Hong Kong security chief warns UK on 'double standards' over new security bill

Hong Kong's security minister has urged Britain against applying "double standards" as it introduces a new national security bill, warning the country not to interfere in the city's plans for a similar proposed law.

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said on his official blog on Wednesday the government would refer to Britain's new national security bill when drafting the long-shelved Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city's mini-constitution.

The UK's proposed security law aims to provide the latest tools to tackle threats in the modern age and hostile acts against the country, according to the British Home Office.

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In his blog post, titled "legislation to safeguard national security is common around the world", Tang appealed to "foreign politicians" to look at the city's proposed bill objectively and rationally.

"The United States and other Western countries have been deliberately slandering and making false accusations regarding [Hong Kong's] legislation and implementation of the national security law, and they have 'demonised' Article 23 of the Basic Law," he wrote in Chinese, referring to a local version of a Beijing-decreed law in the city's mini-constitution.

"But in fact they have also formulated relevant national security legislation and they make amendments to it from time to time."

The Hong Kong government said it planned to introduce the long-shelved Article 23 to the Legislative Council, the city's legislature, in the second half of this year, on top of Beijing's sweeping national security law which took effect in June 2020 to target secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

In the blog post, Tang said Britain's new bill, which was introduced to the UK parliament last week, included various restrictions on civil rights, and covered a wide range of new offences which had an extraterritorial effect.

Citing one of the bill's intentions to "get ahead of threats", Tang said Hong Kong's version of the law must "also be sufficiently forward-looking" in addition to effectively tackling past and existing national security threats.

He listed major proposals in the bill, including new offences to tackle state-backed sabotage  and foreign interference, reforms on espionage laws, enhancing police powers during investigations in emergencies and new measures restricting the ability of convicted terrorists to receive civil legal aid.

Tang said the bill was one of the laws the government would refer to when drafting the local one to "best fit the actual situation of Hong Kong".

"Do not turn a deaf ear to the fact that national security laws of the United States and Western countries do cover a wide range of offences," he wrote.

"Do not attempt to interfere or sabotage the Hong Kong government's legislative work with 'double standards'."

British authorities previously published a consultation on the legislation to modernise rules dating back to the First World War. The bill will go through stages in the UK's 650-seat parliament before becoming law.

Hong Kong's 90-strong legislature, which was overhauled by Beijing in 2021, is now composed of all but one pro-establishment lawmaker. The government last attempted to introduce Article 23 in 2003, when there were 21 pro-democracy lawmakers in the 60-member Legco. The bill was shelved after 500,000 people took to the streets in a historic July 1 march the same year.

Giving an update to lawmakers last week about the new bill, Tang said progress was "delayed" due to the city's fifth wave of Covid-19 infections. He did offer an updated time frame.

Authorities have repeatedly stressed for years that under the Basic Law, Hong Kong had a constitutional responsibility to enact its own version to cover treason, theft of state secrets or local political groups' ties with foreign political bodies, which were not covered in the existing law.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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