Attacks on national security come in many guises, Hong Kong’s leader says, calling for time in drafting local law to protect state
- New national security law must anticipate how risks to state might change, Chief Executive John Lee tells Legislative Council
- Infiltration, espionage and other tactics have become tools of another ‘kind of warfare’, he says, in explaining approach to crafting home-grown national security law
Attacks on national security have become another “kind of warfare” carried out by infiltration, espionage and other means, Hong Kong’s leader has said, underscoring the need to locally draft a law comprehensive enough to fend off all “enemies”.
“Your address should have scored 90 points, but I deducted 20 points because it only briefly touched on Article 23,” Ho said. “This is a very important piece of work. Why didn’t you set a timetable and key performance indicator for this?”
Lee, who was in charge of the city’s security when anti-government protests erupted in 2019, said that rather than rushing the legislation, he wanted to ensure the new law could tackle “extreme situations”.
“We need to review the national security laws around the world because we want to identify our blind spots,” he said, arguing the city needed an “effective” law that met China’s requirements.
“Nowadays, there are thousands or countless ways to endanger national security. Were cyberattacks in the past as serious as what we see nowadays? Did fake information [spread] like what we see nowadays? No,” he said.
Beijing imposed the national security law to target acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in the wake of the social unrest. But under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, Legco must enact its own version that also outlaws treason, theft of state secrets and foreign political bodies engaging in political activities in the city.