Hong Kong must not delay national security law, central government adviser says
- Legal professor says city authorities must revive plans for Article 23 legislation – a proposal that triggered mass protests in 2003
- Seminar in Beijing is also told that the Hong Kong government has to do a better job of implementing existing laws
Hong Kong must not delay the introduction of a national security law, a central government adviser warned on Saturday, adding that it also needed to do a better job implementing its existing laws.
Wang Zhenmin, director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for Hong Kong and Macau Research, told a seminar in Beijing, that it was now an essential task for the city to put Article 23 legislation on the agenda.
The legal scholar was referring to a clause under the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, which stipulates that the city must enact its own national security law – a proposal that prompted mass protests in 2003.
Wang was speaking a day after President Xi Jinping praised Macau for making efforts to protect national security – remarks that were widely interpreted as an indirect but obvious “to-do” list for Hong Kong.
Macau saw no large-scale protests when it enacted its national security law in 2009, unlike in Hong Kong six years previously, when the government abandoned the plan after half a million people took to the streets.
Under Article 23 of the Basic Law, national security laws should prohibit seven types of activity: treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the central government, theft of state secrets, the hosting of political activities by foreign political organisations or bodies, and the establishment of ties between local and foreign political organisations.
