Aussie PM mulls help for Hong Kong
Morisson explores visas for citizens
SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled yesterday his government may follow Britain in offering visas to Hong Kong citizens after China imposed a new security law on the city.
Britain said it would grant leave for Hong Kong citizens with British National Overseas Status, and their dependent families, to live and work in Britain for five years, and later apply for citizenship.
There are around 3 million Hong Kong citizens who hold, or are eligible to apply for, BNO passports. Britain’s Foreign Minister Dominic Raab told parliament he had held conversations with other nations with close relationships with Hong Kong.
Hong Kong police, who made several arrests under the law during protests on Wednesday, said a 24-year-old man suspected of stabbing a police officer was arrested early yesterday at the city’s airport. Local news outlets said he had been preparing to depart for London.
Mr Morrison said yesterday that events in Hong Kong were concerning and Australia was “prepared to step up and provide support”.
Asked if Australia would consider offering safe haven to Hong Kong people, similar to Britain, he replied: “We are considering very actively the proposals that I asked to be brought forward several weeks ago and the final touches would be put on those and they’ll soon be considered by Cabinet to provide similar opportunities.”
Mr Morrison didn’t provide details of the proposals.
China’s parliament adopted the security law in response to protests last year triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling Hong Kong’s freedoms, guaranteed by a “one country, two systems” formula agreed when it returned to Chinese rule.
Australia’s relations with China are strained after Canberra called for an international investigation into the source of the coronavirus.
Australia’s Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds said in a speech yesterday the region was facing “the most consequential strategic realignment since the end of World War II”.
“Nations are increasingly employing coercive tactics that fall below the threshold of armed conflict, cyberattacks, foreign interference and economic pressure that seeks to exploit the grey area between peace and war,” she said in the speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“In the grey zone, when the screws are tightened, influence becomes interference, economic cooperation becomes coercion, and investment becomes entrapment.”
Canberra will boost defence spending by 40% to A$270 billion (5.8 trillion baht) over the next 10 years, to focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, a former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong who said he was tortured by the authorities in mainland China last year has been given asylum in Britain.
The disappearance last year of the consulate worker, Simon Cheng, during the height of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong highlighted the issues that had set off months of protest.
Hong Kongers took to the streets in part over fears that they could be subject to the opaque Chinese legal system as mainland officials expand their reach over people in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, a former British colony.
“I am grateful for the determination and courage shown by the UK government to rescue British nationals,” Mr Cheng wrote above a photo of the letter granting him asylum. “I also hope my case can be a precedent for others to seek protection.”