HONG KONG (Reuters) – China will propose national security legislation for Hong Kong in response to last year’s often violent pro-democracy protests that plunged the city into its deepest turmoil since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, a newspaper said on Thursday.
The South China Morning Post, citing unnamed sources, said the laws would ban secession, foreign interference, terrorism and all seditious activities aimed at toppling the central government and any external interference in the former British colony.
The legislation, which could be introduced as a motion to China’s parliament, could be a turning point for Hong Kong, potentially triggering a revision of its special status in Washington and likely to spark more unrest.
China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, is due to begin its annual session on Friday, after being delayed for months by the coronavirus.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on May 6 he was delaying the report assessing whether Hong Kong was sufficiently autonomous to warrant Washington’s special economic treatment that has helped it remain a world financial centre.
The delay was to account for any actions at the National People’s Congress, he said.
A previous attempt by Hong Kong to introduce national security legislation, known as Article 23, in 2003 was met with mass peaceful protests and shelved.
Hong Kong has a constitutional obligation to enact Article 23 “on its own”, but similar laws can be introduced by Beijing separately into an annex of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.
That legal mechanism could bypass the city’s legislature as the laws could be imposed by promulgation by Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing government.
National security legislation has been strongly opposed by pro-democracy protesters who argue it could erode the city’s freedoms and high degree of autonomy, guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” formula put in place it returned to Chinese rule.
Protesters denounce what they see as the creeping meddling in Hong Kong by China’s Communist Party rulers. Beijing denies the charge.
Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom; writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Toby Chopra and Nick Macfie
