UK, US blast Hong Kong’s proposed security law

LONDON: The United States and United Kingdom on Wednesday criticized Hong Kong’s government over a proposed new national security law, saying it would curtail freedoms in the Asian financial hub.

Massive pro-democracy protests rocked Hong Kong in 2019, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to call for greater freedoms.

In response, Beijing imposed a national security law to punish four major crimes — secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces — with sentences ranging up to life in prison.

Hong Kong officials said last month a homegrown security law was needed to plug “loopholes,” with justice chief Paul Lam saying he had heard no objections during a month of public consultations that ended on Wednesday.

“We are particularly concerned by Hong Kong authorities’ proposal to adopt broad and vague definitions of ‘state secrets’ and ‘external interference’ that could be used to eliminate dissent through the fear of arrest and detention,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron urged the city’s government “to reconsider their proposals and engage in genuine and meaningful consultation with the people of Hong Kong.”

The UK is the former colonial power in Hong Kong. It handed control of the city to China in July 1997.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration that set the conditions of the handover stipulated that for 50 years, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) would “maintain a high degree of autonomy and that the rights and freedoms ... would continue.”

“As a co-signatory to the Joint Declaration, the UK has a responsibility to ensure that those rights and freedoms are maintained,” he added.

But China’s foreign affairs commissioner in Hong Kong condemned Cameron’s statement as “irresponsible” and “vicious smearing.”

“The UK does not have sovereign power, governing power or supervision power over the post-handover Hong Kong,” the commissioner’s spokesman said on Thursday.

Regina Ip, the Hong Kong government’s top adviser, said “it is ridiculous for the UKG to claim it has oversight on how Hong Kong enacts its national security law under the Sino-British Joint Declaration.”

“If UKG does take its human rights obligations seriously, it would not have legitimized its scheme to send refugee claimants to Rwanda,” Ip wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, Hong Kong is required to make its own law combating seven securityrelated crimes, including treason and espionage.

The last legislative attempt in 2003 was shelved after half a million Hong Kong residents took to the streets to protest the move.