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Hong Kong Basic Law
Hong KongPolitics

Everything you need to know about Hong Kong’s joint rail checkpoint arrangement

Controversial plan will see mainland laws enforced on Hong Kong soil in the city’s high-speed rail terminus

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The express rail link is due to being operating later this year. Photo: Winson Wong
Tony CheungandAlvin Lum
After four months of scrutiny, the Hong Kong government’s controversial legislation to allow mainland officers to operate on the city’s end of a cross-border railway, a joint checkpoint arrangement, was approved amid chaos at the Legislative Council on Thursday.

It means that when the much-delayed 26km Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong express rail link starts operation in September this year, the travelling time from the city’s centre to Guangdong’s provincial capital will be reduced from more than two hours to about 50 minutes. The Hong Kong section cost HK$84.4 billion to build.

Despite the approval, opposition legislators argue that a series of issues surrounding the so called “co-location” arrangement, ranging from its constitutionality to security details, remain unresolved.

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Here is what you need to know.

1. What does the law empower authorities to do?

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The co-location law will grant Beijing and its authorities almost full jurisdiction in a designated port area “deemed as the mainland”.

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