‘China strikes hard at terrorism’: Beijing’s new white paper praises its tough measures in Hong Kong and Xinjiang

Name: Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai's high-stakes national security trial gets under way
Uploaded: 2024-01-23T11:00:20.000Z
Duration: 4 min 3 s
Description: Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai's high-stakes national security trial gets under way

Information Office of the State Council releases white paper titled ‘China’s Legal Framework and Measures for Counterterrorism’

It says China’s counterterrorism measures guaranteed human rights, citing three unnamed cases in Xinjiang as evidence

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Beijing has released a white paper that highlights its measures in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and vows to support counterterrorism tech to meet the challenges of AI, encrypted communication and virtual currency. Photo: AP Photo

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 7:00pm, 23 Jan 2024Updated: 7:00pm, 23 Jan 2024

Beijing has hailed Hong Kong’s national security law and anti-terrorism measures in Xinjiang as improvements to China’s legal system over the past decade, according to the latest white paper.

The document titled “China’s Legal Framework and Measures for Counterterrorism” was released by the Information Office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Tuesday morning.

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Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai's high-stakes national security trial gets under way

It said China had long faced the “real threat” of terrorism but had “found a path of law-based counterterrorism that conformed to its realities by establishing a sound legal framework”.

The five-part white paper described how Beijing had confronted terrorism by revising existing laws and regulations and enacting a specialised anti-terrorism law.

Among “other relevant laws”, the white paper said, the Hong Kong national security law “contains provisions on combating crimes of terrorism in the region and defines the relevant penalties”.

China’s legislature passed the sweeping law in 2020 to ban acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. It stoked fears of greater restrictions on civil freedoms and led to US sanctions against some senior officials from both Hong Kong and the central government.