Serious HK cases go to Beijing

‘Stricter measures’ needed if legislation faces resistance

A senior official of the central government in charge of Hong Kong and Macao affairs said the central government should retain its jurisdiction over “specific serious cases” in Hong Kong that grossly compromise national security, but that the city government will shoulder the “major” responsibility in enforcing the national security law after it is enacted. Mainland experts said if the legislation is interrupted just like the turmoil in Hong Kong in 2019, the central government will be empowered to take stern measures to govern Hong Kong and exercise its direct jurisdiction in the city.

Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, made the comments at a symposium in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province on Monday to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Basic Law promulgation.

Deng said the central government’s direct jurisdiction over specific serious cases would be “very, very few” and would not replace the responsibility of the relevant departments of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), nor would it affect the HKSAR’s judicial authority according to the Basic Law.

The central government will establish national security agencies to oversee national security-related issues in Hong Kong, and the agencies should “supervise and guide” Hong Kong’s enforcement of the law, and the agencies and the HKSAR’s relevant authorities should also strengthen information and intelligence sharing on a routine basis.

According to the decision on the national security legislation for Hong Kong passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, on May 28, acts in the HKSAR to split the country, subvert state power, organize and carry out terrorist activities and other behavior that seriously endangers national security, as well as interference from foreign and external forces in the affairs of the HKSAR will be targeted by the new law.

Li Xiaobing, a Hong Kong affairs expert at Nankai University in Tianjin who attended the symposium in Shenzhen, said that “as long as the cases involved these acts, in principle, they can be regarded as ‘specific serious cases.’ This is a clear bottom line the NPC has set.”

“The legislation could differentiate between ‘normal’ and ‘significant’ cases,” Tian Feilong, a Hong Kong affairs expert at Beihang University in Beijing who also attended the symposium, told the Global Times.

“To safeguard national security and keep the HKSAR’s high-level of autonomy, Hong Kong legal professionals should think about providing constructive suggestions to help clarify the distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘significant’ cases, and between the responsibility of the central government and the HKSAR in the new law, instead of vainly attempting to exclude the direct jurisdiction of the central government in Hong Kong,” since it is impossible and unreasonable, he noted.

Wang Zhenmin, former director of the Legal Affairs Department of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, said the national security legislation for the HKSAR is the gentlest, the most fundamental and most bottom-line legislation, and if the legislation is still opposed, then it would need to be adjusted to meet the high standards of similar laws in other countries

Tian said “if it still faces resistance, it means the current gentle legislation is not enough to handle the national security threat in the HKSAR. The central government will take stricter actions, and punishment for illegal activities could also be harsher.”