Lashing out at China, US President Joe Biden on Thursday raised concerns about Hong Kong and alleged that the Xi Jinping government has not kept the commitment that it made on how to deal with the sensitive situation.

“The situation in Hong Kong is deteriorating and the Chinese government is not keeping the commitment that it made on how it would deal with Hong Kong,” Biden told reporters on Thursday at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The remarks come ahead of issuing of an expected business advisory on Hong Kong by the Biden administration on Friday.

“And so it is more of an advisory as to what may happen in Hong Kong. It’s as simple as that and as complicated as that,” he said, responding to a question on the issue.

Meanwhile, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s diplomatic swan song Thursday at the White House was overshadowed by deadly flooding back home and an enduring disagreement with her US hosts over Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

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However, she too addressed the China situation in depth. 

“We talked about China and there is a lot of common understanding that China, in many areas, is our competitor,” Merkel told reporters.

The two leaders, she said, talked about the many facets of cooperation and also of competition with China, be it in the economic area, climate protection, military sector, and security.

And obviously, there are a lot of challenges ahead, she told reporters.

“Trade with China needs to rest on the assumption that we have a level playing field so that we all play by the same rules and have the same standards. That, incidentally, was also the driving force behind the EU-China agreement on trade that they abide by the core labour norms of the ILO,” Merkel added.

Earlier, on Thursday the Problem Solvers Caucus’,  a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives, endorsed the bipartisan resolution condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 100 years of human rights abuses against its own people.

Congressman Mike Gallagher had introduced the resolution ahead of the CCP’s centenary on July 1, and has called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring the bipartisan resolution to the House floor for a vote.

The resolution supports the inherent right of the Chinese people to self-determination and free political expressionism independent of one-party rule, and denounces the CCP’s egregious record of human rights violations.

“The Chinese Communist Party brutally represses its own people — from pro-democracy citizens in Hong Kong to Uyghurs and other religious minorities — and has not been shy about trying to spread its influence beyond its borders,” opined Congressman Jared Golden.

“It’s important that we stay vigilant and stand up to this authoritarian regime when necessary, and I’m glad to help lead members of Congress in coming together across party lines to condemn it,” he added.