China tells police to crack down at Hong Kong border
CHINA’S public security chief has called on the country’s police officers to guard its “southern gate” and be ready to crack down on “violent and terrorist activities” as anti-government protests rage on in Hong Kong.
Forces must be vigilant against anything that could “infiltrate, subvert, or sabotage the country”, urged Zhang Kezhi, the minister of public security, on a visit this week to a police station in the southern province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.
Officers must “firmly safeguard the ‘southern gate’ of our national political security”, he said, alluding to the crisis in Hong Kong without directly mentioning the demonstrations.
China has escalated its rhetoric as the unrest continues, issuing ominous warnings that paramilitary forces in a city next to Hong Kong are ready to deploy to suppress the protests. Doing so, however, would be reminiscent of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, when the Chinese military opened fire on peaceful student demonstrators.
Mr Zhang’s comments come as Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong chief executive, refused to rule out the possibility of invoking emergency powers, saying she would look at all legal means to “stop violence and chaos” in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
The ordinance provides for the city’s leader to assume near-absolute authority to “make any regulations whatsoever which he [or she] may consider desirable in the public interest”.
It would not need approval from city politicians and would grant Ms Lam sweeping powers. These would include: censorship and suppression of publications and communications; arrests, detentions and deportations; control over ports and all transport; the appropriation of property; and authorising the entry and search of premises, with life imprisonment as the maximum penalty.
Mass protests kicked off in early June against a now-suspended extradition bill that would have sent suspects to face trial in mainland China. But protesters continue to demand its formal withdrawal to prevent the proposal from being passed quickly.