By Ben Westcott, CNN

Updated 1:17 AM ET, Thu November 21, 2019

Hong Kong (CNN) Chinese officials and state media have reacted with fury to the almost-unanimous passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Though the bill has yet to go before US President Donald Trump for consideration, China wasted little time in condemning the vote, with the state-owned People’s Daily describing it as “a piece of waste paper,” and a “serious provocation against the entire Chinese people” in an editorial published Thursday.