In what is widely seen as the Trump administration’s last-minute effort to further escalate tensions in Sino-US relations and lay as many political landmines as possible to trap the incoming Biden administration, Washington announced on Friday a new round of “sanctions” on Chinese officials including some from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

The new round of “sanctions”, the latest in a series of steps targeting China, came on the heel of another targeting a new batch of Chinese tech giants including aviation firm Skyrizon, smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China — under the guise of “national threat”. Few would have been surprised by the Trump administration’s stepped-up landmine-laying operation, given the fact that the assault on the US Congress on Jan 6 by the supporters of President Donald Trump, the bloc’s last resort to overturn his November election defeat, failed. 

Friday’s “sanctions” against six central government and Hong Kong SAR government officials came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned earlier of fresh “sanctions” in response to the arrest of 53 individuals on Jan 5 by Hong Kong police on suspicion of subversion under the National Security Law for Hong Kong. 

Pompeo said in a statement that all those officials being sanctioned were associated with “developing, adopting, or implementing the National Security Law”. There is no doubt that Pompeo and other alt-right politicians in Washington see the security law as a thorn in the flesh. Their animosity toward the law grows by the day along with their frustration over the gradual loss of their proxies and foot soldiers in Hong Kong.

After the promulgation of the security law in Hong Kong on June 30 last year, anti-government local groups have scrambled to disband, with Union for New Civil Servants being the latest; many anti-China external forces operating in Hong Kong under the guise of NGOs have moved to other places; separatists and subversives either have also fled the city or are facing the full force of the law. 

The way Pompeo and other anti-China Washington politicians have been trying to hurt China’s interests on any excuses they could come up with has exposed not only desperation but also contempt for the agreed-upon standards of political decency that prevail in the world. But their so-called sanctions won’t work with China, and their high-handedness will be remembered by the world.