Beijing signals impatience at Hong Kong’s delay in enacting national security law
In speech broadcast to 50 local schools, Basic Law Committee head focuses on Hongkongers’ lack of respect for China’s sovereignty over city
Beijing has signalled its impatience at Hong Kong for making no progress in rolling out a controversial national security law, suggesting the city is already paying the price with independence advocates exploiting the lack of such legislation.
Li Fei, a senior mainland Chinese official who specialises in the city’s mini-constitution, also made it clear at a Basic Law forum in Wan Chai on Thursday that Beijing would “jointly govern” Hong Kong with direct control over “important issues”, while the city’s autonomy would be limited to local affairs.
“The Basic Law has been in place for 20 years, [but] Article 23 legislation is still not enacted. The duty is unavoidable,” said Li, who heads the Basic Law Committee under China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.
Article 23 of the mini-constitution obliges Hong Kong to enact laws against treason, sedition and subversion. The issue has been shelved and successive governments have been wary about reviving it after a public backlash during the last attempt to introduce such legislation in 2003, when 500,000 people took to the streets to oppose it.