As part of its “China Week” push to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) economic aggression and espionage in America, the House of Representatives today overwhelmingly passed (413-3) legislation authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) aimed at rescinding the diplomatic immunities and privileges of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs) that do the bidding of the CCP within the United States.

            Smith’s legislation—the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) Certification Act (HR 1103)—would empower the President to effectively terminate the operations of Hong Kong’s official representative offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco since the U.S. no longer recognizes Hong Kong as autonomous following the CCP’s imposition of its National Security Law on the people of Hong Kong.

            “My HKETO Certification Act is a necessary next step in tangibly demonstrating our solidarity with the persecuted citizens of Hong Kong,” said Smith, who is also the prime author of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which he first introduced in 2014 to provide strong sanctions and other ramifications in response to the crackdown on democracy activists and egregious human rights abuses in Hong Kong.

            “Tragically, by the time the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2019, it was a day late and a dollar short,” Smith said.

            Smith, who noted the HKETOs were originally granted diplomatic privileges and immunities under the expectation that Hong Kong would remain free from CCP rule, said the United States must deal with a new reality.

            “At one time, the HKETOs represented a city whose prosperity was based on its protection of the fundamental human rights and freedom of the Hong Kong people,” Smith said.

            “But the Hong Kong all of us knew and respected is gone,” said Smith, who noted that Hong Kong unjustly detains political prisoners at a rate only surpassed by a handful of authoritarian countries such as Belarus and Burma. “The city is now governed by Chinese Communist Party puppets who have become as repressive as their masters in Beijing.”

            “The United States should not be granting diplomatic privileges and immunities to a network of communist spies and propagandists,” said Smith, the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, who has chaired over 100 congressional hearings exposing the CCP’s horrific human rights abuses.

            The House passage of Smith’s bill comes on the heels of the jarring arrest of Linda Sun—the former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo who was charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist regime.

            “We have all been reminded recently of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to corrupt and co-opt American leaders and silence dissenting voices in the United States,” Smith said. “There is absolutely no reason why we should allow China’s Communist regime to have official representative offices in our country.”

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