This text is written by Narayan Liu, EU Regional Director and Policy Lead at Stand with Hong Kong EU, and member on the Advocacy Committee of the European Hong Kong Diaspora Alliance.
Until recently, Hong Kong and its loss of democratic rights and freedoms have been an easy issue for the European Union to ignore, despite serious breaches of international agreements taking place. For the EU, it’s just another problem halfway across the world on an endlessly growing list.
Feeding that attitude was the fact that the EU could historically rely on the United States to act firmly in its stead. The EU member states could simply throw their support behind the superpower when it imposed strict sanctions on Hong Kong officials and trade restrictions, in thought more than in practice.
This is despite parliamentarians across Europe, from across the political spectrum, frequently calling for firm action, including targeted sanctions. It’s an easy win that the EU frustratingly refuses to grasp.
More than reluctance to act, the EU’s powerlessness has started to become increasingly clear with every issue, distant or not, that it fails to adequately address. Of all its current issues, imposing targeted sanctions on the blatant human rights violations that took place in Hong Kong during the 2019-2020 protests, and which continue to take place through ill-treatment and torture of political prisoners such as Jimmy Lai, should be among the simplest.
Claire Lai, daughter of prisoner of conscience #JimmyLai, continues to speak out about the conditions her father endures in prison, including being deliberately isolated and moved between locations with a thick black cloth covering him from head to toe.
Jimmy Lai must be freed.… pic.twitter.com/bUAxXTrDbq
— #FreeJimmyLai (@SupportJimmyLai) January 16, 2026
This is exactly the kind of situation that the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime was intended to tackle. Moreover, despite the often-overstated economic consequences that such actions may entail, the EU can afford to take them on. Any consequences would not be greater than allowing the issue to go unaddressed and left to contribute to a loss of credibility in the EU’s rhetoric on everything from human rights to international rule of law.
That credibility wanes whenever EU institutions opt not to respond as activists and their families are targeted by Hong Kong authorities. The lack of a voice is piercing when the EU fails to do more than express concern, even when nationals, such as Swedish passport holder Ng Man-yan, become targets for bounties.
The European Parliament has recommended sanctions numerous times through a number of adopted Hong Kong-focused resolutions, and yet neither the High Representative and Vice-President of the EU Commission nor the member states have moved to act.
But while it’s important to consider human rights in policy, there are more immediate reasons as to why the EU needs to confront Beijing’s tightening grip on Hong Kong. For one, Hong Kong’s treatment as a special customs territory makes it easier for China to support the Russian war machine and for Russian state actors to acquire EU-manufactured dual-use goods.
It would be unfair and untrue to describe the EU as being completely passive on these matters. When it comes to Hong Kong and Russia’s use of the city for sanctions evasion, the EU has attempted to sanction specific companies involved in transporting EU-manufactured dual-use goods to Russian state actors. Its last few sanctions packages have listed several Hong Kong-based companies, such as Piraclinos Ltd, Asia Pacific Links Ltd, and a litany of others.
However, these are easily replaceable shell companies. For a little over 900 euros, Russian state actors can simply register new companies in Hong Kong for transhipment or other forms of sanctions evasion.
Adequately addressing the issue would mean imposing tighter trade restrictions on Hong Kong akin to those currently on the People’s Republic of China or even Belarus, which includes a ban on the exportation of dual-use goods destined for those countries.
In fact, in the case of Belarus, European businesses require a strict ‘no Belarus’ clause in contracts. But all of that would of course mean risking the delicate trade relationship with China.
So far now, it would appear the EU is unsure of how to stop STMicroelectronics components or SKF ball-bearings from finding their way into Russian military equipment. While the bloc struggles with decisions on the subject, Putin continues to ravage Ukraine and threaten the EU and NATO with an even wider war.
Hong Kong’s transshipment of Western-sanctioned dual-use goods for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine remains a “major concern” for the European Union, the bloc’s top envoy in the city has said.https://t.co/TpjETj1IN8
— Finbarr Bermingham (@fbermingham) August 22, 2025
In the face of growing authoritarian powers, the EU needs to reaffirm the legitimacy of its institutions and its ability to defend its interests. That means holding firm on the values it claims to be built on, and doing its part to ensure accountability when rule of law is undermined.
In this, Hong Kong is low-hanging fruit. Outside of its support for the Russian war machine, Hong Kong’s crackdown on democratic rights and freedoms violates international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Hong Kong introduced into its law through the Bill of Rights Ordinance.
A recent report published by Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong. (SWHK) details some of the most visible violations that took place during the 2019-2020 Hong Kong Protests, finding that with the constant use of excessive force and ill-treatment of prisoners constituting cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (CIDT) and even torture by the standards of the European Court of Human Rights.
Targeted sanctions on Hong Kong officials would not only be appropriate; they would be the natural next step in tackling Hong Kong’s unreliability and the extra-territorial application of Hong Kong’s current tactics.
Financial interests in Hong Kong and China are obvious drivers against such sanctions. However, the market is not getting any easier for the EU’s numerous businesses to access.
European businesses in Hong Kong have suggested the market has become less reliable, in part due to the vagueness of the city’s national security law and its impact on people. It is unlikely China will loosen regulations on foreign businesses anytime soon, no matter how favourably the EU treats Chinese companies.
The EU needs to act decisively. Inaction does nothing but allow EU residents and nationals to be harassed and threatened within European borders, and strengthens the EU’s adversaries using the EU’s own products.
Addressing Hong Kong is arguably one of the easiest ways the EU can reassert itself with global superpowers, including China, and the list of reasons why the EU shouldn’t act continues to shrink.
Narayan Liu can be reached via mail.
