The tone is mounting between Washington and Beijing, after the United States adopted sanctions against 11 Hong Kong leaders, including chief executive Carrie Lam. At the same time, drastic measures have been taken against Chinese digital gems TikTok and WeChat.

The US government announced Friday the freezing of the assets of Carrie Lam, the Secretaries of Security and Justice or the Chief of Police, accused of seeking to restrict the autonomy of the territory and "freedom of expression or meeting "of its inhabitants.

“The United States supports the people of Hong Kong and we will use our tools and our authorities to target those who undermine its autonomy,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

A senior Hong Kong official, Commerce Secretary Edward Yau, called the sanctions "savage, disproportionate and unreasonable". "If the United States unilaterally takes this kind of unreasonable action, it will end up affecting American businesses," he warned.

A little later, the representative office of the Chinese government in Hong Kong also condemned the American sanctions, deeming them "barbaric and crude". "The nefarious intentions of US politicians to support people who are anti-Chinese and to stir up trouble in Hong Kong have come to light," the office said in a statement.

Different sanctions against Beijing since June

The US sanctions are a response to China's adoption in June of a national security law in the former British colony which, according to its critics, has resulted in a decline in freedoms unprecedented since Hong Kong's handover to China by the United Kingdom in 1997. 

In retaliation, US President Donald Trump announced in mid-July the end of the preferential economic regime granted by the United States to the autonomous territory, a major international financial center, and had promulgated a law providing for sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials. .

In the meantime, the climate has deteriorated between the two great powers. Accusing China of espionage, Washington closed its consulate in Houston, Texas, and China took over the US consulate in Chengdu, southwest China. 

The United States has also taken sides with Beijing in the South China Sea territorial disputes and accused it of violating the rights of the Uyghur Muslim minority.

But it is in the technological sphere that the hardening is most radical. Donald Trump on Thursday signed a decree banning, within 45 days, any transaction "of persons under American jurisdiction" with ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the TikTok application.

The US president also passed a similar decree regarding the WeChat platform, which is owned by Chinese giant Tencent and is ubiquitous in Chinese life. Donald Trump invoked a "national emergency", accusing the two applications of spying on their American users on behalf of Beijing.

The United States "conducts arbitrary political manipulation and repression, which can only lead to its own moral decline and damage to its image," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday. .

With AFP

The summary of the week France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR