Security legislation will make the SAR much more stable and secure
The only people who have a reason to fear Hong Kong’s national security law, to be enacted by China’s National People’s Congress, are those who set out to break it.
The new law will instill a sense of security for foreign businesses in Hong Kong, which has been plagued by homegrown terrorists trained by overseas operatives and supported by foreign governments for the past year. Their objective has been to dismantle China’s rapid growth on the world platform by using Hong Kong as a pawn to break its economic prowess.
Since last year, except for a short pause through the coronavirus lockdown, local terrorists have challenged authorities with arson, murder, and wanton vandalism, not in the name of improving livelihood issues, but for Hong Kong independence. This is something Hong Kong can never afford.
It has never been about Hong Kong, but about China. Ever since China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, China has been the subject of foreign pressure to “free” Hong Kong from a communist regime. But China has never enforced its communist ideology on the people of Hong Kong or any other country or region in its Belt and Road Initiative. In contrast, some Western countries, especially the United States, have continually thrust their idea of democracy down the throats of Hong Kongers. They deliberately refused to acknowledge that Hong Kong is already a democracy as enshrined in its Basic Law promulgated by China’s National People’s Congress. To the point: Some 4 million Hong Kong people will go to the polls in September to elect their representatives on the 70-seat Legislative Council (50 percent by geographic constituencies and 50 percent by functional constituencies). Plans for 100 percent universal suffrage were defeated by the opposition camp in the city’s legislature in 2014.
The US has had a total dislike for China since McCarthyism from the late 1940s through the 1950s, characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign that spread fear of “communist influence” on American institutions. Conservative American culture has it that communism will one day rule the world, which has never been the intention of the Communist Party of China. But the mindset is there, and the Washington establishment never hesitates to use bullying tactics to exercise its hegemonic influence as an excuse to fight the alleged encroachment of communism. Even Australia kowtows to the US for fear of trade sanctions if it does not toe the line.
Hong Kong has nothing to fear from the US threats. It is and has always been a free port. Any business from any part of the world is free to open shop in Hong Kong without any restrictions. It remains and will continue to be a gateway to China with the internationally accepted common-law system in place for protection. The cornerstone of Hong Kong’s success is its legal system and rule of law, which is being strengthened by the new national security law.
Some 1,300 US companies operate in Hong Kong and enjoy its benefits of a low tax regime, security by law and the government’s policy of positive non-interventionism. The national security law will not affect them, but the threatened American sanctions against Hong Kong will. Suddenly, they will have to pay increased fees to export their goods and services to the US. This is not the fault of China nor the Hong
Kong SAR; the responsibility rests solely with the US administration. The US is also punishing its own kind by increasing the burden of its entrepreneurs who are bridging the gap between East and West.
Led by prominent UK politicians, and aggressively supported by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, some Western governments have condemned China for introducing the national security law to Hong Kong, accusing it of interfering in Hong Kong’s “high degree of autonomy”. But the autonomy is not absolute, and under China’s Constitution and the Basic Law, as well as the Joint Declaration signed with the UK, China is responsible for Hong Kong’s defense and foreign affairs. China is simply living up to that constitutional obligation. In reality, it’s the US that has interfered in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, through its National Endowment for Democracy, for decades. And the Oslo Freedom Forum has been training Hong Kong activists in domestic warfare via seminars in Oslo and via Skype workshops. All of these activities are blatant foreign interference and indirect sabotage that China seeks to stop. Enough damage already has been done, and the Hong Kong authorities were unable to curb the violence, which terrorized the city’s streets.
Pro-US activist and barrister Martin Lee Chu-ming claimed on local television that Hong Kong already has laws to stop terrorism, subversion and secession, which are covered by local laws, thereby making the NPC decision unnecessary. He argued like a true barrister, but the various laws are jumbled everywhere, and by law, they must be codified under Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s constitutional document.
Pompeo and US President Donald Trump tend to forget that Hong Kong is an independent member of the World Trade Organization in its own right and as such can appeal to the world body against the US sanctions. They also forget that by invoking their status and treating Hong Kong the same as the Chinese mainland, it would be violating its own WTO obligations and therefore be subject to WTO rules and regulations.