Hong Kong needs national security law because it is ‘easy target for hostile foreign opportunists’: former leader Tung Chee-hwa

Name: SCMP CLIPS: Tung Chee-hwa: New security law only targets ‘a small group of people’
Uploaded: 2020-05-25T15:48:39.000Z
Duration: 1 min 31 s
Description: SCMP CLIPS: Tung Chee-hwa: New security law only targets ‘a small group of people’

The city’s first chief executive after the 1997 handover has appealed for calm over Beijing’s push for the new legislation

Local police lack power to deal with possible espionage and other covert activities, he says, adding that loophole must be plugged

Reading Time:4 minutes

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Protesters against the national security law gather in Causeway Bay on Sunday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Kimmy ChungandNg Kang-chung

Published: 11:48pm, 25 May 2020Updated: 6:56am, 26 May 2020

Former Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa has made a strong appeal for calm over Beijing’s push for a tailor-made national security law for the city, trying to ease public fears over its implications for existing local freedoms while insisting on the need to counter “hostile foreign opportunists”.

In a 24-minute speech broadcast to Hongkongers on Monday, Tung warned that the city had become a weak link in the security of the nation, while also echoing top Beijing officials’ reassurances that the new law would only go after a minority involved in relevant crimes.

“If you do not plan to engage in acts of secession, subversion, terrorism or conspiring with foreign influence in connection with Hong Kong affairs, you will have no reason to fear,” he said, a day after thousands took to the streets to oppose the impending law and radical protesters returned to violence and vandalism.

Tung, Hong Kong’s first chief executive after the 1997 handover of sovereignty to China, is now an elder statesman as a vice-chairman of China’s top political advisory body.

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SCMP CLIPS: Tung Chee-hwa: New security law only targets ‘a small group of people’

He said the city had failed to enact its own national security legislation – as required under its mini-constitution, the Basic Law – for more than 20 years.