Hong Kong Pushes New Security Law to Root Out ‘Seeds of Unrest’

The Hong Kong government will enact a long-shelved security law to curb foreign influence and expand the definition of offenses like stealing state secrets and treason, officials announced on Tuesday, in a move expected to further silence dissent in the once-freewheeling Chinese territory.

The proposed law would lay out five major areas of offenses: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage and external interference. Some of the definitions would echo mainland Chinese treatments of those offenses.

“Foreign intelligence organizations, the C.I.A. and British intelligence agencies have publicly stated that they are doing a lot of work against China and Hong Kong,” the city’s leader, John Lee, said at a news conference announcing the push. Internally, the city is also still facing “the seed of unrest,” he continued.

The law, he said, “is to protect us from attacks by foreign forces and by foreign countries.”

The proposal, known as Article 23 legislation, has long been a major political flashpoint in Hong Kong, a former British colony that was promised certain freedoms when it returned to Chinese control in 1997. The government first tried to enact it in 2003, but backed down after major protests by residents who worried that it would limit civil liberties. Since then, successive leaders put off attempts to revive the legislation, which is required by Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, wary of triggering further backlash.

But in 2020, the central Chinese government imposed a sweeping national security law of its own on Hong Kong, after months of fierce street protests against Beijing’s growing influence in the city. In the past three years, the authorities have used that law to virtually wipe out the city’s political opposition, reshape its elections and severely limit the media and free expression.

Hong Kong officials say the new law will complement Beijing’s law and weed out what Mr. Lee said were hostile forces “still lurking in our society.” Critics say it will ensure a further decimation of human rights.

“The purpose is to have total control of Hong Kong’s activities, including freedom of expression,” said Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo who is from Hong Kong. He studies freedom of expression in Hong Kong and China.

“It’s something we already expected would happen back in 2003, and that’s why half a million people took to the streets to try to stop it,” Mr. Poon added.

The government has not released a full draft of the proposed law. Instead, it published a lengthy “public consultation document,” which laid out officials’ justifications for the law and general proposals for its contents. It said residents would be able to submit comments on the document over the next month.

But many of the proposals would create a future in which criticism of policies such as this one would be increasingly risky.

The new “external interference” offense, for example, would make it a crime to collaborate with an “external force” to influence “the formulation or execution of any policy or measure.” External forces, the proposal said, could include foreign governments or political organizations.

The state secrets provision also explicitly nods to legislative language in mainland China that gives the authorities sweeping power to classify critical voices as a national security threat. Last year, Beijing introduced a revised counterespionage law that broadened the category of what constitutes spying; in recent months, China’s state security agency has suggested that negative commentary on China’s economy could be a national security threat.

The proposed Hong Kong law would widen the potential scope of state secrets to potentially include anything involving “major policy decisions,” “economic and social development,” or “the relationship between the central authorities” and the Hong Kong government.

“It’s very arbitrary and broad,” said Mr. Poon, noting in particular the vague definitions used to describe state secrets and interference.

Officials said the new law was necessary, even after Beijing had enacted its own security law, because external threats had not been entirely eradicated. The government’s proposal listed nine perceived dangers to national security, including “incitement of public hatred” against the state and “barbaric and gross interference” from foreign governments.

“Although social order has been restored since the implementation” of Beijing’s security law, the proposal continued, “some criminals still have not given up and are waiting for an opportunity to launch violent attacks or carry out terrorist activities.”

Hong Kong and Beijing officials have fervently denied that they are infringing on civil liberties, arguing that countries that have criticized the security legislation, including the United States, also have national security laws. Mr. Lee accused critics of “bad mouthing and political attacks.”

He said he would set up a “rebuttal team” to push back against criticisms of the law. The government would also reach out to foreign consulates and chambers of commerce to explain how the law would benefit businesses, he said.

“I want the government to be up and in full gear to explain what we are doing here, loud and clear, confidently and rightly, to tell the world we are just protecting ourselves from your attacks,” Mr. Lee said. “Don’t attack us.”

“I think eventually when people see that this law will bring security and stability,” he added. “They will love it.”