Taipei, Taiwan – As Hong Kong moves ahead with controversial new national security legislation, the international business community is wondering how new rules on “state secrets” will affect the international financial hub’s competitiveness and ease of doing business. There have been quiet concerns expressed about the possibility of giving.
The Hong Kong government has until February 28 to comment on plans to implement Article 23 of the Chinese territory's mini-constitution, which stipulates the need to prohibit crimes such as treason, secession, sedition, subversion and theft of state secrets. I'm looking for.
After speaking with diplomats and business representatives last week, Attorney General Paul Lamb reported that “everyone is on the same page” about the need to pass the bill.
Lam said some people had “concerns” and “questions” but said it would be a stretch to say they had expressed “concerns”.
It didn't take long for Lam's bright emotional expressions to begin to look out of place.
In interviews with local media, presidents of Indonesian and German chambers of commerce said businesses are concerned about how the law will be enforced and whether it will further align the former British colony with mainland China. He said there was.
Several participants at the meeting, who spoke anonymously to Bloomberg News, said officials answered only about four questions, leaving some attendees dissatisfied.
Hong Kong's proposal is unlikely to be opposed by the city council after an overhaul of the electoral system that effectively shuts out pro-democracy candidates, but the Chinese government announced in 2020 after large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations that turned violent. It is based on sweeping national security laws imposed by the United States.
Under the national security law drafted by the Chinese government, Hong Kong's opposition, pro-democracy civil society and independent media have all but been wiped out.
Andrew Collier, founder and managing director of Orient Capital Research (Hong Kong), told Al Jazeera: “For many senior executives who are already concerned about the tense atmosphere in Hong Kong, the new law will simply instill fear. You would think it would just improve it.”
“Article 23 also shows that Hong Kong's domestic politicians, not just mainland officials through the NSL, are focused on security to please the Chinese government.”
Collier said the Hong Kong government, like mainland China, appears to be sending a message that political control trumps everything else, including the economy.
For more than two decades since its return to Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong's reputation as a business hub has been supported by a reliable legal system inherited from British and Western-style civil liberties.
That image has taken a series of hits in recent years, from large-scale riots and property destruction during the 2019 democracy movement to the Chinese government's security crackdown and the world's longest-running coronavirus control measures during the pandemic. being visited.
Even voices known for their bullish views on China are lamenting the city's decline.
“Hong Kong is over,” Stephen Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, declared in an op-ed in the Financial Times this week.
“In spring 2019, when the pro-democracy movement began, the Hang Seng Index was trading at close to 30,000,” Roach said, referring to the city's stock market benchmark index.
“We are now more than 45 percent below that level of 15,750. Milton Friedman's favorite free market has become constrained by the weight of dictatorship.”
A Hong Kong government spokesperson told Al Jazeera that enacting a national security law is “the inherent right of every sovereign state” and that the government's proposed definition of state secrets is “in line with international practice.” .
The spokesperson also said that provisions related to state secrets “only cover acts carried out without legal authority” and that the introduction of “public interest” defenses was under consideration. .
When Hong Kong was once known for its culture of violent protests, public demonstrations against Beijing and city authorities were almost unheard of in the post-NSL era.
The low level of opposition to the enactment of Article 23 is a sign of the times.
In 2003, the last time the Hong Kong government tried to pass legislation related to Article 23, half a million people took to the streets in the largest protest in Hong Kong's history.
When pro-government broadcaster TVB recently asked the public for their opinions on the bill in a series of street interviews, it was met with a series of voices of opposition.
Kevin Yam, a senior fellow at Georgetown's Asian Law Center and a former Hong Kong lawyer wanted by city authorities for alleged national security violations, said Article 23 does the same thing the NSL did for civil society. He said that this could also have an impact on Hong Kong's economy.
“The NSL had a big impact on business, but it was more about creating a climate of fear. It was more about the loss of talented people who chose to leave Hong Kong. It was big. It was more indirect,” Yam told Al Jazeera from Australia, where he lives in exile.
“Whereas this time, if we look at what businesses need to worry about in terms of the impact of these changes, it will impact them more directly,” Yam said. .
national secret
Of particular concern to companies is Article 23's provisions on state secrets, which have been used to adopt mainland China's broad definition of espionage and allow companies to collect information as part of their daily operations. Some worry that it will inhibit their ability to share information.
Observers have noted that the definition of state secrets in Hong Kong's bill is nearly identical to the wording in China's State Secrets Protection Law.
In mainland China, foreign consulting firms CapVision Partners, Mintz Group and Bain & Company were raided last year as part of a campaign targeting suspected espionage.
The Chinese government also considers even seemingly minor violations serious, such as in the case of Cheng Lei, a Chinese-Australian journalist who spent nearly three years in prison after breaking a reporting ban by a matter of minutes. It has been proven that it can yield results.
In January, Chinese state media reported that a citizen had been “punished by state security agencies in accordance with the law” for sharing fabricated evidence of environmental problems in China's seafood industry with a foreign NGO.
“The big concern is that Hong Kong is moving in the same direction that we're seeing on the mainland right now,” Nick Maro, China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Al Jazeera.
“One of Hong Kong's greatest strengths, structurally and historically, is the fact that there is no uncertainty around red lines that cannot be crossed, as there is in mainland China. We were able to talk about it.”
While some foreign companies may see these risks as a cost of doing business in the world's second-largest economy, they may be harder to swallow in much smaller and less liberal Hong Kong.
If Hong Kong loses its historic selling point of openness, businesses could start directing investment and jobs elsewhere, said the head of a foreign chamber of commerce in Hong Kong.
“One of the things that comes through from the business community is that we understand it. We understand that this legislation needs to be enacted,” said the anonymous source. He told Al Jazeera on the following conditions:
“The key issues for us will be the cost of implementation and what differentiates Hong Kong from the mainland.”
Despite officials insisting that the city remains a welcoming home for foreign companies and their local offices, the first two chapters of the government's consultation document on the national security law tell a different story. , the official said.
“Out of its 42 paragraphs, exactly one paragraph talks about Hong Kong's role as an international city, and exactly one paragraph talks about Hong Kong as a place where people interact and exchanges occur.The rest All 41 cases relate to any threat to security and safety here,” the representative said.
“If you read this book from a businessman's point of view, you think, 'Well, I just want to do business there.' You're welcome.”
