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Hong Kong national security law (NSL)
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Beijing has been accused of undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy with its decision to introduce the new law. Photo: Sun Yeung

Joint declaration ‘not relevant’ to national security law for Hong Kong, says Beijing

  • Statement counters ‘typical falsehoods’ about the controversial legislation, and says 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration gave Britain no right to intervene
  • External forces and ‘Taiwan independence’ forces have stepped up their interference in Hong Kong, it claims
China’s foreign ministry issued a “fact sheet” on Wednesday defending Beijing’s decision to impose a national security law on Hong Kong, following worldwide concern that the proposed legislation would undermine the city’s freedoms and autonomy, and destabilise the business environment.

The ministry said the statement was meant to dispute six “typical falsehoods” about the move by Beijing, endorsed by the country’s legislature last month. It addressed matters including the proposed law’s legitimacy and legality, the urgency for Beijing to act, implications for the “one country, two systems” principle by which Hong Kong is governed, and the city’s freedoms and business environment.

The statement said that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration – which China has been accused of breaching by undermining Hong Kong’s partial autonomy – was “not relevant” to the national security law, and that “other countries and organisations have no right to meddle in Hong Kong affairs on the grounds of the joint declaration”.
Beijing’s decision to initiate the security legislation, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature, prompted Washington to declare that Hong Kong no longer enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, and vow to retract the special status by which the US grants the city privileges not applied to the rest of China.

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The decision has also prompted Britain to respond by saying it would offer Hongkongers with British National (Overseas) passport status a path to British citizenship if Beijing pressed ahead with it.

Earlier on Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Japan would take the lead among Group of 7 countries in drafting a statement on the proposed law, to put pressure on China to reconsider.

Billed as a means to outlaw secessionist, subversive and terrorist activities as well as prohibit foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs, the national security law is being drafted after this year’s session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) last month passed a resolution to introduce it.

The NPC Standing Committee is scheduled to meet in Beijing next week, although discussion of the new law was not mentioned in the official agenda, according to China’s state media.

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In the statement released on Wednesday, the foreign ministry argued that the anti-government protests in Hong Kong over the past year had prompted the Beijing government to view security legislation as a matter of “the greatest urgency”.

“Some separatists even made a public appeal for foreign sanctions against China and invited the US military to Hong Kong,” the statement said. “External forces and ‘Taiwan independence’ forces have blatantly ramped up intervention in Hong Kong affairs.”

It went on to say: “Forceful measures are therefore required to prevent, forestall and punish these acts.”

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Beijing has yet to reveal the text of the new law, including how it will be enforced or implemented, but the foreign ministry said that it “will not change the legal system in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). Nor will it affect the HKSAR’s executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication.”

The statement said China’s obligations under the joint declaration were “not commitments to the UK, but China’s declaration of its policies”, and did not give Britain “any right to intervene in Hong Kong affairs after the handover”.

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It added that the joint declaration was between China and Britain, offering no grounds for a third party to “meddle in Hong Kong affairs”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticised Beijing in an interview last week for breaching the joint declaration, and likened China to Nazi Germany.

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“It’s certainly the case that the promises that the Chinese Communist Party had made in their treaty with the United Kingdom – that they broke when they made the decision to deny Hong Kong people the freedoms that they had been promised – were similar to some of the promises that were broken back in the days when Germany advanced against the rest of Europe,” Pompeo said, warning that Washington would consider sanctions if Beijing passed the law or delayed or cancelled Hong Kong’s legislative elections in September.

“They will have made a fundamental breach not to just the United States but on their promises to the United Kingdom and the world,” Pompeo said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Beijing ‘fact sheet’ counters six ‘typical falsehoods’
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