UK offers Hong Kongers citizenship in response to China
LONDON, United States — Britain on Wednesday extended Hong Kong residents a broader path to citizenship in response to China's sweeping new security law for the former UK territory.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement represents the most direct international response to legislation that has been roundly condemned by Western allies.
It comes during a London review of its entire range of relations with Beijing that includes a reassessment of the role China's Huawei is playing in the buildup of Britain's 5G data network.
"We stand for rules and obligations," Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament just hours after China made its first arrests in Hong Kong under the new legislation.
"The enactment and deposition of this national security law constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration."
Johnson said London had warned Beijing that it would introduce a new route for those with British National Overseas status to move to the UK.
"And that is precisely what we will do now," he said.
About 300,000 Hong Kongers have BNO passports and another 2.6 million are eligible to apply.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain's offer also extended to dependents of those with BNO status but refused to be drawn about how many would apply.
Sky News and other media said Raab's office also summoned China's embassador Liu Xiaoming to express its deep concern.
'Deeply disturbing'
Hong Kong was under UK jurisdiction until Britain handed it to China in 1997 with a guarantee that Beijing would preserve the city's judicial and legislative autonomy for 50 years.
But critics say the new law — passed by Beijing's rubber-stamp parliament this week without its text being released to the public — tests the limits of the "One Country, Two Systems" principle that formally entered international law in 1984.
Britain's last Hong Kong governor called details of the legislation unveiled overnight "even worse than I expected".
"It is Orwellian stuff," Chris Patten told the BBC.
"It does go wider and further than anybody had feared."
Britain's response to China's legislation offers a much smoother pathway to UK citizenship for millions of Hong Kongers.
Raab said Hong Kongers with BNO status and their dependents would first have the right to work or study in Britain for five years.
They would then have the right to apply for settled status then possible citizenship.
He said there would be "no quotas" and described the entire system as "bespoke".
"This is a grave and deeply disturbing step," he said of the Chinese law.
"China through this national security legislation is not living up to its promises to the people of Hong Kong. We will live up to our promises to them," he told lawmakers.
Policy review
Britain had opened itself up to closer relations with China as it sought out trading partners after ending its decades-long membership in the European Union this year.
Johnson's government also irritated the US administration in January by allowing the private Chinese telecoms group Huawei to unroll Britain's speedy new data network.
But Britain is now studying ways it can cut Huawei out of its system entirely and build up an alliance of European and Asian providers that reduces China's dominance in the field.
British condemnation of the Chinese law has spanned the political divide and seen London's Asia-focused HSBC group come under political assault for openly backing it last month.
Raab did not mention the bank by name but noted: "The rights and the freedoms and our responsibilities in this country to the people of Hong Kong should not be sacrificed on the altar of bankers' bonuses".
HSBC offered support for the law after public pressure from a pro-Beijing figure in Hong Kong who pointed to the bank's reliance on business in China.
Millions march in Hong Kong in a powerful rebuke of an extradition law feared to expose them to China's capricious justice system.
Hong Kong national security police on Thursday detained four people, including the brother of prominent activist Dennis Kwok, one of eight fugitives with bounties on their heads for allegedly breaching national security.
The city's national security department "took in two men and two women from various districts in Hong Kong and Kowloon for investigation," a police source told AFP.
Among the four was the elder brother of former democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who is currently in the United States.
"(Kwok's elder brother) is now under investigation in the Western District police station," the source said.
Three others, "two women and a man", were taken in Tuesday by the national security department, authorities told AFP earlier Thursday.
AFP has requested comment from police on the most recent detentions. — AFP
Three family members of exiled democracy activist Nathan Law have been taken in for questioning on Tuesday, days after authorities issued a bounty on him and seven others accused of breaching the city's national security law.
Police officers from the national security department brought in Law's parents and elder brother without formally arresting them, a police source confirmed to AFP.
"It's understood that officers from the NSD took three people -- Nathan Law's parents and elder brother -- in for questioning," they said.
"So far, no arrest has been made." — AFP
The United States condemns Hong Kong authorities for issuing bounties linked to democracy activists based abroad, saying the move sets a dangerous precedent that could threaten human rights.
Hong Kong police offered bounties of HK$1 million (about $127,600) for information leading to the capture of eight prominent dissidents who live abroad and are wanted for national security crimes.
"The United States condemns the Hong Kong Police Force's issuance of an international bounty" against the eight activists, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says in a statement.
"The extraterritorial application of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law is a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world," he adds, saying China is engaging in "transnational repression efforts."
"We call on the Hong Kong government to immediately withdraw this bounty, respect other countries' sovereignty, and stop the international assertion of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing." — AFP
Hong Kong's top court has quashed the conviction of a journalist in relation to her investigation into an attack on democracy supporters by government loyalists in 2019.
It was a rare victory for the press industry in a city where two major independent news outlets have been forced to shut down since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020.
"Happy -- I could not think of another word that can describe my mood right now," veteran journalist Bao Choy said outside the Court of Final Appeal after the judgement was handed down.
"I think this kind of happiness belongs to everyone in society." — AFP
Hong Kong police detained Alexandra Wong, a prominent democracy activist better known as "Grandma Wong" on Sunday, the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, AFP reporters said.
Wong was carrying flowers in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay shopping district, an area that for years was the site of June 4, 1989, commemorations, before authorities escorted her to a police van. AFP reporters saw a total of six people bundled into police vehicles. — AFP
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