{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413328", "China Week House overwhelmingly passes Smith\u2019s bill to rescind the immunities and privileges of Hong Kong diplomatic outposts that do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party within the U.S.", "2024-09-10", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "As part of its \u201cChina Week\u201d push to counter the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s (CCP) economic aggression and espionage in America, the House of Representatives today overwhelmingly passed (413-3) legislation authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) aimed at rescinding the diplomatic immunities and privileges of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs) that do the bidding of the CCP within the United States.\n\nSmith\u2019s legislation\u2014the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) Certification Act (HR 1103)\u2014would empower the President to effectively terminate the operations of Hong Kong\u2019s official representative offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco since the U.S. no longer recognizes Hong Kong as autonomous following the CCP\u2019s imposition of its National Security Law on the people of Hong Kong.\n\n\u201cMy HKETO Certification Act is a necessary next step in tangibly demonstrating our solidarity with the persecuted citizens of Hong Kong,\u201d said Smith, who is also the prime author of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which he first introduced in 2014 to provide strong sanctions and other ramifications in response to the crackdown on democracy activists and egregious human rights abuses in Hong Kong.\n\n\u201cTragically, by the time the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2019, it was a day late and a dollar short,\u201d Smith said.\n\nSmith, who noted the HKETOs were originally granted diplomatic privileges and immunities under the expectation that Hong Kong would remain free from CCP rule, said the United States must deal with a new reality.\n\n\u201cAt one time, the HKETOs represented a city whose prosperity was based on its protection of the fundamental human rights and freedom of the Hong Kong people,\u201d Smith said.\n\n\u201cBut the Hong Kong all of us knew and respected is gone,\u201d said Smith, who noted that Hong Kong unjustly detains political prisoners at a rate only surpassed by a handful of authoritarian countries such as Belarus and Burma. \u201cThe city is now governed by Chinese Communist Party puppets who have become as repressive as their masters in Beijing.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe United States should not be granting diplomatic privileges and immunities to a network of communist spies and propagandists,\u201d said Smith, the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, who has chaired over 100 congressional hearings exposing the CCP\u2019s horrific human rights abuses.\n\nThe House passage of Smith\u2019s bill comes on the heels of the jarring arrest of Linda Sun\u2014the former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo who was charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist regime.\n\n\u201cWe have all been reminded recently of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s efforts to corrupt and co-opt American leaders and silence dissenting voices in the United States,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere is absolutely no reason why we should allow China\u2019s Communist regime to have official representative offices in our country.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:43:57Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413328"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8890959434211254, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}