A prominent pro-business lawmaker in Hong Kong says the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, a recently passed law in the United States that aims to protect Hong Kong’s freedoms through sanctions, poses an unprecedented threat to businesses in the city.

The bill was “the toughest in history,” Felix Chung, of the Beijing-friendly Liberal Party, told a radio program on Monday, saying it had caused many local businesses to worry.

In comparison, a looming national security law set to take effect in Hong Kong was much less of a concern among the businesses, Chung said, as “99.9%” of them were law-abiding.

He believed that the passage of the law would reduce social unrest and bring long-term stability to a city that had seen months of anti-government protests.

The National People’s Congress of China is set to impose a controversial national security law this week that many see as a nail in the coffin for Hong Kong’s freedoms. While details of the law and its penalties are yet to be known, it has been said that conviction on certain charges will entail life imprisonment and that trials will not adopt the jury system, a practice common in cases tried in higher courts in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, pro-Beijing politicians continued to defend the bill, saying it was on a par with international practice in protecting national security.

Barrister and former lawmaker Ronny Tong said that in many countries, the maximum penalty for violating national security laws was the death penalty, therefore life imprisonment was “by no means a surprise.” He expected that cases involving national secrets might not involve the jury.

Lawmaker Elizabeth Quat said punishment under the law “must be heavy” for it to serve as a deterrent.

Pro-democracy lawmakers said the legislative process completely ignored the will of Hong Kong people and the city’s well-established legal mechanisms.

“It is a complete black-box operation,” Dennis Kwok of the Civic Party said. “It does not even follow normal mainland practice. Where is our dignity?”

The proposed national security law has also triggered international condemnation and calls for Beijing to give it a rethink. Last week, the U.S. Senate passed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which would lead to sanctions against entities that threatened Hong Kong’s freedoms.

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