Hong Kong’s government has announced a public consultation period for a new national security law, telling residents it has a constitutional duty to strengthen legal mechanisms in response to “foreign agents and Hong Kong independence advocates … still lurking in our society”.
The city’s chief executive, John Lee, said the law which is known as Article 23, would be added to Hong Kong’s mini constitution and work in concert with the existing national security law (NSL) – imposed by China’s central government in 2020 – but the latter would prevail.
The consultation will be open to foreign chambers of commerce, Lee said. However the impact of the government crackdown has already seen foreign investor confidence dive and prompted streams of residents to emigrate overseas from what was once considered Asia’s world city.
Why are the new laws being considered now?
Under article 23 of the territory’s Basic Law, a mini-constitution which was enacted after the 1997 handover from British colonial rule to China, Hong Kong was required to enact laws to prohibit acts which “endanger national security”. An attempt to introduce these laws in 2003 failed in the face of widespread protests.
However after massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, the central government of China imposed a separate national security law on the city, also citing the Hong Kong government’s failure to legislate Article 23.
“This issue has been hanging over our head for 26 years,” said Tang Pink-keung, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, on Tuesday.
Tang said the new law would cover five broad categories of offences.
Lee told media “foreign agents and advocates of Hong Kong independence are still lurking in our society,” and made several references to the government’s narrative that the 2019 pro-democracy protests were driven at least in part by foreign influence.
The press conference announcing the consultation heavily emphasised the government’s “constitutional responsibility” to introduce Article 23, as well as its claims that new laws were urgently needed to safeguard national security in Hong Kong. Lee also repeatedly stressed that other nations had their own national security laws, which Hong Kong had considered in designing its own.
What will the new law cover?
The new law will classify five offences: treason, insurrection, espionage, destructive activities endangering national security, and external interference.
Separate chapters of the consultation document also cover issues around the definition of theft of state secrets, and the “extraterritorial effect” of the law.
Beijing’s national security law claims global jurisdiction, which in part prompted several other nations to tear up extradition treaties with Hong Kong. That law has also been criticised for being overly broad and draconian, easily weaponised to criminalise benign and non-violent acts of dissent.
The consultation document would also address “shortcomings” in the current handling of national security cases which have been affected by extraordinary delays, Tang said.
Among current prosecutions, the trial of newspaper proprietor and activist Jimmy Lai, is currently before a national security court after about a year of successive delays. Lai is charged with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces under the NSL, as well as sedition charges under a separate law. He has pleaded not guilty and faces life in prison if convicted.
While Lee said that the new law would respect human rights and freedoms – including freedoms of assembly, press, and speech – he added that most freedoms and rights were “not absolute”, and the 2019 protests “showed that without national security we cannot enjoy our rights or freedoms”.
Numerous human rights groups and foreign governments have criticised Hong Kong for impeding human rights since it escalated a crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 2019.
The consultation document will be released on Tuesday, Lee told the media, adding that public feedback for the law will be open until 28 February.
