China’s former top spy catcher is among six security enforcers targeted as the Trump administration turns its attention to human rights issues in the city.
The U.S. fired a new round of sanctions at China on Monday, targeting six high-level Chinese and Hong Kong officials over what it described as acts of transnational repression for their crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and on U.S. soil.
The move was the first significant step by the new Trump administration to pressure China over human rights in Hong Kong. The State Department said in a statement that the officials used the city’s national security laws “to intimidate, silence, and harass 19 pro-democracy activists who had been forced to flee overseas, including a U.S. citizen and four other U.S. residents.”
The sanctioned officials included Dong Jingwei, China’s top national security official in the city since 2023. In his previous role as China’s vice minister of state security, Mr. Dong led the country’s efforts to track dissidents and catch foreign spies.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice Paul Lam and Police Commissioner Raymond Siu were also among the six officials within national security bodies and the police force who were sanctioned for their roles in “coercing, arresting, detaining, or imprisoning” individuals under the national security law.
In a national security crackdown since widespread unrest rocked the city in 2019, the Hong Kong authorities have jailed scores of opposition lawmakers, activists and others, including journalists, in the city.
