Details of the new law are coming in the weeks ahead, likely in June.
The measure aims to counter months of US orchestrated nonviolent and violent protests that rocked Hong Kong last year — led by 5th column elements.
Orchestrated by US dark forces, the move was and remains a scheme to destabilize and weaken China, along with other tactics aiming to accomplish the same thing.
Hong Kong is Chinese territory. It’s no longer an exploited British colony or a political football to be kicked around by the US at its discretion.
On Thursday, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) explained that Beijing tabled a resolution “to craft and pass a new national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong,” adding:
It’ll “proscribe secessionist and subversive activity as well as foreign interference and terrorism in the city – all developments that had been troubling Beijing for some time, but most pressingly over the past year of increasingly violent anti-government protests.”
Beijing is acting to halt them because of failure by Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) authorities to accomplish this objective legislatively.
Under Article 23 of the Basic Law that regulates relations between Beijing and the HKSAR, city authorities are empowered as follows:
It’s their responsibility to “enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.”
None of the above was accomplished by the HKSAR so Beijing is acting on its own to legitimately protect national security from hostile foreign actions that aim to weaken and undermine China’s sovereignty and development — mainly by the US under both right wings of its war party.
China’s move comes at a time when hostile Trump regime actions risk rupturing Sino/US relations altogether.
Beijing’s national security law aims to “fix loopholes (in) the legislative system” that governs Hong Kong, China’s Global Times (GT) explained.
It aims to counter “external forces and local separatists (that) continue to erode the (city’s) foundation…”
The measure is being prepared and finalized during Beijing’s annual Central People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that began Thursday.
Its National People’s Congress (NPC) began Friday, the national security resolution on its agenda — to be voted on next week, adopted and sent to a Standing Committee to prepare actual details of the measure.
According to an unnamed Beijing source, “(t)he NPC decision will delegate the Standing Committee to draft the new legislation for Hong Kong, which would be included in Annex III of Hong Kong’s Basic Law.”
“The new law will be introduced in Hong Kong through promulgation, without the need for local legislation.”
According to SCMP, “(i)nsiders said Beijing had reached the end of its tether after the protests against Hong Kong’s now-withdrawn extradition bill morphed into an anti-government movement” — much of it featuring violence and vandalism.
COVID-19 outbreaks halted anti-government protests temporarily. Signs indicate they’ll likely erupt again in the coming days and weeks.
Hong Kong opposition candidates gained control over 17 of 18 district councils last November.
With this success in mind, opposition parties aim for further success in September Legislative Council elections — to gain control of the 70-member legislative body to be able to block measures supported by Beijing.
The notion of pro-US 5th column elements controlling the city is unacceptable to China as it would be to virtually all other countries.
Would authorities in Washington tolerate Chinese control of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles? The answer is self-evident.
Would the US go all-out to prevent this from happening?
It would virtually declare war by other means on disruptive actions to eliminate them — likely charging individuals involved with treason or sedition, arresting, prosecuting, convicting, and imprisoning them longterm.
SCMP noted that Beijing clearly lost patience over failure to quell US orchestrated Hong Kong protests by city authorities legislatively, a Chinese source saying:
“The violence last year and the increasing foreign intervention have triggered the move” — another source saying:
“(N)ational security is under threat, as some in Hong Kong are pursuing independence, waving foreign flags and even resorting to terrorist attacks (and) deeds of secession.”
If legislation becomes law in June as expected, it’ll be the first time for Hong Kong since colonial British rule ended in July 1997.
Enactment needs no approval by Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. HKSAR chief executive Carrie Lam reportedly supports the legislation.
So does the pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.
Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies official Lau Siu-kai explained that the HKSAR was weakened and became ineffective because of increased external pressures — why it’s vital for Beijing to act to counter US orchestrated disruptive actions.
Until now, China held off introducing countermeasures — other than rhetorical criticism of US policies, tariffs in response to ones imposed by Trump, and reductions in US imports, short-term actions.
Trump regime measures to undermine China’s economic, industrial, and technological development, provocative Pentagon military incursions near its territory, anti-Beijing legislation and White House actions, illegal US sanctions with likely more coming, and months of disruptive Hong Kong protests required China to act to protect its sovereign rights and security.
Trump regime hardliners elevated US hostility toward China to an unprecedented level since Nixon visited the country and met with Mao Zedong in February 1972 — almost half a century ago.
Washington’s imperial agenda poses a clear and present danger to China and other sovereign nations unwilling to sacrifice their sovereign rights to US interests.
National security legislation may be the first of further steps by Beijing to counter increasingly hostile US actions that aim to marginalize, weaken, contain, and isolate the country.
It won’t work. China is rising, the US declining — heading eventually for the dustbin of history like all earlier empires, despite spending countless trillions of dollars to remain the dominant global superpower, at the expense of vital homeland needs.
Like earlier empires, the US is its own worst enemy.
It’s declining by waging endless wars by hot and other means against invented enemies, pressuring and bullying other nations to bend to its will, along with unacceptable indifference toward the fundamental rights, health, and welfare of the vast majority of its people.
It’s the same dynamic that doomed earlier empires, over time making more enemies than friends, losing public support, along with no end to ruinous military spending, mounting unrepayable debt, and unwillingness to change.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
