Chinese lawmakers are discussing legislation that could drastically curtail freedoms in the semiautonomous territory.
Chinese lawmakers have been meeting behind closed doors in Beijing this week to push forward a proposed national security law that could drastically curtail free political expression in Hong Kong and add to China’s tensions with the West.
A session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee — the Communist country’s top legislative body — ends on Saturday, and Hong Kong residents are waiting to learn if the committee will release a draft of the proposed law, or even hastily enact it.
China’s Communist Party leaders have long worried about imposing control over Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997. The Basic Law, which enshrines Hong Kong’s special legal status, says the semiautonomous territory should enact national legislation that outlaws “any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion” against the central government.
But many of Hong Kong residents, proudly protective of their rights under the territory’s separate legal system, have opposed attempts to pass such legislation. A previous push by Hong Kong’s leaders to enact a national security law foundered in 2003 after nearly 500,000 people joined a street protest against it.
The new law could deter speech and publications critical of the government, stifling the territory’s free press and democratic opposition.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has been impatient to impose control over Hong Kong. After the territory erupted in monthslong protests last year over a proposed extradition law, a Communist Party meeting in October demanded steps to “safeguard national security” in Hong Kong.
Beijing, frustrated at the failure of the Hong Kong authorities to enact a national security law on their own, decided to take matters into its own hands.
