By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-11-26 05:06:23 | Updated at 2024-11-26 07:54:00
2 hours ago
US bipartisan lawmakers have called on their Department of the Treasury to re-evaluate its treatment of Hong Kong banks, accusing the city of becoming a hub for money laundering and evasion of sanctions involving authoritarian countries.
In a joint letter issued to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen unveiled on Monday, Republican congressman John Moolenaar and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi raised concerns over the city’s “potential abuse” of the global financial system and demanded actions from Washington in combating such illicit activities.
The leaders of the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party claimed the city had shifted from a “trusted global financial centre” to a “critical player in the deepening authoritarian axis of the People’s Republic of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea” after Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020.
“[Hong Kong] has now become a global leader in practices such as importing and re-exporting banned Western technology to Russia, creating front companies for purchasing barred Iranian oil, facilitating the trade of Russian-sourced gold, and managing ‘ghost ships’ that engage in illegal trade with North Korea,” the lawmakers said.
“Given these escalating concerns, we request that the appropriate US Treasury Department officials brief the Select Committee on the current status of American banking relationships with Hong Kong banks, how our policies have shifted to account for the changes in Hong Kong’s status and posture, and the measures the Treasury plans to implement to address these risks.”
The Post has reached out to the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau for comment.
The latest gesture by the US lawmakers came just a week after a Hong Kong court sentenced 45 opposition figures to four to 10 years in jail in a landmark subversion case over their roles in an unauthorised primary election more than four years ago.
