Justice minister Paul Lam Ting-kwok and security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung paired up to defend the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance on Monday for the third consecutive day since it took effect.
Asked whether a potential new round of sanctions would adversely affect the city’s investment environment, Lam said the government had already prepared for “unfriendly” manoeuvres by Western politicians after the passing of the legislation required under Article 23 of the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
“We won’t be surprised if it comes. We are mentally prepared and have already devised practical plans in response,” he said on a radio show. “We have sufficient defensive capabilities. Part of the new law has enriched our toolbox for dealing with these [situations].”
But he stopped short of elaborating, citing the “complicated” geopolitical situation.
“What I can only say is we have to be fully prepared in order to protect ourselves,” Lam said, adding the government would continue to explain the law to overseas audiences and it expected the increased number of foreign visitors for the city’s recent mega events could mitigate the negative impact of Western “smears”.
Some American politicians had earlier renewed their calls for President Joe Biden’s administration to close the city’s economic and trade offices in the US after Hong Kong passed the legislation.
They also recommended sanctions on officials “who have played an instrumental role in carrying out Beijing’s bid to undermine democratic freedoms and the rule of law in Hong Kong”.
Speaking on the same radio show, security chief Tang said any attempt to shut the city’s trade offices “would only harm the interests of this particular country”.
“The offices exist to facilitate exchanges in trade and culture,” he said. “It would be foolish for [them] to take such action.”
Both Tang and Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu were among the Hong Kong officials hit by US sanctions in August 2020 for “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and restricting the freedom of expression or assembly of citizens” after Beijing imposed the national security law on the city in response to social unrest the year before.
Tang shrugged off the impacts of sanctions on him, saying: “I have been sanctioned for a long while. I am still in one piece.”
In a rebuttal to British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s claims that the Article 23 law had far-reaching implications for Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and protection of the rights and freedoms, Tang also said the UK had a “double standard” as it also enacted a stringent national security act last year.
Luise Amtsberg, the German federal commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian assistance, issued a statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying the “measures imposed” under Hong Kong’s law were “disproportionate”.
“The significantly increased penalties provided in [the] Article 23 legislation, its extraterritorial reach beyond Hong Kong and its partially retroactive implications are highly concerning,” she said on Saturday.
The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which took effect on Saturday and will complement the law imposed by Beijing, covers 39 offences divided into five categories: treason; insurrection, incitement to mutiny and disaffection and acts with seditious intention; sabotage; external interference; and theft of state secrets and espionage.
