HK natl security law ‘likely’ in one month

Setting up a new unit within the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) does not necessarily mean the capabilities of the Chinese mainland’s affiliated national security agency in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in enforcing the law would be weakened. On the contrary, the coordination mechanism between the two would be further improved in joint operations involving national security-related cases, sources close to the matter told the Global Times on Wednesday.

To accelerate the process of formulating the national security law for Hong Kong, two senior officials – Zhang Yong, vice-chairman of the Basic Law Committee under the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, and Song Zhe, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council – attended a forum held by the Hong Kong Coalition to report public opinions from various sectors in Hong Kong on Wednesday, said Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, deputy secretary-general of the coalition.

About 80 attendees from various sectors shared their views of the upcoming national security law for the HKSAR.

“There are some topics of concern related to the new law such as law enforcement mechanisms. Most attendees who reported public opinion to the senior officials from Beijing agreed that Hong Kong needs to set up a special court in handling national security-related cases,” he said.

He said that the HKPF needs to coordinate with national security agencies as they lack experience in handling national security as well as terrorism-related cases.

“The process of drafting is expected to accelerate further,” Wong said.

“We can’t rule out the possibility that the NPC Standing Committee will hold interim meetings in enacting the law, as senior officials have been working day and night in drafting the legislature and listening to public opinion from Hong Kong across a broad scale,” Wong said, noting that the law is likely to take effect within a month.