Mainland think tank on HK affairs forms group 'to safeguard national security'
Think tank adds to recent initiatives backing launch of mainland laws in HK
A top mainland think tank on Hong Kong affairs has set up a specific group on safeguarding national security, a sensitive topic that has flared up in the city over the past week in the aftermath of the Occupy Central civil disobedience campaign.
The new group, formed under the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, came into being on the same day the city was met with a high-level suggestion to copy and paste the mainland's tough security laws into the Basic Law.
A prominent legal academic yesterday dismissed that suggestion, coming from a Hong Kong deputy to the national legislature, as "unconstitutional".
The national security group's name roughly translates as the Professional Committee on Safeguarding National Security.
Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun, former University of Hong Kong law dean, said it was decided more than a decade ago that, when the city eventually adopted national security laws, these would be written locally instead of being copied wholesale from the harsh mainland version.
"It is inappropriate to place mainland Chinese laws into Hong Kong's systems," Chan said. "A lot of problems will be generated."