Hong Kongers fear drastic law marks ‘before’ and ‘after’
Hong Kong residents awoke Wednesday to a stark new reality: China’s state-security apparatus has them within easy reach following Beijing’s swift and secretive imposition on the territory of a sweeping national security law.
The new law drew protests by 27 countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva for undermining the freedoms and semiautonomous status of the Asian financial center. Critics say it destroys a legal firewall that had offered some protection for basic rights against the rule of China’s Communist Party.
The top-down enactment of the law on Tuesday night, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature, belies the “one country, two systems” formula that China pledged to uphold for 50 years after regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong, a former British colony, in 1997.
“It marks the end of
High-stakes confusion Dual state dangerFutures here – or elsewhere?
