The 'real' handover: Hong Kong fears looming laws will end 'one country, two systems'

Hongkongers say Beijing’s new security laws – set to pass this week – will turn their country ‘into China for real this time’

To Jennifer Tsui, the looming national security law agreed last month by China’s legislature seems like the “real” return of Hong Kong to China.

When Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997, Tsui, then a student, was apprehensive, but her worries were allayed when things appeared almost unchanged after the handover. Hongkongers were assured their lifestyle would remain unchanged until at least 2047 under the “one country two systems” policy guaranteed in the Sino-British joint declaration.

But over the past 23 years, freedoms have been gradually eroded. Previous efforts to guard the city from China’s encroachments, such as the 2003 movement against national security legislation, and the 2014 Occupy movement to clamour for free elections of the leader and the legislature, have only resulted in tighter control by China.

Some predicted harsher measures from Beijing in the wake of the year-long anti-government protest which has disrupted the semi-autonomous city since June 2019. But nothing could have prepared Hongkongers for the shock of China’s move last month to impose a sweeping national security law through an annex of the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law. China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, is holding a three-day deliberation on the security law from Sunday and it is expected to pass on Tuesday.

“It almost feels like an invasion,” Tsui said. “Now the knife has come down, there is no need to wait until 2047. We’re turning into China for real this time.”

Critics say the new law – targeting separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces – will be used against government opponents and will undermine freedoms. Many Hongkongers fear the civil liberties they have been proud of – the rule of law, an independent judiciary, press freedom, the right to free speech and assembly – will disappear.

Although some insist the fight for democracy will go on, they express a sense of hopelessness and bitterness. Jim Yip, a 26-year-old clerk who was arrested for taking part in a protest last year, swore he would “keep my anger alive” and risk jail by continuing to protest, but admitted: “There’s no hope … we’re awaiting death.”

China has not revealed the full contents of the bill but has released an explanatory summary. It stipulates that the Hong Kong government set up a new national security commission chaired by the city’s leader, with an adviser appointed by Beijing. There will also be a national security agency established by China to collect and analyse intelligence and “monitor and supervise” the local government’s work. The new legislation would also allow Hong Kong’s leader to choose judges to handle national security cases in the city – a move criticised as undermining the rule of law.

Without defining what activities amount to national security crimes, the draft asserts that the security law should override Hong Kong law if discrepancies arise. It also states that in “certain circumstances” the national security agency overseen by Beijing will have jurisdiction on cases rather than Hong Kong courts. Chinese state security bodies would also oversee what authorities say would be “a very small number” of cases.

Hongkongers also fear that China’s national security law, which has arbitrarily detained and jailed dissidents and activists, will be applied to them after Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing media reported a plan to set up detention centres where suspects in national security cases can be held indefinitely.

All this has caused widespread alarm. Some say they will stop protesting, while many have started using VPN software to go online anonymously, deleting their social media posts or changing their usernames. “They can accuse you of whatever they want,” said Serena Ho. “For the sake of our child, I don’t think I’ll protest any more. I feel bad, but it is too dangerous.”

Experts say their fears are not unfounded. Prof Jerome Cohen, a China law expert at New York University, said he was concerned about the law because “the breadth of the prescribed definitions is not yet known”, and the law will integrate Hong Kong into the Chinese system that subjects criminal justice to the security agencies. He is also worried that national security cases that end up in indefinite detention will work like the pre-trial incommunicado detention in China, where suspects are held for months before the criminal process begins.

He says that, after detention in Hong Kong, some people will be tried by judges handpicked by Hong Kong’s leader in a special security tribunal, while the more serious cases will be sent to China, where courts have a conviction rate of over 99%. “At each step, it raises fundamental questions about the great extent to which the national security law will deprive Hong Kong people of the due process of law,” said Cohen.

Officials insist that human rights will still be protected under the Basic Law and the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They have promised the laws will target only a “narrow set of acts”, and say the vast majority of Hong Kong residents will not be affected. But Cohen claims: “The very provisions in the national security law violate those protections.”

Martin S Flaherty, a visiting law professor at Princeton University who has researched China, Northern Ireland and Turkey, said this type of security law would “jettison fundamental due-process protections, sweep up legitimate political opposition and innocent people, and not infrequently backfire by radicalising the population it meant to pacify.”

The national security law has prompted international anger, with the G7 nations urging China to reconsider, although China is unlikely to take heed. The US senate has passed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which would impose sanctions on people or companies that back efforts to restrict Hong Kong’s freedoms. Forty-nine UN special rapporteurs have also called for the establishment of a special mechanism for Hong Kong in view of the imminent new law.

“Hong Kong stands at the cliff-edge of an uncertain and unsettling future,” said Joshua Rosenzweig at Amnesty International. The national security law “will put everybody in Hong Kong at risk of arbitrary detention and unfair trial,” the group said.

Guardian reporter

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