
Hong Kong is becoming a troubling place to be an Australian
- The national security law can be broadly interpreted and a number of articles could be used to make an arrest
- Canberra may not fully appreciate the impact its relations with Beijing could have on Australians in Hong Kong
Here’s a lesson in what it means to be free to express your views. Under national security laws in Hong Kong, it could be a crime to criticise President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party and Beijing’s hand-picked local proxy, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
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An anti-Australia campaign is under way in China’s state-run media, highlighting the economic damage caused; a China Daily editorial pointed out last week that “if Canberra does not want more blows to come, it needs to fully reflect upon and adjust its policy stance towards China. Not only should the Australian government stop interfering in China’s internal affairs but also its society should not tolerate the Sinophobic sentiment that has poisoned the atmosphere for bilateral cooperation.”
Still, I worry that they don’t understand the precarious position the estimated 100,000 Australians living in Hong Kong have been put in.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has issued an advisory that the national security law can be broadly interpreted and that it could be broken without realising it; as a journalist working for Hong Kong’s leading English-language newspaper, I am only too aware of that. The standing advice is that Australian citizens concerned about the law should reconsider their need to stay in Hong Kong.
Foreign passport holders from a host of other Western countries with strained relations with China are in a similar situation. Tens of thousands of Americans, Britons and Canadians have faced the same uncertainty since the national security law was enacted on June 30 last year.
Like me, they have the same problem: that someone important in their government could unwittingly say something that antagonises Beijing to the point that it takes revenge on their citizens in Hong Kong. I hope for their sake, but especially mine, that there are contingency plans should that happen.
Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post
