China sanctions ex-US lawmaker and supporter of Taiwan

BEIJING - China has banned former US lawmaker Mike Gallagher from entering the country and taken other measures in response to his words and actions that “interfered in China’s internal affairs”, said the Foreign Ministry on May 21.

Under the sanctions, China could freeze any assets Mr Gallagher might at some point have in the country and ban organisations and individuals there from trading and cooperating with him, the ministry said.

It did not go into detail on what Mr Gallagher had said or done.

Mr Gallagher, a Republican, has been a fierce critic of China and a strong supporter of Taiwan, a democratically governed island that Beijing claims as its own.

In February,

he visited Taiwan

and met both then President Tsai Ing-wen and current President Lai Ching-te. He told Ms Tsai that the trip was to show bipartisan support for the island and called her “a leader within the free world”.

Mr Gallagher said the sanctions showed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was “perpetually paranoid” and viewed itself as in a struggle against Western democracy, universal human rights and freedom of speech as part of what he called the “New Cold War”.

“As the CCP attempts to silence defenders of freedom, we should continue to shine a light on the CCP’s growing authoritarian repression at home and aggression abroad, and stand firm in promoting the security, freedom and prosperity of America and its allies,” he said in a statement via the Hudson Institute, a US think-tank where he is a fellow.

There was no moral equivalence between US and Chinese sanctions because Beijing targeted Americans for “speaking their mind”, he said.

He added that he looked forward to returning to Taiwan in the near future.

Hudson said Mr Gallagher did not have any assets in China.

China

rebuked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

on May 21 for congratulating Mr Lai on his inauguration. Mr Lai is regarded by China as a separatist. REUTERS