US puts sanctions on 14 Chinese officials over Hong Kong crackdown – FT

While confirming earlier chatters of sanctions on China’s Communist Party (CCP) members, over the Hong Kong crackdown, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on 14 high-level Chinese officials, per the Financial Times (FT) during late-Monday.

The news suggests that the officials targeted for sanctions in Monday’s sweep are all high-ranking members of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the Chinese body that oversees the national legislature and was responsible for adopting and implementing the new national security law that paved the way for a crackdown in Hong Kong over the summer. 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quoted marking Beijing’s “unrelenting assault against Hong Kong’s democratic processes” while announcing the measures.

FX implications

China’s Foreign Ministry has already warned to take firm countermeasures to any new US sanctions, which in turn highlights an additional burden on the market’s risk-tone and AUD/USD prices, curently depressed above 0.7400.

Read: AUD/USD eases towards 0.7400 but bulls are not out of woods