Citing President Xi Jinping, Beijing’s Hong Kong envoy Luo Huining says lack of national security law allows ‘sabotage’
- In People’s Daily article, new liaison office chief calls on city to learn from Macau on national education
- Also voices support for local government ‘establishing and improving the legal system’ and boosting enforcement
Beijing’s new envoy has urged Hong Kong to plug its national security loophole, warning that failure to do so could open the door to “infiltration and sabotage” from outside and risk destroying the “one country, two systems” formula of governing the city.
“If national security systems and mechanisms are absent for a long time in the city, external forces will be able to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities,” Luo Huining, director of the central government’s liaison office in the city, warned on Monday.
Such a situation, he said, would bring “extremely high risks of impacting and destroying the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’”.
And he added that, with protest-hit Hong Kong in “the most complex situation” since its return to Chinese rule in 1997, public confidence that Beijing’s governing principle would help overcome its various social and political challenges was key.
His pledge appeared in a commentary in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Monday, which centred on how the liaison office chief interpreted a speech made by President Xi Jinping during a visit to Macau last month.