State Department Accused of Possibly Deceiving Congress on Invite to Sanctioned Hong Kong Leader

Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mike Gallagher accused the State Department of potentially deceiving Congress over the possibility that it invited Hong Kong’s leader, who is under U.S. sanctions, to attend a summit taking place next week, National Review has exclusively learned. They also urged State to rescind its invite to other Hong Kong officials.

The two lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken today saying that while the department previously said that it would not invite Hong Kong chief executive John Lee, the sanctioned official, to enter the U.S. for the summit in San Francisco, it appears to have done so anyway after Beijing demanded that it extend the invite. They said in the letter, which was obtained by NR, “The State Department either deliberately lied to or misled Congress in July or later caved to the PRC demand, or both.”

After this article was first published, a State Department spokesperson responded to NR’s request for comment, saying that Foggy Bottom received the letter and does not comment on congressional correspondence. The spokesperson did not deny that Foggy Bottom had invited Lee to the summit.

“The United States takes its responsibility for hosting APEC in 2023 seriously,” the spokesperson also said, adding that Washington will host the summit in a way that is consistent with its laws and regulations, including sanctions.

Hong Kong’s planned delegation to the meeting, for leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation countries, has been the subject of intense scrutiny in Washington, because of Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in the previously autonomous city. The sanctions on Lee were imposed over his role in carrying out the crackdown on China’s political opponents in Hong Kong. Rubio and Gallagher have separately introduced legislation to shut down Hong Kong’s de facto diplomatic posts in America, citing the end of the city’s autonomy from the mainland.

The APEC summit is also where President Biden and Chairman Xi are slated to appear for their first in-person meeting since China started to withhold high-level dialogue after a surveillance balloon it had sent over the continental U.S. had been exposed and shot down. In recent months, the Biden administration has sent several cabinet officials to Beijing for meetings designed to mend fences and bring about the planned Biden–Xi meeting.

In a statement to NR, Gallagher, who is the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, called Hong Kong’s previous status under the one-country-two-systems framework a “dead letter.” He said: “There is no place for these officials at APEC and I call on the Administration to bar not only Chief Executive Lee’s attendance but that of any Hong Kong official.”

Last week, another Hong Kong official, the city’s financial secretary Paul Chan, announced that he would instead lead its delegation to the APEC gathering, which was viewed by observers as a face-saving way to avoid sending Lee. The city’s chief, however, said that he had “personally received” an invitation from the U.S. government and could not attend due to a scheduling conflict.

But Gallagher and Rubio wrote that the State Department had told Congress over email in July that the U.S. “will not invite” Lee because of the sanctions that apply to him. Reacting to reports about the State Department’s decision not to invite Lee at the time, China’s foreign ministry demanded that Washington invite him to attend the meeting.

They also revealed that the senior State Department official tasked with overseeing U.S. engagement with APEC, Matt Murray, “did not directly refute” the reports about the personal invite that Lee said had been extended to him. “Instead, he stated that the State Department sent a written invitation to the Hong Kong government to send an official to attend the APEC Leader’s Summit,” they wrote in the letter.

They asked State to explain who made the decision to invite Lee and when and to provide copies of the official invitations that were extended to the city’s government and, possibly, to Lee.

“The Biden Administration, on multiple occasions, failed to be forthcoming with Republicans and Democrats about inviting human rights violator John Lee Ka-chiu to the APEC meeting in San Francisco,” Rubio told NR in a statement, adding that it “makes no sense” to have invited Lee.

In their letter, Gallagher and Rubio also urged Blinken to rescind the invite to Chan, saying that it is inconsistent with State’s own determinations that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from the mainland.

The State Department spokesperson also said that the U.S. is seeking the participation of all APEC member economies in the summit, and that “an invitation letter was sent to Hong Kong as an APEC member economy.”