Laws divide opinion:

CHINA’S sweeping national security law for Hong Kong has sharply divided opinion on both inside the financial hub and beyond its borders.

Beijing loyalists and China-friendly nations hailed it, but many dissidents, rights groups and Western governments decried it as the end of the city’s free speech traditions and judicial autonomy.

Ahead of the territory’s handover from Britain, authoritarian China guaranteed Hong Kong civil liberties — as well as judicial and legislative autonomy — until 2047 in a deal known as “One Country, Two Systems”.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader, Carrie Lam, on Wednesday described the security law as “the most significant development” since the handover. Beijing said the law was a “sword” that would hang over the heads of lawbreakers after a year of huge, often violent pro-democracy protests.

On Wednesday, Zhang Xiaoming, deputy of Beijing’s Hong Kong office, described threats of sanctions by foreign countries as “gangster logic”. He added Beijing could have simply applied mainland law had it wanted to abandon “One Country, Two Systems”.

Criticism poured in from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy figures. The Democratic Party said the law marked the end of “One Country, Two Systems” and “completely destroyed Hong Kong’s judicial independence”.

The Labour Party feared dissidents would share the fate of those on the mainland frequently jailed under Beijing’s national security laws.

The Civic Party said the legislation replaced “rule of law” with “rule of men”. “This rule of terror might create a false appearance of controlled social order, but it completely loses Hong Kong people’s hearts,” the party said.