US lawmakers seek to rename street for Hong Kong's jailed Jimmy Lai
A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would erect the street sign "Jimmy Lai Way" on a stretch alongside the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington's bustling Dupont Circle area.
"We want to remind every HKETO employee of their part in dismantling the freedoms that once made Hong Kong the most vibrant and prosperous city in Asia," said Representative Chris Smith, the Republican co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which examines rights in the country.
While Congress has less jurisdiction outside of Washington, the bill would also direct the US Postal Service to deliver mail to Hong Kong's offices in New York and San Francisco if they are addressed to "1 Jimmy Lai Way" in either city.
There was no immediate timetable to act upon the proposal. The bill had co-sponsors from the Democratic Party but met opposition from the capital's non-voting delegate to Congress, Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton.
"No matter how well-intentioned an initiative is, it is never appropriate for members of Congress not elected by DC residents to legislate on local DC matters, particularly quintessentially local ones like street names," she said.
Lai was the founder of the Apple Daily, a now-shuttered Chinese-language newspaper that championed mass demonstrations in 2019 aimed at safeguarding democratic liberties promised when Beijing took control of the former British colony.
China quelled dissent after the protests, some of which involved vandalism, including through a tough security law.
Lai, now 77, has been behind bars since December 2020.
He testified for more than 50 days, concluding last month, as he fights charges of foreign collusion under the law that could carry a sentence of life in prison.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a recent interview that Lai's case was a "priority".
Rubio on Monday imposed sanctions on Hong Kong's police chief, justice secretary and other officials on human rights grounds over the crackdown in the city.
The bill on the street name calls on Rubio to look at sanctions on additional officials specifically involved in Lai's detention and prosecution.
Renaming streets has long been a means to embarrass countries about their rights records.
Russia's embassy in Washington lies on Boris Nemtsov Plaza, named for the reformist politician killed near the Kremlin in 2015, and the Saudi embassy is on Jamal Khashoggi Way, named for the dissident writer who was strangled to death and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Both streets were renamed by votes of the DC City Council.
Congress separately moved to name the plaza outside of China's embassy for Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and democracy activist who died in prison, but the effort floundered after intense opposition from Beijing.
Other governments have sometimes acted similarly with the United States. The street outside the US consulate in Kolkata is named for Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.