China breached HK agreement: UK report

LONDON: Beijing has broken its legal obligations by undermining Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and used a national security law to ‘‘drastically curtail freedoms’’ in the global financial hub, according to a report by Britain on its former colony.

In a foreword in the sixmonthly report covering JulyDecember 2020, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said a sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on the city in June last year was being used to stifle political opposition.

There had been ‘‘clear breaches’’ of the 1984 Joint Declaration, signed by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, that guaranteed wideranging freedoms for Hong Kong, Raab said.

The report criticised Beijing's overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system, prosecution decisions made by the Department of Justice and the contentious security law.

‘‘We have therefore now declared China to be in a state of ongoing noncompliance with the Joint Declaration,’’ Raab said, adding that the national security law was not being used to target a small group of criminals, as stated by Beijing.

The Hong Kong Government hit back at what it described as ‘‘inaccurate remarks’’ that could not be ‘‘further from the truth and are clearly double standards’’.

Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong last June that punishes what authorities define as secession, sedition and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in jail, after a year of sometimes violent demonstrations.

STORY: AP / PHOTO: REUTERS The partiallyeclipsed sun rises behind the Statue of Liberty at dawn in New York City, in the United States yesterday. The top of the world got a sunrise special — a “ring of fire” solar eclipse. This socalled annular eclipse began at the Canadian province of Ontario, then swept across Greenland, the North Pole and finally Siberia, as the moon passed directly in front of the sun. An annular eclipse occurs when a new moon is around its farthest point from Earth and appearing smaller, and so does not completely blot out the sun when it is dead centre. The upper portions of North America, Europe and Asia enjoyed a partial eclipse, at least where the skies were clear.