Hong Kong’s John Lee Is Persona Non Grata APEC

Congratulations to the U.S. State Department for refusing to let Hong Kong chief executive John Lee attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting in San Francisco in November. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. will bar Mr. Lee because he is under U.S. sanctions.

Both the Hong Kong Government and China’s embassy in Washington blasted the Biden Administration’s decision to refuse a waiver for Mr. Lee, who has done Beijing’s dictatorial bidding in the supposedly autonomous city. The Hong Kong government said in a statement that “APEC meetings do not belong to any one country of economy.” It says Washington is violating its responsibilities as APEC host.

China is also outraged. “We demand that the U.S. side immediately correct its wrong move, lift the sanctions against the chief executive and other officials of the SAR, fulfil the due responsibility as APEC host, invite Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to the meeting,” said a foreign ministry spokesman.

We don’t know how to say chutzpah in Chinese, but that must come close. Beijing condemns the U.S. for enforcing its laws on American soil even as China declares its national security law can be applied to anyone anywhere on earth. And China “demands” that the U.S. lift its sanctions on Hong Kong officials.

Mr. Lee was sanctioned along with 10 other officials in August 2020, when he was Hong Kong’s secretary of security. The U.S. Treasury named him for “being involved in coercing, arresting, detaining, or imprisoning individuals under the authority of the National Security Law, as well as being involved in its development, adoption, or implementation.”

This month Mr. Lee declared that eight pro-democracy activists who fled abroad to escape arrest should be treated like “street rats.” His government has announced bounties for the arrest of those activists and has harassed some of their family members still in Hong Kong. Mr. Lee wants the privilege of traveling to the U.S. for an international forum even as his government seeks to apply its dictatorial legal standards across the world. Letting Mr. Lee into the U.S. would mock those who’ve been forced to leave their homes and live in exile.

The U.S. says Hong Kong can still send a delegation to APEC’s San Francisco meeting if those representatives haven’t been sanctioned. The message to Mr. Lee is that he can’t have it both ways by championing Hong Kong as a global business center even as he builds his police state. And the message to the world is that when the U.S. imposes sanctions, it means something.