Hong Kong authorities expect further ‘smears’ of Article 23 national security law by ‘external forces and runaways’, security chief Chris Tang says

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung on Wednesday said members of the public had mostly expressed worries about the offences of acts with seditious intention, theft of state secrets and foreign interference that were cited in the consultation paper on the coming legislation, which is mandated by Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

He said “external forces” and “runaway Hongkongers” – without specifying anyone – had been deliberately spreading misleading and false information to discredit the government’s efforts to introduce the domestic national security law, for which a month-long consultation period will end on February 28.

“Soon, we will introduce the bill after wrapping up the consultation,” Tang said, after attending a Legislative Council exchange session on scam prevention and the proposed security law.

“We expect that after the bill is introduced, the people we want to guard against … will do more smear work, and the public must recognise the truth that Article 23 is here to protect our safety.”

Earlier in the week, Tang also told the Post on the sidelines of a private event that the government was “very seriously” considering introducing a public interest defence to the publication of state secrets but the threshold had to be set “very high” to prevent it being abused.

Citing this as one piece of feedback the government was receptive to, he also said any expansion of Hong Kong police’s powers to question potential offenders under the new law, as suggested in the consultation paper, would require an application to the courts rather than be an administrative change in the law books.