He added that such actions would only inspire a greater sense of unity among Hongkongers in the face of external interference.

“The facts have repeatedly proven that all external interference cannot impede the resounding progress of Hong Kong’s transformation from chaos to order, and from order to prosperity,” the spokesman said.

A US bill to target Hong Kong officials ‘will not affect’ Xi-Biden meeting

Presented to Congress on Wednesday, the scope of the Hong Kong Sanctions Act would include the city’s justice minister Paul Lam Ting-kwok, Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu Chak-yee and Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung.

The bill was introduced by US lawmakers Young Kim, John Curtis and Jim McGovern.

The central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong also voiced its strong opposition to the bill and condemned the trio.

“Those American politicians repeatedly exert pressure on Hong Kong’s judiciary and unreasonably interfere in China’s internal affairs and the rule of law in Hong Kong,” it said. “Their clumsy political performance is bound to backfire and be futile.”

The liaison office also described the proposed sanctions as a “great irony and mockery” of the United States’ “professed democratic rule of law”, emphasising the effectiveness of Hong Kong’s legal system in punishing “anti-China criminals”.

The bill also prompted dozens of Hongkongers to protest outside the US consulate on Sunday, with the turnout including local lawmakers Holden Chow Ho-ding, Dominic Lee Tsz-king and Brave Chan Yung.

Some protesters also tore up and stepped on a US flag outside the consulate.

Pro-Beijing groups the Federation of Trade Unions and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong said they planned to stage a rally outside the consulate on Monday morning.

On Friday, the Hong Kong government issued a strongly worded statement slamming US lawmakers for introducing the bill.

Police chief Siu on Sunday said US lawmakers would not succeed in bullying Hong Kong officials and added that the city had a constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security.

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung on Sunday characterised the proposed sanctions as “bullying and gangsterism”, while urging the public to condemn such activities.

“This is exactly how triads behave – I just want to scare you into not doing something you should do,” he said.

“But these foreign politicians may be doing it for their own interests or to protect their lackeys in Hong Kong.”

Hong Kong to define state secrets according to city’s needs, minister says

Tang was previously among 11 officials sanctioned by the US in 2020, when he served as the city’s police commissioner.

He expressed confidence on Sunday that the city’s prosecutors and legal professionals would “stand firm in their beliefs to defend our laws, judicial independence and freedom”.

Meanwhile, Tang said national security legislation to satisfy Article 23 of the city’s mini-constitution would not have a retroactive effect.

He was commenting on the scope of the Basic Law article, which stipulates that the city must enact a law that bans treason, secession, sedition, subversion or theft of state secrets targeting Beijing and to prevent foreign agencies from conducting political activities in Hong Kong.

“There is generally no retroactive effect under common law,” he told a radio programme.

Asked if Hong Kong would hand over complex and high-risk cases involving separatist activities in other locations to the central government, Tang referred to the national security law imposed on the city in 2020 to prohibit acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

“The national security law has provided us with extraterritoriality … because many people engage in infiltration activities in other places that endanger national security,” he said.

“In some exceptional circumstances, including some very complex cases pertaining to external forces that our government can’t handle or effectively implement and some that involve grave risk, the [national security] law has said they will be handled by the state.”

But Tang said he believed these cases would be “sporadic”.

“I also don’t want these situations to happen,” he said. “Besides enforcing the national security law, we also hope it will have a deterrent effect.”

Hong Kong will forge ahead with plans to pass Article 23: justice secretary

Tang added that he hoped all sectors of society would have a chance to express their opinions before the implementation of Article 23, but allowing the public to discuss every clause of the bill during a consultation might not be the most effective approach.

“Is it really efficient to let the public examine each of the provisions?” he said. “I don’t think so.”

He added: “We are not experts, we have to understand what the principles are, what needs to be regulated, and then we hand it back to the experts to draft the law. I think this is the most efficient way and in the best interests of Hong Kong.”

In his policy address last month, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said authorities were “pressing ahead to draw up effective legislative options” and pledged to complete legislation within the next year to fulfil the government’s constitutional duty.

A massive street protest foiled the first attempt to implement Article 23 in 2003 when more than 500,000 people marched from Causeway Bay to Central, forcing the government to mothball the bill several days later.

On Sunday, Tang said the government would tell the public about the necessity of Article 23, as the anti-government protests in 2019 had shown that espionage activities were being conducted in the city.

He added the US and Britain had revealed plans in 2021 to step up intelligence collection concerning mainland China.

Additional reporting by Oscar Liu