#Beijing just told Big Tech to flee Hong Kong

China’s new crush-Hong-Kong law turns out to pose big problems for Big Tech as well as the people of the city-state.

On Monday, Beijing released a 116-page plan for implementing that new “national security” statute that outlines vast police powers over the Internet.

Authorities can now order the takedown of any post they think violates the new strictures against any support of terrorism, foreign collusion, secession or subversion. A GIF of Winnie the Pooh (universally seen as mocking President Xi Jinping) can land you in prison for years. Heck, “subversion” could cover the expression of any “unapproved” thoughts.

Internet companies that don’t comply with the government’s data requests face fines, imprisonment and seizure of equipment.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies have a substantial presence in Hong Kong, though most have given up on working on the mainland because it means acting as enforcers for the Communist dictatorship and its Great Firewall of China.

Most of the companies announced Monday that they’d stop processing Hong Kong government requests for users’ data for now, while they assess the new law.

TikTok — the video-sharing social media network that is a subsidiary of a Chinese firm — didn’t bother stalling: It withdrew its app from stores in Hong Kong and is making the app inoperable for users there within days.

The US-owned firms will likely have to follow suit — and fast, before the cops come a-knocking and arresting. This, even though they all score big revenues from ads bought by Chinese companies.

The crackdown was already going to slam Hong Kong’s economy and send hundreds of thousands fleeing to the West. Crippling the island’s internet will speed the process — and force the tech firms to pull out, too.

“Until now, Hong Kong flourished because it allowed free thinking and free speech, under an independent rule of law. No more,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, rightly calling Beijing’s moves “Orwellian.”

Plainly, China’s rulers would rather turn one of the world’s great cities into a backwater than let any Chinese citizens think they have a hope of being free.