China Enacts Security Law, Asserting Control Over Hong Kong
June 30, 2020 EMILY FENG


Pro-mainland supporters in Hong Kong hold Chinese and Hong Kong flags during a rally to celebrate the approval of a national security law on Tuesday.Kin Cheung/AP

Beijing's top legislative body has unanimously passed a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong, a controversial move that could effectively criminalize most dissent in the city and risks widening the rift between China and western countries who have criticized the law.

The news was reported by NOWNews — a Hong Kong cable television station — the city's public broadcaster and a slew of local newspapers, including Wei Wen Po and Ta Kung Pao, two pro-Beijing outlets which often signal official Chinese policy. Beijing state media have yet to confirm the law was passed.

National security cases relating to subversion, secession, terrorism or foreign interference can now be tried by a special agency, likely to bet up within Hong Kong's police force, and subject to a more constrained judicial process in which Hong Kong's Beijing-backed chief executive can select the judges overseeing the cases. The law also allows Beijing to set up its own security force on Hong Kong soil to investigate security cases and collect intelligence.

The law will likely take effect on July 1, which is also the anniversary of Hong Kong's 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule.


"The legal firewall, if you like, that separates the two systems [of Hong Kong and Beijing] is now gone," said Alan Leong, a former chair of Hong Kong's bar association and chair of Hong Kong's Civic party. "We are allowing the long arms of the Chinese Communist Party to reach Hong Kong."

Beijing has defended the law by arguing such a measure is needed to restore stability to Hong Kong, which has been rocked by sometimes violent protests over the last year stemming first from a now-shelved extradition bill and general dissatisfaction with Beijing's heavy-handed governance.

Pro-Beijing legislators in Hong Kong tried to pass a similar but more limited national security measure in 2003 but the measure was rescinded after an estimated half-million peaceful protesters took to the streets in opposition.

Protesters gather at a shopping mall in Hong Kong during a pro-democracy protest against Beijing's national security law on Tuesday.Vincent Yu/AP

This time, Beijing took no chances. It announced in May that its own parliament would ram through the legislation in a swift and secretive process that has bypassed Hong Kong's own legislative council.

In passing the law in Beijing, China is making clear its legal system is paramount.

The end of Hong Kong self-governance?

Per the terms of its handover to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong was promised 50 years of limited autonomy under a principle called "One Country, Two Systems." Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and its decades of independent judicial rulings protecting civil rights were to take precedence over Beijing's governance until at least 2047.

But legal experts say the national security law demonstrates how Beijing sees its own political diktat as now superseding Hong Kong's rule of law.

"China gets to determine when its interests are involved and when a [legal] interpretation is warranted," said Cora Chan, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. "The [national security law] opens up a window into widespread interference in people's lives and potentially penetrates into a lot of activities that contribute to a lot of the vibrancy of civil society and the character of this financial center."

Breaking with procedure, a public draft of the law was not made available before it was passed in Beijing. Instead, in the weeks leading up to the law's passage, even proponents in Hong Kong were left to parse scant details fro Chinese state media about what the law would entail.

"That is just completely contrary to the notions of law that we had in Hong Kong, which is law as an accessible, transparent process, where before you enact a law you discuss, you get the draft out, you debate it," said Wilson Leung, a commercial litigator and a council member of Hong Kong's bar association, which has criticized the national security law and demanded greater transparency in the drafting process.

Beijing has also pushed ahead with the law despite sanctions from the United States and criticism from other western countries. The U.S. ended its preferential trading status with Hong Kong in May, saying the city no longer had any autonomy from mainland China, and has slapped visa restrictions on Chinese officials in Hong Kong. (China announced it would put retaliatory visa restrictions on Americans who exhibit "egregious conduct" toward Hong Kong.) The United Kingdom, Hong Kong's former colonial ruler, has offered a path toward citizenship for up to 3 million Hong Kong residents.

It is not yet clear how strictly the law will be applied in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has defended the law, asserting earlier this month that the measure "will only target an extremely small minority of illegal and criminal acts and activities."

Yet Lam also admitted that Hong Kong officials had not seen the full proposed text of the national security law in the weeks leading up to its passage. On Tuesday morning, as Hong Kong outlets began reporting the law had passed, Lam refused to comment, saying that it would be "inappropriate" to do so given the legislative body was still meeting in Beijing.

The fallout from the law is already being felt in Hong Kong.

Sales of VPN software, used to circumvent China's Internet censors and evade some measures of digital surveillance, have skyrocketed.

Hundreds of outspoken Twitter accounts run by Hong Kong residents have been voluntarily deleted in the last few days as people rush to clear any potentially incriminating web-browsing history and online political posts.

And mere hours after the national security bill was approved, at least two opposition political parties announced they had effectively dissolved themselves.

Activist Joshua Wong and fellow activists Agnes Chow and Nathan Law announced their resignations from Demosisto, the youth political party they founded in 2016, on Facebook Tuesday. They resolved to continue their activism individually.

Andy Chan, an activist who advocates for outright independence from Beijing, also said he was disbanding the Hong Kong branch of his political party and shifting operations to Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

"Great changes are coming....no one can be sure about their tomorrow, " Wong wrote on his Facebook page.



I hereby declare withdrawing from Demosisto...

If my voice will not be heard soon, I hope that the international community will continue to speak up for Hong Kong and step up concrete efforts to defend our last bit of freedom. pic.twitter.com/BIGD5tgriF— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 😷 (@joshuawongcf) June 30, 2020