China says it will establish national security bureau in Hong Kong
BEIJING — China plans to establish a special bureau in Hong Kong to investigate and prosecute crimes considered threatening to national security, the staterun news agency said Saturday, as it reported on details of a new national security law Beijing is imposing on the semi-autonomous region.
In addition to establishing the national security bureau, bodies in all Hong Kong government departments, from finance to immigration, will be directly answerable to the central government in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The announcement will increase fears that China’s central government will continue to tighten its grip on Hong Kong. Beijing has said it is determined to press ahead with the national security legislation, which has been strongly criticized as undermining the Asian financial hub’s legal and political institutions, despite heavy criticism from within Hong Kong and abroad.
The details of the proposed national security law emerged as the body that handles most lawmaking for China’s top legislative body closed its latest meeting. The bill was raised for discussion at the meeting of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, but there was no further word on its fate, Xinhua said.
Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate on the standing committee, told Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK that the law was reviewed but no vote had been taken, and that it wasn’t clear when it would be further vetted.
The bill was submitted Thursday for deliberation, covering four categories of crimes: secession, subversion of state power, local terrorist activities and collaborating with foreign or external foreign forces to endanger national security.
The U.S. says the bill will revoke some of the preferential conditions extended toward Hong Kong after its transfer from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Britain has said it will offer passports and a path to citizenship to as many as three million Hong Kong residents.