#UK expected to suspend Hong Kong extradition treaty

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab
REUTERS/Hannah McKay

The United Kingdom is widely expected to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, a former colony it handed back to China in 1997, according to multiple reports.

The news will come from UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during an address to Parliament Monday, and is set to take place the same day that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due in London for meetings with UK lawmakers.

Raab’s remarks, though not confirmed publicly by the British government, will follow in the footsteps of allies such as United States, Canada and Australia.

The US State Department said last week that the nation’s top diplomat will meet with his British counterpart on Monday to discuss a range of issues, including the issue of Hong Kong.

China has faced considerable criticism in recent months over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its push to weaken Hong Kong’s autonomy from the Communist nation.

Last month, China approved a sweeping and contentious national security law that permitted authorities to crack down on subversive and secessionist activity in Hong Kong.

The law has been slammed by many in the West as the Chinese Communist Party’s boldest effort to date to crack down on the territory, which has maintained a semi-autonomous system separate from that of mainland China.

Pro-democracy protests took over Hong Kong for nearly a year and left the former British colony in a tense power struggle with the CCP.

This latest piece of legislation was passed amid warnings both in Hong Kong and internationally that it would be used to curb opposition voices in the Asian financial hub.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Raab discussed his plans on the matter.

“On Hong Kong, I’m going to go to the House of Commons tomorrow to make a further statement on the work we’ve been doing with our partners in government,” he told the network.

“I’ve said that we’d review a whole range of other considerations. One of the things that we reviewed is our extradition arrangements, and I will be updating the House on the conclusion of that review, along with other things that we’ve been looking at tomorrow,” he continued.

In response to Raab’s efforts, China’s Ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, cautioned the UK against following the lead of the US while speaking to the BBC on Sunday.

“If the UK government goes that far to impose sanctions on any individual in China, China will certainly make a resolute response to it,” Liu said.

“You have seen what happened between China and the United States. They sanctioned Chinese officials; we sanctioned their senators, their officials. I do not want to see this tit-for-tat between China-US happen in China-UK relations,” she added.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in early June that the United Kingdom would admit 3 million British National Overseas passport holders from the former British colony, following the passage of the national security law. He said there are about 350,000 holders of the passport in Hong Kong and 2.5 million are eligible to apply for one.

With Post wires