U.S. Senate Unanimously Passes Bill Backing Hong Kong

The Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday aimed at supporting protesters in Hong Kong and warning China against a violent suppression of the demonstrations, drawing a rebuke from authorities in Beijing. #HongKongProtests #HongKong

China on Wednesday reiterated a threat to impose unspecified retaliation if the bill becomes law and urged the U.S. to stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs. Separately the city’s government expressed “extreme regret” over the bill, saying it would negatively impact relations between Hong Kong and the U.S.

The vote marks a challenge to the government in Beijing just as the U.S. and China, the world’s largest economies, seek to close a preliminary agreement to end their trade war. The Senate measure would require annual reviews of Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law to assess the extent to which China has chipped away the city’s autonomy.

”The United States has treated commerce and trade with Hong Kong differently than it has commercial and trade activity with the mainland of China,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the bill’s lead sponsor, said on the Senate floor. “But what’s happened over the last few years is the steady effort on the part of Chinese authorities to erode that autonomy and those freedoms.”

Hong Kong’s position as a global financial hub has already been shaken by months of protests and police responses that have grown increasingly violent. U.S. lawmakers have voiced strong support for the demonstrators and warned China against responding with violence.

The legislation comes at a difficult time for President Donald Trump as his administration is trying to complete the first phase of a long-awaited trade deal with China. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that it would be difficult for the U.S. to sign a trade agreement with China if the demonstrations in Hong Kong are met with violence.

“The president’s made it clear it’ll be very hard for us to do a deal with China if there’s any violence or if that matter is not treated properly and humanely,” Pence said in an interview with Indianapolis-based radio host Tony Katz.



Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday urged Trump to personally voice support for the protesters, which he hasn’t yet done. Nor has Trump indicated whether he would sign the legislation if it gets to his desk.

The House unanimously passed a similar bill last month, but slight differences mean both chambers still have to pass the same version before sending it to the president.

The Senate measure passed by unanimous consent, which means there was no roll call vote because no senators objected to it. Rubio said on Twitter before the vote Tuesday that the bill, S. 1838, will “head over to the U.S. House & then hopefully swiftly to the President.”

That is one option: The House could simply take up the Senate bill. The other option would be to reconcile the differences between the two versions and have both chambers vote on the compromise bill.

Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, the lead Republican sponsor of the House bill, said he expects the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees to go for the latter option to work out the slight differences. He said the resulting compromise could be included in a defense bill slated for a vote later this year.

“We have to get it passed and we have to get it passed quickly,” Smith said. The legislation tells protesters that “Congress has their back, that we are fully supportive of democracy and rule of law in Hong Kong.”

“It tells Xi Jinping that there’s a price,” he said of China’s president. “There’s one provision after another that says, ‘we’re not kidding.’”

The bill would also sanction Chinese officials deemed responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The Senate on Tuesday also unanimously passed a bill to ban the export of munitions such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to the Hong Kong police force. The House would still have to pass the same version of this measure as well for it to go to Trump to be signed into law.

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