Context: Recently, China has threatened counter-measures against the U.S. if it was punished for plans to impose a sedition law on Hong Kong. Hong Kong has become the latest flashpoint in soaring tensions between the world’s two super powers which China has likened to “the brink of a new Cold War”.
Background

• Beijing portrays the city’s protests as a foreign-backed plot to destabilize the motherland and says other nations have no right to interfere in how the international business hub is run.
• Protesters say they are motivated by years of Beijing chipping away at the city’s freedoms since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.
• Hong Kong enjoys liberties unseen on the mainland, as well as its own legal system and trade status.

Key Points

• China has introduced a proposal to impose a security law in Hong Kong to suppress the semi-autonomous city’s pro-democracy movement.
• Beijing plans to pass a new security law for Hong Kong that bans treason, subversion and sedition after months of massive, often-violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
• The business hub’s security chief hailed it as a new tool that would defeat “terrorism”.

Hong Kong’s reaction

• Of particular concern is a provision allowing Chinese security agents to operate in Hong Kong, with fears it could spark a crackdown on those voicing dissent against China’s communist rulers.
• The proposed law would also bypass Hong Kong’s own legislature.

U.S. sanctions

• Meanwhile, in a separate development that signals rising tensions between China and the U.S., Beijing vowed to shield a Chinese government institute and eight companies sanctioned by the U.S. over alleged human rights violations in the restive Xinjiang region, where China is accused of mass repression of mostly Muslim minorities.
• The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the sanctions saying they were triggered by human rights abuses against Uighurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang in China’s far northwest.
• Beijing urged Washington to reverse the decision, saying the Commerce Department had stretched the concept of national security to meddle in China’s affairs and harm China’s interests.

U.S. China Tensions

• The long-standing friction between the two countries over trade, human rights and a range of other issues has intensified since the virus outbreak.
• The U.S. has led world criticism of China’s initial response to the pandemic, which has caused more than 3,40,000 deaths and economic carnage worldwide. The U.S. has alleged that China covered up the emergence of the virus.
• Many governments including the U.S. and Australia have called for an investigation into the exact origins of the virus. The WHO has also called on China to invite the UN body to investigate the source of the novel Coronavirus.
• The introduction of a proposal in China to impose a security law in Hong Kong to suppress the semi-autonomous city’s pro-democracy movement has drawn U.S. and world condemnation.