China and Britain clash over future of Hong Kongers

China threatens countermeasures against Britain if it presses ahead with plans to extend citizenship rights to Hong Kongers.

Riot police charge protesters on Wednesday night during the biggest demonstration of the year in Hong Kong. Picture: AFP

China promised on Thursday to take countermeasures against Britain if it presses ahead with plans to extend citizenship rights to Hong Kongers after Beijing imposed a sweeping security law on the territory.

Beijing has faced a groundswell of criticism from Western nations over its decision to impose a new law outlawing acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.

Adding to concerns, Hong Kong’s Bar Association published a new legal analysis warning that the wording of the law — which was kept secret until Tuesday — compromises the city’s independent judiciary and stifles freedoms.

Britain says the law breaches China’s pre-handover “One Country, Two Systems” promise to grant residents key liberties — as well as judicial and legislative autonomy — until 2047.

It has responded by announcing plans to allow millions of Hong Kongers with British ­National Overseas status to re­locate with their families and eventually apply for citizenship.

“We will live up to our promises to them,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told parliament.

That move has infuriated ­Beijing, which says Britain promised not to grant full citizenship rights to Hong Kongers ahead of the 1997 handover.

“If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations,” China’s embassy in London said on Thursday.

“We firmly oppose this and ­reserve the right to take corresponding measures.”

Britain is not alone in announcing plans to offer Hong Kongers sanctuary or increased immigration rights as fears multiply over the semi-autonomous city’s future under the new law.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday he was “very actively” considering offering Hong Kongers safe haven in Australia. Taiwan has opened an office to help Hong Kongers wanting to flee, while a proposed bill in the US offering sanctuary to city residents has received widespread bipartisan support.

The Bar Association issued a scathing critique of the law, saying it dismantles the firewall that has existed between Hong Kong’s judiciary and China’s Communist Party-controlled courts.

The new national security ­offences were “widely drawn”, the group said, and “are capable of being applied in a manner that is arbitrary, and that disproportionately interferes with fundamental rights, including the freedom of conscience, expression and assembly”. It also criticised “the total absence of meaningful consultation” with Hong Kongers ­before the law was passed.

Thousands of residents defied a protest ban on Wednesday — the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China — to block roads in some of the worst unrest in months. Police responded with water cannon, pepper spray and teargas, arresting nearly 400 people. Seven officers were injured, including one who was stabbed in the shoulder and three others hit by a protester on a motorbike.

A man suspected of stabbing the officer in the shoulder was ­arrested on board a Cathay Pacific flight that was about to take off for London, police said on Thursday.

Ten people were arrested under the new law, illustrating how holding certain political views had become illegal overnight. Most of those arrested were carrying flags or leaflets advocating for Hong Kong independence.

The US House of Representatives agreed unanimously to seek tough sanctions on Chinese officials and Hong Kong police. The house quickly passed the act that had already passed the Senate last week. Due to technical changes, the Senate will need to vote again. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill, vowed that the chamber would vote on Friday.

“What’s so sad about it is that the Chinese regime just thinks that they can act with impunity and repressing the spirit of democracy,” Speaker Nancy ­Pelosi said before the passage.

AFP