Hong Kong needs national security law but only when time is right says Carrie Lam, after top Beijing official says Andy Chan’s pro-independence speech showed city’s ‘inadequacies’

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has reaffirmed the need to introduce a national security law, but said there was “no particular timetable” for its implementation.

Lam was speaking a day after Beijing’s head of the city’s affairs said the actions of an independence advocate and the journalists’ club that gave him a platform had exposed Hong Kong’s “inadequacies” to uphold national security.

Reiterating her position on the thorny issue as she returned from Beijing on Thursday, Lam said: “I do not have any particular timetable. I have reiterated that the SAR, the government and myself are obliged to uphold national security, under Article 23 of the Basic Law and local legislation should be enacted to uphold national security.

“This must be done, but it’s also a matter of ensuring [the law] gets passed. So we must find the right time and create a good atmosphere to legislate.”

Lam was speaking after Zhang Xiaoming, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, dropped the strongest official warning yet on the city’s obligation to enact the law.

“This incident has reminded us we have to reflect and review Hong Kong’s inadequacies in protecting national security,” Zhang said on Wednesday, a day after Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) leader Andy Chan Ho-tin gave a pro-independence speech at the city’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC).

But Zhang stopped short of urging Hong Kong to get moving on enacting Article 23 of the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which – among other things – demands Hong Kong “prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government”.