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US-China relations
ChinaPolitics

Jimmy Lai lawyer, fugitives target Hong Kong trade offices in talks with US lawmakers

  • Frances Hui, Joey Siu and Jimmy Lai representative Jonathan Price urge House China committee to pass bill that could close city’s American offices
  • The trio also used the select committee’s public round table to push for the jailed media tycoon’s release

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The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington. Photo: Handout
SCMP Reporters
Two Hong Kong fugitives and a lawyer representing jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying met US lawmakers on Thursday to push for the passage of a bill that could close the city’s representative offices in America and advocate for the release of Lai.
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Speaking at a public round table event organised by the House Select Committee on China, Frances Hui Wing-ting, Joey Siu Nam, and human rights lawyer Jonathan Price also called for the passage of other measures meant to counter alleged human rights violations by the Hong Kong and mainland Chinese governments.

The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) Certification Act would require the White House to “remove the extension of certain privileges, exemptions and immunities” to the offices if it decides that Hong Kong no longer enjoys a high degree of autonomy from Beijing.

Sponsored by Republican congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, the bill was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in November, and a Senate version of the bill passed that chamber’s foreign relations committee less than four months earlier. Neither has been put to a full chamber vote.

Citing the bill’s unanimous passage in the House committee, Hui said: “We haven’t received an explanation about why the bill hasn’t been put on the floor, and so we want to ask your committee to weigh in with your leadership to ensure there is a vote as soon as possible.”

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Hui also referenced the case of three men charged in Britain with conducting spying activities by allegedly carrying out surveillance against people from Hong Kong. One of them serves as an office manager of the HKETO in London.
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