The Hong Kong government has recently extended its Covid regulations banning gatherings of more than eight people until 4 June. How convenient. Last year, according to organisers, 180,000 people gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on 4 June 1989. In future, being an organiser may well land you in court under a new national security law, which Beijing announced last week at its annual National People’s Congress.
Perhaps we should have expected it. After all, the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s ‘constitution’, lays down that the Hong Kong government should enact such a law, and the big party meeting in October told us that the ‘legal systems and implementation mechanisms for protecting national security’ would be set up. But given the recent protests, now did not seem the time to add fuel to the fire. In 2003, the then chief executive Tung Chee Hwa tried, but backed down in the face of 500,000 protesters.
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