China berates U.S. for new sanctions, Taiwan arms sale
BEIJING — China lashed out at the U.S. on Tuesday over new American sanctions against Chinese officials for their actions in Hong Kong, along with the sale of more U.S. military equipment to Taiwan, moves touching on two of the most sensitive issues in the increasingly contentious relationship between the nations.
The foreign ministry summoned Washington’s top diplomat in China to express “strong indignation and strong condemnation.”
The U.S. actions “seriously violated the basic norms of international relations, seriously interfered in China’s domestic politics, seriously damaged China-U.S. relations, are arrogant, unreasonable and vile,” Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang was quoted as telling Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Forden.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying also condemned the new sanctions leveled against 14 officials in the standing committee of China’s legislature, which passed a sweeping Hong Kong National Security Law earlier this year.
The State Department on Monday said the 14 officials will be banned from traveling to the U.S. or accessing the U.S. financial system over actions in Hong Kong seen as suppressing free speech and opposition politics.
It also announced the approval of a $280 million sale of advanced military communications equipment to Taiwan.
China passed the National Security Law as part of a campaign to impose tighter control and drive foreign political influence from Hong Kong, a former British colony that was handed back to China in 1997 with a promise it could retain its relatively liberal political, legal and economic systems for 50 years.
Harsh suppression of months of increasingly violent anti-government protests last year led to unyielding enforcement of the law, including the arrest of leading government opponents and the expulsion of four opposition members of the Legislative Council. That prompted the rest of the opposition bloc to resign en masse, while Washington leveled sanctions at leading figures in both the Hong Kong government and related Chinese government departments.
In his comments to Forden, Zheng said U.S. expressions of concern for democracy, human rights and autonomy in Hong Kong were merely cover for its real goals of spreading chaos in the territory and stifling China’s stability and development.
That, he said, proved Washington was the “black hand” behind disorder in Hong Kong, repeating a frequent Chinese accusation rejected by the U.S.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing described the meeting as a chance to express U.S. concern over the National Security Law.
Forden “noted that Beijing has used the law repeatedly to suppress freedom of expression and assembly in Hong Kong and to arrest Hong Kong residents who have raised peacefully their concerns over Beijing’s oppressive policies,” the embassy said in a statement on its website.
The dispute over Hong Kong comes as China is upping military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.
Hua demanded the U.S. cancel its latest arms sale to Taiwan and said China would make a “proper and necessary response.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has made 11 separate arms sales and established closer military and political ties with the island.
China has responded with stepped-up military flights and wargames near Taiwan and pledged to punish U.S. companies involved in arms deals with the island. It has sought to poach Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies while blocking the island from participating in international medical, economic and other organizations, demanding that President Tsai Ing-wen first recognize that the island is Chinese territory.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested eight pro-democracy activists over their role in an unauthorized protest last summer.
The arrests, which included several former lawmakers, are tied to a July 1 demonstration in which thousands defied a protest ban and rallied on the streets against the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing the day before.