National security law: China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong hits back at criticisms from EU, US

Spokesman calls EU concerns over the impact of the national security law ‘misguided’

US criticism of guilty verdicts for three people over a banned Tiananmen vigil, meanwhile, has ‘fully exposed’ the country’s ‘collusion with anti-China forces’

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China’s foreign ministry has hit back at recent criticism from the European Union and United States. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 7:25pm, 10 Dec 2021Updated: 7:53pm, 10 Dec 2021

China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong has demanded representatives of other countries stop interfering with the city’s rule of law and smearing its national security legislation in a rebuke of recent remarks by European Union and United States officials.

The statement from a foreign ministry spokesman on Friday came a day after Thomas Gnocchi, who leads the European Union Office to Hong Kong and Macau, told the Post that local civil rights groups and academics had become reluctant to meet EU officials following the introduction of the national security law last year.

Without naming Gnocchi, the spokesman expressed strong opposition to the “misguided comments of some EU officials in Hong Kong”, insisting the law had restored order and put Hong Kong back on the “right track”.

“[The] law onlytargets a small number of criminals who seriously endanger national security, and the extensive lawful rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong people and foreigners are effectively protected,” the spokesman said.

“In fact, the national security law only weakens the ‘freedom’ of a few groups and individuals colluding with external forces to undermine China’s national security. The law prevents Hong Kong from plunging into chaos.”

Gnocchi suggested on Thursday that the security law had already had an impact on freedom of expression, assembly and the press, though other areas had “not been affected as much”.

The same day, jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and co-defendants Chow Hang-tung and Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam were found guilty of unauthorised assembly charges stemming from their participation in a banned Tiananmen Square vigil on June 4 last year.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took to Twitter on Friday to say Washington “firmly” opposed the convictions and called for their immediate release.