At least Joe Biden’s team knows what to expect. Only three minutes after the oath of the 46e President of the United States, while he was delivering his inaugural address, China launched new sanctions against officials in the Trump administration, causing a first controversy with the new administration.
On Wednesday, January 20, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in a statement that Beijing had “Decided to sanction 28 people who seriously violated the sovereignty of China” these last years. The press release gives only ten names: Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State to Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, former trade advisor to the former president, author of Death by China (“Death by China”, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011), Robert O’Brien, ex-national security adviser, David Stilwell, ex-deputy secretary for Asia and the Pacific, Matthew Pottinger, ex-adviser National Security Deputy, Alex Azar, former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Keith Krach former Deputy Secretary of State for Economic Growth and the Environment, and Kelly Craft, United States Ambassador to the UN, as well as two former advisers to Donald Trump: John Bolton and Steve Bannon.
All are accused of having, ” for selfish political interests (…) planned, promoted and implemented a whole series of crazy moves that have severely hampered Chinese internal affairs, harmed China’s interests, injured the Chinese people and seriously disrupted relations between China and the United States ”. As a result, these people “And their immediate families Are prohibited from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macao.
Sword of Damocles
This is not the first time that China has sanctioned Americans but, according to the Chinese daily Global Times, it is the first time that Beijing has taken sanctions in a “proactive” way and not in retaliation for equivalent decisions announced by the United States. Nevertheless, in December 2020, the Trump administration had banned access to American territory to fourteen Chinese officials particularly involved in the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong. The US Treasury has also frozen their possible holdings in the United States and denied them access to the American financial system. According to China Daily, “More than 30 Chinese officials have been punished on the pretext of issues relating to Xinjiang and Hong Kong”.
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