China has imposed sanctions on 28 United States individuals, including former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, over “crazy actions that have gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs.”

According to a report on Reuters, China’s foreign ministry disclosed this in a statement released in the early hours of Thursday, Beijing time.

Mike PompeoFT

“These individuals and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering the mainland of China, Hong Kong and Macao. They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China,” the statement read.

In addition to Pompeo, China named outgoing Trump administration officials Peter Navarro, Robert O’Brien, David Stilwell, Matthew Pottinger, Alex Azar, Keith Krach, and Kelly Craft, as well as former Trump administration officials – John Bolton and Steve Bannon.

Relations between Beijing and Washington have dramatically worsened in recent years.

Although China’s rise had been a concern of the previous George Bush Jnr and Barack Obama administrations, it was the Trump administration that transformed the entire narrative on China from strategic partner to “strategic competitor”, starting with its National Defence Strategy report released just one month after Trump’s 2017 China visit, the conversation reported.

This read, in part, “China and Russia want to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests. China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favour.”