Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners yesterday vowed to take to the streets in protest over what they said was China’s fiercest assault on the territory’s treasured autonomy with its move to impose a security law.
The proposal for the legislation — expected to ban treason, subversion and sedition — was introduced at the opening of the National People’s Congress in Beijing yesterday.
It followed repeated warnings from Chinese leaders that they would no longer tolerate dissent in Hong Kong, which endured seven months of pro-democracy protests last year.
Photo: AFP
“This is the largest nuclear weapon the Chinese Communist Party has used in its mutual destruction of Hong Kong,” said Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized the rally that started last year’s unrest.
Democracy advocate Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) said that China’s message to the protesters was clear.
“Beijing is attempting to silence Hong Kongers’ critical voices with force and fear,” Wong wrote on Twitter, while also expressing defiance. “HKers will not scare off in the face of wolf warrior policy.”
Hong Kong has been allowed a limited form of autonomy since returning from British to Chinese rule in 1997, with those unique freedoms enshrined under a “one country, two systems” agreement.
However, a huge pro-democracy movement has built in the face of fears that China has been steadily eroding those freedoms.
The Chinese Communist Party yesterday made it clear that the planned law was aimed at quashing the democracy movement.
“We must take powerful measures to lawfully prevent, stop and punish them,” National People’s Congress Standing Committee Vice Chairman Wang Chen (王晨) said, referring to “anti-China” forces.
Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law states that the territory must enact a law to prohibit “treason, secession, sedition [and] subversion” against the Chinese government, but the clause has never been implemented due to opposition from Hong Kongers fearful it would destroy their civil rights.
An attempt to have Article 23 pass the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 2003 was shelved after about 500,000 people took to the streets in protest against it.
China’s move would circumvent the Hong Kong Legislative Council by having it imposed by Beijing.
Wang said Hong Kong’s delays in implementing the security law had forced the Chinese leadership to take action.
“More than 20 years after Hong Kong’s return, however, relevant laws are yet to materialize due to the sabotage and obstruction by those trying to sow trouble in Hong Kong and China at large, as well as external hostile forces,” he said.
The US reacted swiftly, with US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus warning that imposing such a law would be “highly destabilizing, and would be met with strong condemnation from the United States and the international community.”
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
RSS