The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that it intends to impose travel restrictions to Hong Kong on U.S. officials in retaliation for similar measures put on Chinese officials going to Washington.
According to the Associated Press, Spokesperson Hua Chunying said U.S. diplomatic passport holders visiting Hong Kong and Macao will temporarily lose their visa-free entry privileges, and U.S. administration officials, including congressional staffers, employees, and immediate family members of people working for nongovernmental organizations, will also face “reciprocal sanctions.”
Hua defended Beijing’s call, citing the United States “using the Hong Kong issue to seriously interfere in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s core interests.”
“China once again urges the U.S. side to immediately stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and not go further down the wrong and dangerous path,” Hua said.
The move comes as the U.S. and China remain in escalated tensions after the Trump administration took a number of steps to crackdown on the Chinese Communist Party’s actions restricting freedoms in Hong Kong and their treatment of Uighur Muslims in the region of Xinjiang, though China has denied alleged human rights abuses on the latter.
Last week, the State Department took steps to severely curtail U.S. travel from Chinese officials, limiting China’s some 92 million party members to one-month, single-entry U.S. permits, the New York Times reported. Previously, party members and other Chinese citizens could have visas for the U.S. that were valid for up to 10 years.
President-elect Joe Biden said he intends to continue holding China accountable but is expected to take a less hard-line stance than the Trump administration has adopted against the country’s communist regime.
Last month, Biden’s nominee for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the administration intends to put China on notice after their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected nearly 69 million people worldwide.
