Carrie Lam to expand national security law with new crimes

The legislation will add to the draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing at the end of June 2020.

The first session of Hong Kong’s new ‘patriots only’ legislature, scrubbed of political opposition, opens on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Hong Kong’s leader has vowed to introduce a host of new national security laws, further empowering authorities to crack down on dissent.

Carrie Lam made the announcement on Wednesday as she presided over the first session of a new “patriots only” legislature scrubbed of political opposition.

The legislation will add to the draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing at the end of June 2020, which quashed the pro-democracy protests gripping the territory.

The national security law defines four crimes – secession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces – and offenders can face life in prison.

Ms Lam said new “local legislation” would be introduced to meet Article 23 of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. She stopped short of outlining what the new crimes will be but the specific offences listed in Article 23 are treason, secession, sedition, subversion and theft of state secrets.

“Article 23 legislative work is part of Hong Kong’s constitutional duty and cannot be further delayed,” she told politicians, adding that the government aimed to publish a draft by June.

The article also prohibits any foreign political organisations from conducting activities in Hong Kong or local political organisations from establishing ties with groups overseas.

In a sign the pro-China law could be used to target those outside the city, a Taiwanese scholar has been accused of national ­security crimes.

Wu Rwei-ren, a political scientist at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, has come under attack by Ta Kung Pao, a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, for a February 2020 commentary in which he discussed the city’s distinctive identity – or “Hongkongness” – shown during the mass protests in 2019.

Citing two legal experts, Ta Kung Pao last week accused Dr Wu’s commentary of splitting the country, subverting the state or intending to incite under the national security law.

The newspaper said the piece was full of speech promoting Hong Kong independence and inciting violence and that the piece suggested Hong Kong pick allies to confront Beijing.

The accusations against Dr Wu have been levelled even though the law says it is not retroactive, but also due to its Article 38, which says it can be applied to ­offences “outside the region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the region”. The clause has been criticised by legal experts and rights advocates for having a chilling effect over anyone with any ties to China or Hong Kong.

“I am indeed a bit worried, and I must avoid China’s sphere of influences,” he told Liberty Times, a Taiwanese newspaper. He said he was followed by Chinese agents for three days in Malaysia in 2019 when he was invited to give a speech there by a local rights group. “To declare jurisdiction over me is to declare jurisdiction over all foreign scholars,” he said. “All Taiwanese people are subject to Hong Kong’s national security law, and they are not safe.” In its first attempt to exercise the extraterritorial jurisdiction, Hong Kong police issued an arrest warrant for Samuel Chu, a US citizen living in the US, for colluding with foreign forces, shortly after the law took effect. In October 2020 the Chinese embassy in London accused protesters in front of its building of violating the security law by burning a Chinese national flag and putting up slogans for Hong Kong independence.

The Times