Hong Kong activists call to oppose new security laws

Hong Kong activists called on yesterday for people to rise up against Beijing’s plans to impose national security legislation in the city, prompting alarm that the new laws could erode its freedoms through “force and fear”. A proposed march at noon in the central financial district did not materialise after online calls were heeded only by a handful of activists and as riot police made their presence visible on the streets. But new calls have emerged for flash mobs at night across the territory and activists including Joshua Wong plan to meet the press to announce “street action” later yesterday. “This is a great moment to reboot the protest,” said university student Kay, 24, who participated in last year’s mass scale and often violent anti-government and anti-Beijing protests which this year entered a lull due to the coronavirus. The security law plan hit financial markets, due to concerns the semiautonomous city’s status as a global financial hub was at risk, with Hong Kong stocks selling off as China’s parliament sat to discuss the new law. The proposed legislation could heighten tensions between Beijing and Washington, whose relationship is already frayed by trade disputes and reciprocal accusations over the pandemic. “It is starting to look like a USChina summer of discontent in the making,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp. Innes said the new law could potentially reignite the prodemocracy demonstrations of 2019, the biggest crisis the former British colony has faced since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Speaking yesterday in his annual report to the Chinese parliament, Premier Li Keqiang said China will establish a “sound” legal system and enforcement mechanisms to ensure national security in Hong Kong and Macau, its other semiautonomous city. The proposed legislation for Hong Kong requires the territory to quickly finish enacting national security regulations under its mini-constitution, the Basic law, according to a draft seen by Reuters.