Thousands of Hong Kong residents are to be offered a temporary “safe haven” in the US, President Joe Biden says.
Biden said that because Hong Kong’s freedoms were being violated by China, the US would allow visitors to stay for a period of 18 months.
Thousands of Hong Kong residents already in the US may benefit.
China has reacted angrily to the announcement, describing the decision as a gross interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs.
The UK has offered people from Hong Kong a path towards permanent residency following last year’s adoption of China’s security law for the territory.
The law criminalises what are deemed to be acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion.
Biden said there were “compelling foreign policy reasons” to allow Hong Kong visitors to stay.
He said China had been “undermining its remaining democratic processes and institutions, imposing limits on academic freedom, and cracking down on freedom of the press”.
He pointed to the arrests of more than 100 people, including activists and opposition politicians, under the new security regime.
Spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, criticised the US government’s actions, which he said “disregard and distort facts, and grossly interfere in China’s internal affairs”.
The Chinese foreign ministry’s Hong Kong office said the US had engaged in a “plot to oppose China and stir up trouble in the city”.
