The most powerful indictments of Beijing’s plans to impose a national security law on Hong Kong have not come from pro-democracy activists, but from the authorities themselves. They have told the city’s residents all they need to know about the proposals which China’s rubber-stamp parliament is due to pass this Thursday.
Thousands have already protested against the plans, which will bar subversion, separatism or acts of foreign interference. More are expected to take to the streets on Wednesday, as people oppose the second reading of a separate bill in Hong Kong that criminalises “disrespecting” the national anthem, with a penalty of up to three years in jail.
They believe that the national security law spells the end of China’s promise that Hong Kong could maintain its way of life – which has long included rights such as freedom of expression and protest – until 2047, under the arrangement known as one country, two systems. The city’s mini-constitution states that it should pass its own security law, but the unpopularity of the measure made authorities back off 17 years ago. Existing laws are more than ample if Beijing’s true concern is security: they have allowed the arrest of more than 8,000 people in less than a year. There is already a specific ordinance to deal with terrorism, the other spectre invoked by officials.
Authorities insist the legislation will not impact on Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, while at the same time underlining that it will, in fact, destroy it. The very decision to impose it from above is one of those signals. (Hong Kong’s bar association has questioned whether Beijing has the legal authority to do so.) But others have followed last week’s shock announcement. China’s foreign commissioner in the region said that freedoms of the press and speech would be unchanged – before warning the media against using them as a “pretext” to undermine national sovereignty and security.
Even more striking was the time limit implied in the response of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, to criticism of the proposed security laws: “We are a very free society, so for the time being, people have the freedom to say whatever they want to say.” Pressed on whether the law could be applied retrospectively, as many fear, she would not rule it out.
The populist state newspaper Global Times was more openly threatening, writing that the pro-democracy billionaire Jimmy Lai’s Twitter account had “provided evidence for national security agencies of acts of subversion, experts warned”.
None of this will surprise Hong Kong’s people. They are painfully aware of how national security legislation is used to punish dissidents, scholars, lawyers and activists on the mainland. The most famous, the Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo, died three years ago while serving his 11-year sentence for inciting state subversion, having co-authored and gathered signatures for a letter calling for democratic reforms.
These pronouncements are designed to sow fear and undermine opposition. The vote will pass on Thursday; the question for Hong Kong’s future is how it is implemented and enforced. That is why other countries, particularly Britain, must take a stand – including at next month’s G7 meeting – and why businesses and others should do so too. We know how China wants to use this law. How it actually does so is yet to be determined.
