#China’s national security law for Hong Kong aims to block global criticism

Beijing’s harsh new national security law imposed on Hong Kong to block dissent against the Chinese Communist Party also seeks to keep a lid on any criticism of China from anyone in the world, according to a report.

The law, which took effect on July 1, criminalizes “secession, subversion, organization and perpetration of terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.”

It carries steep penalties, including life in prison.

Article 38 of the law makes it applicable worldwide — from people to corporations.

“This Law shall apply to offenses under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region,” it says.

“It literally applies to every single person on the planet. This is how it reads,” Wang Minyao, a Chinese-American lawyer based in New York, told Axios. “If I appear at a congressional committee in D.C. and say something critical, that literally would be a violation of this law.”

The report said anyone anywhere criticizing the governments in Beijing or Hong Kong or calling for democratic reforms would be subjected to prosecution if they travel to Hong Kong or have family members or assets in the territory.

Nathan Law, a pro-democracy lawmaker who fled Hong Kong, told Axios that the main thrust of the law is to “quash the international front of the movement.”

“For Hong Kong, we have to understand that it is the foreground of a very global fight, authoritarianism versus democracy,” he said.

Beijing’s draconian security law on Hong Kong is sending shivers through self-governed Taiwan that China could take it over next.

“The law makes me dislike China even more,” student Sylvia Chang, 18, told Agence France Presse. “They had promised 50 years unchanged for Hong Kong but they are getting all the more heavy-handed … I am worried Hong Kong today could be Taiwan tomorrow.”

Britain turned Hong Kong over to China in 1997 with the promise that it be allowed to remain quasi-autonomous until 2047 under a “one country, two systems” model.

The security law “makes China look so bad, distancing themselves even further from Hong Kongers, not to mention people across the strait in Taiwan,” Alexander Huang, a political analyst at Tamkang University in Taipei, told AFP, adding: “Hong Kong today, Taiwan tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, life in Hong Kong has changed drastically under the national security law as Hong Kong police crack down on protesters.

Ten people have been arrested and taken into custody – six men and four women – on charges of inciting or abetting subversion or secession, Bloomberg News reported.

Police searched their homes and took DNA samples from them, Janet Pang, a lawyer for some of the protesters, told Bloomberg.

“It is unnecessary, intrusive and disproportionate,” she said. “I don’t know why they had to take DNA samples. We don’t know what kind of database they’re trying to build which might be sent back to the central government in Beijing.”