Hong Kong residents who seek to flee Chinese communist oppression could find a welcome home in the United States under President Biden.
“If they’re the victims of repression from Chinese authorities, we should do something to give them haven,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday.
That comment likely will add fuel to the rivalry between the U.S. and the communist regime, while forging a link between U.S. immigration policy and strategic competition with China. Beijing already is fuming about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to welcome Hong Kong residents who hold British passports dating back to the city’s time as a colony of the United Kingdom.
“We’ve seen China act egregiously to undermine the very commitments it made during the handover of Hong Kong from Britain,” Blinken said in the televised interview. “And we see people who are, again, in Hong Kong standing up for their own rights, the rights that they felt were guaranteed to them.”
Hong Kong dissidents have appealed for Western protection.
Chinese authorities deny that U.S. or British officials have any legitimate interest in the political status of Hong Kong, even though Beijing promised to afford the territory “a high degree of autonomy” from the mainland government and has pledged “no longer” to recognize British passports in an attempt to stymie London’s offer of citizenship to some in Hong Kong.
“We reserve the right to take further actions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last week. “The U.K.’s move grossly violates China’s sovereignty, interferes in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs, and runs counter to international law and basic norms governing international relations.”
Chinese officials have violated the treaty governing the handover of Hong Kong through recent decisions that effectively impair the rule of law in the region, according to British officials and Hong Kong dissidents. The crackdown in Hong Kong, along with international anger over China’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, has galvanized Western suspicions of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We have to be able to approach China from a position of strength, not weakness,” Blinken said. “And that strength, I think, comes from having strong alliances, something China does not have, actually engaging in the world and showing up in these international institutions, because when we pull back, China fills in, and then, they’re the ones writing the rules and setting the norms of these institutions.”
“Standing up for our values when China is challenging them, including in Xinjiang against the Uighurs or democracy in Hong Kong, making sure that our military is postured so that it can deter Chinese aggression, and investing in our own people so that they can fully compete,” he added.
