Days after video chat company Zoom temporarily restricted the account of a U.S.-based activist group discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in China to comply with Chinese law, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was asked Thursday about potential internet and social media restrictions that could come to Hong Kong with the passage last month of new national legislation designed to crack down on separatist political movements there. She declined to offer specifics, but said that “one thing is clear.”
“The national security law for Hong Kong targets only a narrow category of acts that gravely jeopardize national security,” Hua said during a press conference in Beijing.
Still, little is known about the upcoming legislation that proved the final straw for the United States’ eroding patience with the Chinese central government’s growing hand in Hong Kong. Back in the semi-autonomous territory itself, Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee told reporters Thursday that “we will have to wait for the law to be written and then promulgated and then we will know what exactly the law will say.”
Lee has confirmed, however, that a new police unit tasked with intelligence-gathering and other national security issues was set to be formed with help from the mainland. The blurring of the line between the law enforcement systems of the “one country, two systems” framework has prompted some major concerns.
A poll conducted online with more than 1,000 Hong Kong adults from June 4-7 by London-based polling firm Redfield & Wilton Strategies for Newsweek showed that 60 percent of respondents believed “the level of freedom they have in Hong Kong is under threat.” Another 29 percent said they disagreed and 12 percent said they did not know.
While the 30 percent that supported full independence from China was outnumbered by the 50 percent that did not and those who said they would join protests (43 percent), stop paying taxes (36 percent), stop paying rent (27 percent) and withdraw money from the bank (43 percent) should the Chinese Communist Party exert further control were also in the minority, 57 percent said they would leave Hong Kong under these circumstances, according to the survey.
Beijing has sought to assuage these fears. China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Deputy Director Zhang Xiaoming told residents via webinar Monday that the national security law will enhance the “one country, two systems” approach in place since the former colony was handed over by the United Kingdom in 1997.
“For the general public, this legislation means more powerful protection for them,” Zhao said. He said that residents would now be free to avoid violence, to commute, shop and express themselves freely as authorities targeted individuals and groups accused of inciting the months-long, sometimes violent protests that have rocked the special administrative region in support of more distance from Beijing’s rule.
“In particular, we won’t have to worry anymore about young people being ‘brainwashed’ into impulsively breaking the law, leaving behind criminal records that ruin their lives,” he added. “There is still hope for the future of Hong Kong!”
Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. have warned otherwise. The Trump administration has especially lashed out in response to Beijing’s new legislation, moving to repeal Hong Kong’s special status regarding trade, travel and other privileges as they are enshrined within Washington’s laws.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of employing “coercive bullying tactics” and exhibiting “aggressive behavior” in trying to get world corporations and countries on board with its new law, which Hong Kong Coalition deputy secretary-general Kennedy Wong told official Communist Party publication Global Times on Monday could take hold within a month.
Hua hit back at Pompeo on Wednesday, telling the daily Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference then that “Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs which allow no foreign interference.”
