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What does Beijing dread? (Poon Siu To)

蘋果日報 2020/06/27 08:30



The National Security Law for Hong Kong will probably be passed in tomorrow’s meeting of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC). While the Law, which is of utmost importance in the words of Beijing and Hong Kong officials, is indeed profoundly influential, it goes without a public hearing, nor a decent consultation with Hong Kong people, not to mention the full text of the draft made known to the public, which does not only run counter to the legislative convention in Hong Kong, but is also barely seen in the normality of the Chinese Communist Party.

Elsie Leung, the former Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee and former Secretary for Justice, has indicated that opinions in Hong Kong society are so diverse that an announcement of the articles of the Law would trigger off disruptive behavior that halts the legislation. Is Beijing being concerned about Hong Kong people’s objection to the Law? If Hong Kong people’s objection had been relevant, the Law would have been put on hold! Her remarks are fundamentally self-contradictory! Beijing does not dread Hong Kong people’s objection, but sanctions from all over the world.

The ad hoc meeting of the NPCSC is probably meant for steering clear of any fault in the legislative procedure left for criticisms that will whittle away the bare legitimacy of the law. Article 29 of the Legislation Law of PRC prescribes that a bill listed on agenda of the Standing Committee shall be put to vote after deliberations in three meetings. Beijing is obviously worried about hitches and hiccups popping up during such a long procedure so that it abbreviates the time for discussion with Article 30: Bills of comparatively less divergences shall be put to vote after deliberations in two meetings.
Forum tailor-made

In order to play up the legislative prescription that only two meetings are needed for deliberations, pro-communist people from all walks of life have advertised in newspapers to show support for the legislation. The Xinhua News Agency, an official mouthpiece, has particularly stressed that the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office(HKMAO) and the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government(LOCPG) have held 12 forums in Hong Kong(How many Hong Kong people could go in and speak up?) in which “all participants arrived at unanimity to support the National Security Law for Hong Kong”. The “unanimity” is palpably tailor-made for backing up the prescription of deliberations of a bill in only two meetings.

Actually, Beijing will not conclude a profoundly influential bill even for the mainland in such a hasty manner. Take the Property Law of the PRC as an example, the draft was initiated in 1993, drawn up in 1998, preliminarily reviewed in the ninth NPCSC in December 2002, promulgated in July 2005, and passed in the NPC in March 2007 after six meetings of deliberations. It took ten years in total from drawing up to passing of the bill with thousands of proposals sent in.

The only bill that has ever been enacted swiftly is the Anti-Session Law, which is aimed at Taiwan. The NPCSC announced the draft Anti-Session Law in December 2004, and approved it by voting on March 14, 2005, which took only four months. However, the Law is more of a statement of Beijing on the cross-strait relation.

It is as clear as day that the National Security Law for Hong Kong is being hastily pushed through upon the command of Xi Jinping that the NPCSC and the Hong Kong institutions must accomplish this important political task in due course. Yet, no sooner than had the news of the legislation been released than an emotional upheaval was stirred up. Hong Kong people have ever since been quickening the pace of emigration, transferring assets, renewing BNO while legal professionals and foreign investors have been worrying about the collapse of judicial independence and “one country, two systems”. Worse still, the U.S. and European countries have been deploying counter-measures which will be put into joint-actions against China right after the pandemic. By then, Beijing will have to pay a much higher price for what it did.

Strangely enough, internal hindrances to the CCP are surprisingly abundant. The enactment of the National Security Law for Hong Kong is an important political move, which is supposed to be escorted with national strength. The reality is that ministries of the State Council, provinces, cities and Autonomous Administration Regions have become onlookers, leaving the issue to the NPC, HKMAO, LOCPG and the Publicity Department, which is pretty absurd.

(Poon Siu To, veteran journalist)
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