2024 RT Amination Banner.gif

China Daily

HongKong> Opinion> Content
Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 01:31
National security: What goes around, comes around
By Grenville Cross
Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 01:31 By Grenville Cross

As those who blindly opposed national security legislation in Hong Kong have now found out, what goes around comes around. After Hong Kong was unable, for 23 years, to “enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion”, as the Basic Law requires (Article 23), the central authorities have now remedied the situation. As the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 stipulated, China’s basic policies toward Hong Kong include “upholding national unity and territorial integrity”, and those who defied this have now reaped their reward.

After hostile forces, with foreign backing, launched their terrorist-type campaign in Hong Kong on June 9, 2019, openly trumpeting Hong Kong independence and deploying systematic violence against Chinese mainland offices, people, banks and businesses, and desecrating the national flag, it became obvious that the existing criminal laws provided inadequate defenses. It was clear that, if “one country, two systems” was to survive, it would require comprehensive protection from those who were hell-bent on destroying it.

The enactment of the National Security Law by the National People’s Congress

Standing Committee would not, of course, have been necessary if Hong Kong had discharged its constitutional responsibilities by enacting Article 23. It could not, however, do so, because of the sustained levels of irrational opposition stoked up by “pan-democratic” forces. In 2003, for example, after extensive discussions and numerous amendments, the very mild national security law which was then on offer had to be abandoned after a campaign of disinformation, calculated to alarm the general public.  

If, thereafter, the government had tried to enact Article 23, its opponents would, in all likelihood, have resorted to violence, just as they did in 2019. To prevent legislators from debating the fugitive offender bill, they attacked the Legislative Council on June 9, and then trashed in on July 1, ostentatiously destroying the symbols of “one country, two systems” in the process, and daubing “Hong Kong is not China” on the wall. To reintroduce Article 23 would, therefore, have triggered similar scenes, and multiple deaths could have been a real possibility. Although the police have recently seized large quantities of arms and explosives, much will have remained undetected, and these weapons could have been deployed at any time, once the order was given.

They (China-bashers) viewed Hong Kong as simply a pawn to be used in their campaign against China, and as a useful base for trying to destabilize the country

After 2003, opposition forces, in complete disregard of the Basic Law, but egged on by anti-China elements elsewhere, did everything they possibly could to stop the government from ever enacting Article 23. When, for example, the Civic Party legislator, Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, became the acting chairman of the Legislative Council’s House Committee last October, with a mandate to elect a new chairman, he used his position instead to bring its business to a halt, for over six months. When he sought to justify himself, he claimed his conduct was necessary in case the government sought to “railroad” through Article 23 national security legislation. Quite clearly, Kwok, and his allies, were prepared to do anything to prevent Hong Kong from doing what it was constitutionally required to do, and they thereby made Beijing’s intervention inevitable.    

Kwok, of course, has probably done more than any other politician to trigger the National Security Law, and some people have already nicknamed it “Kwok’s law”. Indeed, everybody who loves Hong Kong will forever recall the vile spectacle of him traipsing around the United States last August, with his party leader, Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, in tow. Having traduced our police force in New York, and urged their audiences to deny it crowd control equipment and training exchanges, this despicable duo then openly supported the enactment of anti-Hong Kong laws by the US Congress. For elected Hong Kong politicians to flaunt such animus toward their home city in a foreign country was grossly improper, and must have convinced Beijing that it would have no choice but to intervene at some point.

China-bashers everywhere will, of course, have been delighted to have found local patsies like Kwok so willing to do their dirty work for them. After all, they have a vested interest in ensuring that Article 23 is not enacted, as it would curtail their covert activities in Hong Kong. They were, therefore, happy that Hong Kong was the only part of China, if not the world, without any laws to protect itself from national security threats, and, with Kwok’s help, they hoped to keep it that way. They viewed Hong Kong as simply a pawn to be used in their campaign against China, and as a useful base for trying to destabilize the country, and, for them, he was a godsend.

In the United Kingdom, moreover, the serial fantasist, Benedict Rogers, who chairs Hong Kong Watch, said, on May 23, that “Article 23 poses grave dangers for Hong Kong’s basic rights”, and his proxies agreed. This, of course, is the same individual who spent much of the last year maligning our police force, despite its having so courageously defended Hong Kong in its darkest days since World War II. Rogers it was who, after armed mobs smashed up the Legislative Council on July 1, causing damage estimated at HK$50 million (US$6.5 million), announced that what they did was “unlawful but not disorderly”, that it was “eye-catching” to see the old British colonial flag being unfurled, and that it was inspiring to see that the people who broke into the commissary “paid for the drinks” they had stolen. Ever ready to accuse China of breaching the Basic Law, he cynically disregarded Hong Kong’s own constitutional duty to enact Article 23.     

With a mentality like this, it should surprise nobody that, whenever he can, Rogers has eagerly provided the former governor, Chris Patten, with a platform. Patten, of course, whatever his limitations, at least understands a constitutional imperative when he sees one, and he knows full well that Hong Kong is under a legal duty to the rest of China to enact Article 23. It must, therefore, have been pure mischief-making, when, on Feb 3, he told Hong Kong Watch that he was “saddened and surprised” that Article 23 was again being mooted, and his remarks would have emboldened those who wished Hong Kong to breach the Basic Law.  

Once it became clear, however, that Beijing was finally planning to close the lacuna in Hong Kong’s legal framework, long-standing opponents of Article 23 underwent a Damascene conversion. The very people who objected to its enactment in 2003, and have opposed it ever since, finally realized that they had lost a golden opportunity to have a home-grown national security law. The Civic Party’s Tanya Chan Suk-chong, for example, on May 22, acknowledged, at long last, that the Article 23 national security legislation was “supposed to be handled by the Hong Kong legislature”, although, by then, it was too late.

Over many years, Chan and her ilk, egged on by the likes of Patten, did everything they possibly could to prevent the Hong Kong legislature from ever enacting Article 23, and they must now reap what they have sown. They had their chances, but they blew them. If they do not like the National Security Law, they have only themselves to blame. Years of reckless obstructionism and anti-China hysterics have led them to this point, and they must now live with the situation they have themselves created.

The author is a senior counsel, law professor and criminal justice analyst, and was previously the director of public prosecutions. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. 


Share this story

CHINA DAILY
HONG KONG NEWS
OPEN
Please click in the upper right corner to open it in your browser !