At schools event, China emphasizes need for security
HONG KONG — Teddy bears clad in black police riot gear, on sale for more than $60 apiece. Schoolchildren’s messages of gratitude to the authorities, pasted onto the walls of their schools. Uniformed police officers goosestepping in formation, accompanied by a counterterrorism drill complete with a helicopter and hostage simulation.
This is National Security Education Day in Hong Kong, the first since the central Chinese government imposed a wideranging security law on the territory last year.
The law, a response to months of fierce and sometimes violent antigovernment demonstrations that began in 2019, has become synonymous with the authorities’ efforts to clamp down on dissent and ensure staunch loyalty. And the panoply of activities Thursday indicated how they plan to do so: with a mixture of cutesy cajolery and overt shows of force, for a law that an official once said should hang over Hong Kongers like a “sword of Damocles.”
“Any ‘hard resistance’ that undermines national security will be struck down by the law. Any ‘soft resistance’ will be regulated by the law,” Luo Huining, the central government’s top official in Hong Kong, said at a ceremony kicking off the day’s events.
The full day of activities was designed to inculcate young and old with the importance of national security. It had been promoted extensively through streetside banners, frontpage advertisements in the city’s newspapers and even a scrolling digital display on one of
Hong Kong’s downtown skyscrapers, among the government’s most concentrated propaganda efforts since the law was enacted in June.
The law’s effects have already been widely felt. Authorities have cited it to arrest around 100 people, gut the political opposition and remake Hong Kong’s electoral system.
Even the lineup of speakers
at Thursday’s opening ceremony underscored how oncefreewheeling Hong Kong was being remade in mainland China’s image, with the central government wresting control from local officials.
Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, was the only sitting Hong Kong official to speak during the ceremony, which was held in the city’s cavernous harborside convention
center. The other speakers included the head of the central government’s newly created security office in Hong Kong, the commander of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong and the head of the Chinese foreign ministry’s branch in Hong Kong.