Beijing finally passed the controversial national security bill on July 1st, making it a law that has provided unprecedented powers to mainland China over Hong Kong.
To know more about the bill visit, https://gogomagazine.in/the-hong-kong-issue/
The new law will make criminal any act of secession, subversion of the central government, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces.
This will allow China’s Communist Party to rip up its promise of one country, two systems, and send its secret agents into Hong Kong to impose order as it pleases. Its spooks will not be subject to local law. Most national-security cases, supposedly, will be tried in Hong Kong’s own courts. But the judges will be government-appointed. They will be allowed to dispense with juries and try cases in secret. Most worrying is that “complex” or “serious” crimes may be tried on the mainland. The past year of unrest in Hong Kong was sparked by fears of just such a possibility—that a now-shelved extradition law might let dissidents be whisked away to face the mainland’s brutal justice. That is what the new law allows.
The new security law for Hong Kong envisages setting up an office in the territory to gather intelligence and handle crimes against national security, state media say.
The new security law will also override any local laws that conflict with it, Xinhua news agency reported.
The planned law has sparked protests and drawn international condemnation.
Critics say it will destroy the freedoms Hong Kong enjoys but which are not available in mainland China.
On Friday the European Parliament voted to take China to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if the law was imposed.
Canada has suspended the extradition treaty with Hong Kong in the wake of China’s passage of new security law.
But China being China is refusing all the international allegations and Chinese officials argue that they are doing nothing wrong: national-security laws are common around the world, even in democracies.
With the year 2020 going places, from the pandemic to the mysterious deaths of elephants in Botswana, China can be seen in many events of the year (I’m afraid that’s not for a good cause) whether it has been the origin of virus (and keeping it hidden) or infiltrating the borders or cyber-attacks or data theft.
It is hard to guess what the year and China holds next for the world.
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