Secret agents roll in

HONG KONG: China on Wednesday opened a new office for its intelligence agents to operate openly in Hong Kong for the first time under a tough new security law, transforming a hotel into the force’s headquarters.

The new base is a hotel overlooking the city’s Victoria Park, a location that has hosted pro-democracy protests for years, including an annual vigil each June marking Beijing’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown.

A plaque bearing the security agency’s name was unveiled Wednesday in front of Hong Kong government and police officials.

Police blocked roads around the hotel and surrounded it with water-filled barriers.

A Chinese flag was unfurled on a pole erected outside the building and a plaque with the emblem of the People’s Republic of China went up overnight.

“The Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was inaugurated here on Wednesday morning,” China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing imposed a new security law on Hong Kong last week targeting acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign collusion.

The law is the most radical change in Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy since Britain handed the city back to China in 1997. Similar national security laws are used to crush dissent on the mainland and police in Hong Kong have already made arrests for people voicing political views now deemed illegal, such as advocating independence or autonomy.

The content of the security law was kept secret until it was enacted last Tuesday, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature.

China has said it will have jurisdiction over the most serious cases, toppling the legal firewall that has existed between its party-controlled courts and Hong Kong’s independent judiciary since 1997.

Among the many provisions the law contains is authorisation for China’s security apparatus to work openly inside Hong Kong.