Hong Kong Watch Research Round-Up | What's standing in the way of the UK taking action and sanctioning HK officials?

Another month has passed and the situation in Hong Kong continues to worsen. Yesterday saw journalists arrested under the National Security Law for the first time, and Jimmy Lai had his assets frozen. Victoria Park was filled with hundreds on the Tiananmen Anniversary - but unlike every other year since 1989, this time it was police officers, not protestors who filled the park.

Our May briefing details events last month in full. Further moves to crackdown on basic rights, political prisoner numbers go up, academic freedom is on life support. Carrie Lam's claim that Hong Kong's universities have been penetrated by 'external forces with ulterior motives' is only a sign of things to come.

I moved house recently. As I was clearing out my business cards, I realised that half of the people I met in Hong Kong on my last trip there are now in jail. Hong Kong's Political Prisoners must not be forgotten. More on that here.

We have had two pieces of in-depth analysis published this month, both written by our exceptional Senior Policy Advisor Sam Goodman. The first asks: What's standing in the way of the UK taking action to sanction Hong Kong officials?

Robust statements from Dominic Raab have been coupled with a government consistently swerving calls for sanctions. FCDO Minister Nigel Adams has said 'we cannot possibly speculate about who might be sanctioned.' In. Every. Single. Debate. For more than a year.

Why? FCDO contacts imply that the situation in Hong Kong might not meet the sanctions threshold. Sam unpicks this argument in his essay - pointing to three reasons it should be met with scepticism. First, the Foreign Office have themselves said that British citizens were tortured or mistreated while in detention, providing the basis for sanctions under the Global Human Rights sanctions regime. Second, the UK can consider a country-specific sanctions list, similar to that considered for Myanmar, Belarus or Russia in the Navalny case. Given the UK has yet to take substantive action to show that the breach of the Joint Declaration has tangible consequences, there is a strong argument for this kind of bespoke register. Finally, the new kleptocracy regulations could be applied to Hong Kong - one of the world's dirty money hubs.

The UK has the tools and evidence at its disposal to act. Prevarication is a political decision, a symptom of Boris Johnson's desire to have his cake and eat it on China policy.

Our second piece of research exposes the decision of Canada's major pension funds to invest in Chinese companies complicit in human rights abuses, including a number which our sanctioned under the Biden Administration's investment ban list. China is an ESG issue - many investors don't recognise it yet.