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Pence: China’s Actions in Hong Kong Curtail Liberty, Rights
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October 24, 2019
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5:20Now PlayingU.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized China’s actions against protesters in Hong Kong while calling for greater engagement between the world’s two biggest economies, delivering a long-anticipated critique of Beijing’s human rights record as the two nations try to resolve their trade war.
“Beijing has increased its interventions in Hong Kong and engaged in actions that curtail the rights and liberties that Hong Kong’s people were guaranteed through a binding international agreement,” Pence will say Thursday in a speech at the Wilson Center in Washington, according to excerpts provided by his office.
Rather than “decoupling” the two countries, the U.S. “seeks engagement with China and China’s engagement with the wider world,” he said in the excerpts.
Pence’s most stinging criticism of China was indirect, in remarks targeting Nike Inc. and the NBA.
“Nike promotes itself as a so-called ‘social-justice champion,’ but when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social conscience at the door,” Pence will say.
He accused the NBA of “siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech.” The league apologized after an executive of the Houston Rockets issued a tweet supportive of Hong Kong protesters, outraging Chinese authorities and many NBA fans in the country.
“The NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime,” Pence said in the excerpts.
White House officials for weeks have debated how critical Pence’s remarks should be, people familiar with the matter said. It comes just a day before the chief trade negotiators from both sides hold a conference call to talk about progress toward locking down phase one of a trade deal.
Pence was originally supposed to deliver the speech on June 4, which marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The administration ultimately delayed the speech in the hopes that President Donald Trump would land a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Osaka.
Trump is aiming to sign a limited trade deal with Xi next month, and a weakening American economy is chipping away at the U.S.’s leverage.
Meanwhile, pressure is building from Capitol Hill to stay firm, highlighting White House moves this month to sanction Chinese entities accused of connections to the surveillance and imprisonment of Muslim Uighurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
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