Like all of China’s laws designed to crib, confine, and punish the individual, which is most of them, “New Hong Kong Security Law Comes Into Force Amid Fears for Freedoms,” Reuters says (March 22, 2024).
The law took effect at midnight, when it was published on a government website, days after Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing lawmakers passed it unanimously, fast-tracking legislation to plug what authorities called national security loopholes.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee signed the new national security law on Friday evening [March 22], saying it “accomplished a historic mission, living up to the trust placed in us by the central [Chinese] authorities.”
On Friday, Australia and Britain criticized China for its actions in Hong Kong after a meeting in Adelaide, noting in a joint statement “deep concerns about the continuing systemic erosion of autonomy, freedoms and rights.”
Australia and Taiwan updated their travel advisories for Hong Kong, urging citizens to exercise caution.
“You could break the laws without intending to and be detained without charge and denied access to a lawyer,” the Australian government said.
It’s a problem. Don’t travel to Hong Kong unless you have to, and not then either. Anybody who can get out should, including any foreign businesses operating in Hong Kong.
But this has been true of Hong Kong at least since 2020, when China imposed the first National Security Law on the province. And it has been true of the mainland for decades. China is a totalitarian state. The barbarous poltroons who run it have no problem incarcerating and torturing people for being a member of the “wrong” ethnic and/or religious group or incidentally stating a truth about the Chinese state.
The new law can send people to prison for ten years for inciting hatred of Chinese Communist Party leaders, an emotion that is simply the normal reaction of any normal person who must deal with them.
Under the security law, penalties can run up to life in prison for sabotage endangering national security, treason and insurrection; 20 years for espionage and sabotage; and 14 years for external interference….
Moreover, police powers have also been expanded to permit detaining people for up to 16 days without charge—a jump from the current 48 hours—and to restrict a suspect from meeting lawyers and communicating with others.
The CCP treats all of these signal terms, “national security,” “treason,” “insurrection,” “espionage,” “sabotage,” etc., as infinitely elastic, applicable to all actions that happen to rub officials the wrong way.
Before passage of Article 23, police could hold people for 48 hours without charge, a period that has now been elongated into 16 days.
Also, the top CCP flunky in Hong Kong, John Lee, is empowered to make it up as he goes along by concocting “new offences carrying jail terms of up to seven years through subsidiary legislation.” Which will only be approved by Hong Kong’s now-rubber-stamp legislature, from which all proponents and practitioners of democracy have been systematically excluded.
At The Guardian, Simon Tisdall says that with the passage of Article 23, Hong Kong has “finally been brought to heel.” It had already been brought to heel, but we can agree that the subjugation has intensified.
Eating noodles is a seditious act now, if the noodles have secret foreign connections. Under new security laws, known as article 23, life imprisonment awaits those who defy the behemoth to the north….
Article 23 is final confirmation of China’s shocking breach of faith with Britain. Beijing solemnly pledged, 40 years ago, to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy. The 1984 Sino-British joint declaration agreed the “one country, two systems” principle would continue in force for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover. China gave its word. Its word has proven worthless….
The relentless, groundless persecution of Lai, a British citizen, has become a potent symbol of Chinese government arrogance and impunity. In January, the UN expressed “deep concern” that key prosecution evidence had been obtained through torture. Yet Lai’s Kafka-esque ordeal, another form of torture, continues regardless….
Xi is adamant: Taiwan is next. The west cannot afford to fail again.
I can only echo these words, except for one misleading implication.
Back in the 1980s, when the handover was being planned, everybody who knew the Chinese government already knew that its word was worthless and that, after China took over in 1997, everything that had made Hong Kong “into one of the world’s great financial, business, cultural and tourism hubs” would be on the chopping block.
So it’s not as if the fact of CCP dishonesty with respect to Hong Kong has only now been finally confirmed. We never had any reason to doubt it.
