Trump said, adding, “I’ve stopped it largely.”
Trump added: “As vice president, Biden was a leading advocate of the Paris Climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. It would have crushed American manufacturers while allowing China to pollute the atmosphere with impunity, yet one more gift from Biden to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The bipartisan legislation would penalize banks doing business with Chinese officials involved in the security law that the country is seeking to impose on Hong Kong.
The legislation would require the State Department to report to Congress every year about officials who seek to undermine the “one country, two systems” model that applies to the special administrative region. It also gives the president the power to seize the assets of and block entry to the U.S. for those individuals.
Under the legislation, banks are granted a yearlong grace period to stop doing business with entities and individuals the State Department determines to be “primary offenders” when it comes to undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy.
After that period, the Treasury Department can impose a variety of penalties on those institutions, including barring top executives from entering the U.S. and restricting the ability to engage in U.S. dollar-denominated transactions, according to Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who co-sponsored the legislation.
Lawmakers from both parties have urged Trump to take strong action in response to China’s new national security law that erodes the “one country, two systems” framework under which Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997. Hong Kong is considered a special administrative region within China and has its own governing and economic systems.
“This law gives my administration powerful new tools to hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedom,” Trump said. “Their freedom has been taken away. Their rights have been taken away, and with it goes Hong Kong in my opinion because it will no longer be able to compete with free markets. A lot of people will be leaving Hong Kong, I suspect.”
Also on Tuesday, China accused organizers of an unofficial primary in Hong Kong of violating the city’s new national security law, signaling that authorities may use the measure to prosecute or disqualify opposition figures ahead of upcoming legislative elections.
China’s top agency in Hong Kong denounced the event drawing more than 600,000 voters as “illegal” in a statement released late Monday, accusing organizers of receiving support of “foreign forces.” The Liaison Office specifically condemned organizer Benny Tai, saying his goal was “to seize the power of governance in Hong Kong and stage the Hong Kong version of a ‘color revolution.’”
The city’s pro-democracy bloc held the primary on Saturday and Sunday in an effort to winnow down their candidate list ahead of elections for the city’s Legislative Council in September. The unofficial vote was intended to overcome fractures in the opposition movement that have diluted their impact in previous elections and prevented them from winning a majority.
Tai didn’t immediately respond to a text message and a phone call for comment Tuesday.