China passes sweeping Hong Kong national security law
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 27 commentsBy: Justin Solomon and Adela Suliman (NBC News)
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HONG KONG — Beijing formally enacted security laws for Hong Kong on Tuesday, paving the way for one of the most profound changes to the governing of the territory in decades.
The bill was signed into law by China's President Xi Jinping and later formally adopted by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, according to state-run Xinhua news agency, bringing it into effect late Tuesday.
China stunned the world in May when it announced that it would side-step Hong Kong's own legislature and pass national security laws direct from Beijing.
The move is widely seen as a blow to the "one country, two systems" policy agreed between Britain and China in 1997 during the handover of the territory, which allowed Hong Kong to adopt a political system separate to the mainland.
"It's profoundly concerning and it's really the biggest crisis Hong Kong has faced in its modern history," said Benedict Rogers, co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, a British advocacy group that monitors Hong Kong's freedoms.
Rogers lived in the territory during the British handover and said the national security law's passage was "heartbreaking" and had "decimated" Hong Kong's autonomy.
"[It] could well mean the death of Hong Kong as we know it," he added.
Demonstrations held opposing and supporting Hong Kong's new security law
June 30, 202000:48
The law — passed on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China — comes after pro-democracy demonstrations swept through the city last year. It will allow Beijing to set up special police units in Hong Kong to punish crimes considered a threat to the mainland, with some crimes carrying an expected maximum penalty of life in jail.
Officials in Beijing and Hong Kong have been at pains to reassure that the law will not erode the city's high degree of autonomy, insisting it will only target a minority of "troublemakers" who pose a threat to national security.
Hong Kong native Louis Chan, 40, does not buy the official explanation for the legislation, which he sees as an encroachment on the territory's cherished freedoms. He told NBC News he is preparing to leave for Australia with his two children.
"I feel sad. I kept asking myself why do I leave? Do I need to leave? But for my children's good ... I have to make this decision," he said.
Amid fears the law will crush the financial hub's rights and freedoms, prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong announced he was quitting "Demosisto," a group he formed.
Hundreds also marched through the city's streets on Sunday in protest.
Meanwhile, pro-China demonstrators flocked to show their support for the mainland.
Former Hong Kong Chief Executive C.Y. Leung voiced his support for Beijing, offering a reward of up to HK$1 million (around $130,000) to those who assisted with the arrest of violators of the new law, he wrote on Facebook sharing a hotline number.
Current Chief Executive Lam told the United Nations' Human Rights Council on Tuesday that the territory had been "traumatized by escalating violence" and unable to "gate-keep" its own security.
"The law will have no retrospective effect," she told the U.N. by video. "It will not affect legitimate rights and freedoms."
Pro-China supporters display Chinese and Hong Kong flags as they raise a toast with champagne during a rally near the government headquarters in Hong Kong.Anthony Wallace / AFP - Getty Images
The security law sparked global condemnation when proposed in May, during China's National People's Congress — an annual political gathering.
The United States has heavily criticized the law and said it will withdraw some of Hong Kong's preferential trade conditions, stating that the territory can no longer be regarded as sufficiently autonomous from the mainland.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. was taking action to "punish" China for "eviscerating Hong Kong's freedoms," announcing U.S. visa restrictions for some Communist Party officials. China retaliated with similar measures.
On Monday, Pompeo that the U.S. was considering barring defense exports to Hong Kong.
"China will not be intimidated," foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Tuesday.
"The United States' attempt to obstruct China's advancement of Hong Kong's national security legislation through so-called sanctions will never succeed," he said, adding that China will take "necessary countermeasures."
Other governments also signaled alarm over Beijing's move. Japan's foreign minister expressed "regret" over China's decision, while the E.U. Council President Charles Michel said the body deplored it, during a news conference.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the legislation a "grave step," which follows an offer from Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this month to provide passports and a path to citizenship to as many as 3 million Hong Kong residents. Taiwan has voiced similar support.
Ed Flanagan and Reuters contributed.
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Show me, please, that the countries that have bitched about this legislation do not have similar legislation to protect themselves. What is Homeland Security? What the article did not bother to say, although it certainly made some hysterical false statements, the quotation included, is this, i.e. what the law is about: (quoted from the English version of the law):
I suppose you are going to tell me that America has no laws for "...preventing, suppressing and imposing punishment for the offences of secession, subversion, organisation and perpetration of terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security..."
Come on, Americans, dig up the Rosenbergs and beg them for forgiveness, punish Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn for ruining so many lives, reimburse the Japanese Americans you interned and pay them reparations, wipe off the slander and libel you pasted all over Dalton Trumbo and the others the McCarthy hearings destroyed and pay his family compensation. THEN you have the right to be critical of a law that preserves the right for China to include Hong Kong as part of the mainland government 27 years from now.
American Department of Homeland Security
[deleted]
People who want to remain free, like those with the banner above, are trouble makers?
The difference between the US and China, is that we (still) have the presumption of innocence and due process under the law.
In your adopted country, the law and the process is whatever the Chi-comms say it is.
[Buzz is not the topic.]
Didn't take them long to crack down on peaceful protests.
When people obey the law they don't get arrested. They didn't. I'm sure the new law would not have been necessary if America did not interfere with Hong Kong's domestic affairs, and if the protesters were peaceful in the first place, but I watched news videos of destruction that made the rioting in America look like children playing.
When people obey the law they don't arrested
unless they are Uighers.
Then they they get arrested, forcibly sterilized and have their body parts sold for profit.
Body parts sold for profit? Is that Trump's latest deflection from his incompetence?
So how many terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and hate crimes have there been in America in the past 3 years? Maybe Americans need to be re-educated.
If in fact it is true, I do say that I do NOT agree with enforced birth control.
"according to a tribunal"? What tribunal? China has invited a delegation from the UN Human Rights organization to tour their vocatiional reeducation camps. Was it the United Nations that said it?
I don't suck up. Trumpsters "suck up" to their demi-god and NEVER admit his wrongs. I have often admitted on this site my disagreement with things the CCP has done and you damn well know it. I could not open the link you had posted, which, by the way is one of the things that makes me unhappy about the CCP, and there has been SO MUCH fake news and conspiracy theories, especially about China, that I need to be convinced. Lately I voiced my upset about enforced birth control of the Muslims...did you not see that? Now, having seen your latest comment, I am as concerned about transplant abuse here as you are. So, hear this - I DO NOT SUCK UP to the CCP.
Notwithstanding that, I know full well that you and your cohorts will NEVER admit to anything the CCP does right, such as eradicating poverty, limiting terrorist acts and proficiently containing the virus. I, being criticized by you, HAVE admitted that I thought your demi-god did something right concerning his support of Israel. Put THAT in your pipe....
communism -vs- democracy
ready.... fight.
Chacun a son gout.
perhaps, but in the end, communism always fails for the same reasons.
so.... yep, it will be fun to watch on youtube
Somehow I don't think China is willing to be humiliated again as it was by the Opium Wars. I'll bet it's quite prepared to defend itself from those who seek to destroy it.
don't worry, communists tend to destroy themselves...
the outcome is inevitable. the only question is time, and how many dead.
,
I think that the people living here would question your opinion. That is not a denial of what you said, only that so far things appear to be a lot more chaotic in the USA than they are here.
the people who live there don't matter.
try reading a history book....
regardless what people think today - communism always fails..
my point exactly.
that will be the day we purge the leftwing virus from our system
I can't wait.
I don't need a video to understand communists
history is ripe with working examples.
Trump's incompetent and negligent response to the virus has done a pretty good with YOUR population. 127,000 and increasing every day.