Central govt has duty to safeguard HK’s order

The central government has full authority to safeguard Hong Kong’s constitutional order, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said on Tuesday.

The office added that supervising implementation of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is one of the ways the office safeguards the city’s constitutional order.

The remarks, made in a statement published online, came after the office and the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR commented on the deadlock in the city’s Legislative Council. Following the comments, questions were raised whether the two offices were “interfering” in local Hong Kong affairs.

An HKMAO spokesperson said mandating a high degree of autonomy for the HKSAR does not mean the central government has no right to oversee SAR affairs or that it has given up such rights. Instead, such supervision is key to ensuring the successful implementation of the Basic Law and the proper use of power granted by the central government.

Regarding the deadlock, the spokesperson said it has severely affected the Basic Law’s implementation, undermining fundamental interests of the SAR and the nation and threatening the SAR’s constitutional order.

Due to delaying tactics by some opposition lawmakers, including Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, the Legislative Council’s House Committee has been stalled since October. Fourteen bills and 89 pieces of subsidiary legislation have been held up, leading to partial legislative paralysis.

The two offices have issued several strongly worded criticisms of opposition lawmakers’ tactics. By doing so, the offices were diligently fulfilling their supervision role and safeguarding order, the statement said.

In another statement on Tuesday, the HKMAO expressed resolute support for the recent police apprehension of 15 criminal suspects, including businessman Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and opposition lawyer Martin Lee Chu-ming. They were held in relation to often violent antigovernment protests in Hong Kong last year.

The HKMAO called the arrests law-based and in line with police duties to safeguard the rule of law, social order and justice. It added that the central government will continue to extend full support to Hong Kong police in law enforcement and to the judiciary for administering justice fairly.

Yet some politicians in the United Kingdom and United States claim the suspects’ participation in unlawful assemblies was to “exercise freedom of speech and demonstration”, the statement says.

Such statements and pressure recklessly violate human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong, constituting blatant interference in the SAR’s judicial independence and high degree of autonomy and gross interference in China’s sovereignty and internal affairs, the spokesman said. The central government is firmly against any interference in Hong Kong affairs in any form by any external forces, the spokesman said.