The Macao government has issued a stiff riposte to the 2025 Annual Report issued by the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Mandated by federal law, the US report purports to provide an overview of human rights conditions and legal developments in China and includes a section on Macao and Hong Kong.
Citing a single news report by the French news agency AFP, the authors characterise Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai’s tenure as the president of the Court of Final Appeal as a time marked by “several politically sensitive rulings that severely restricted fundamental freedoms in the city.”
The report also criticised the local government for permitting “extensive security measures” to affect “the normal operations of the city, such as rail and ferry services” during the December 2024 visit of President Xi Jinping, even though road closures, transport disruptions and the imposition of extensive security cordons are routine when President Donald Trump visits a city in the US.
[See more: The Macao government has strongly rebuffed an EU human rights report on the SAR]
In its rebuff, the SAR government said “Macao maintains a sound legal system with an independent and impartial judiciary, and its residents enjoy extensive freedoms – including freedom of speech, religion, press, and movement – which are fully protected under the law. All human rights are adequately safeguarded.”
It added that it hoped “the commission will stop using human rights as a pretext to interfere in [Macao’s] internal affairs.”
Washington regularly aims barbs at its chief geopolitical rival China in the area of human rights, while frequently violating international rights law itself.
Human rights organizations have also reported serious, ongoing violations in the US linked to criminal justice, immigration and asylum policy, reproductive rights, and discrimination in 2025.
