The state legislature of China has unilaterally undermined Hong Kong’s electoral system in a reform decision made last week, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken says.

Washington on Wednesday expressed deep concern with the move by the National People’s Congress on March 11 in Beijing to radically change the way Hong Kong selected its chief executive and legislators.

“This action further undermines the high degree of autonomy promised to people in Hong Kong and denies Hongkongers a voice in their own governance, a move that the United Kingdom has declared to be a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” Blinken said as the U.S. Department of State updated a report on the Hong Kong Autonomy Act to underscore Washington’s concern.

The secretary of state was speaking on the eve of high-level talks with China’s top-ranking diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi in Alaska, the first such meeting since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January.

He identified 24 officials from mainland China and Hong Kong whose actions reduced the city’s high degree of autonomy.

They included pro-Beijing heavyweight Tam Yiu-chung, the Hong Kong delegate to the NPC Standing Committee; Frederic Choi, national security director of the Hong Kong Police Force; and Kelvin Kong, assistant commissioner of police for national security.

The trio were already on a sanction list of six names released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury early this year after Hong Kong police made mass arrests of pro-democracy activists and politicians.

Some officials whose names went on the treasury department’s sanction list compiled in November reappeared on Wednesday as well. Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office under China’s State Council; Hong Kong’s deputy commissioner of police for national security Edwina Lau; and senior superintendent Steve Li were singled out in the updated report of the state department.

Foreign financial institutions that knowingly conducted significant transactions with these officials would be subject to U.S. sanctions, Blinken said.

He said that a stable, prosperous Hong Kong which respected human rights, freedoms and political pluralism served the interests of Hong Kong, the People’s Republic of China and the broader international community.

“The United States stands united with our allies and partners in speaking out for the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong, and we will respond when the PRC fails to meet its obligations,” the state department said in its statement.

The department, under the charge of Blinken’s predecessor Mike Pompeo, submitted its first report on the Hong Kong Autonomy Act to Congress in October. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam was named as one of 10 officials damaging freedoms in the city.

On March 11, China’s top legislature passed a resolution to change the electoral system in Hong Kong in ways that would further reduce democratic representation and introduce a mechanism to vet the loyalty of local politicians to Beijing.

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