Expert Links US Talks To National Security Law Delay

Political analyst Ma Ngok said on Saturday that recent talks between Chinese and US officials in Hawaii maybe linked to the delay in publication of the national security law, but added that he does not expect a long hold up before the contentious law is imposed in Hong Kong.

Despite speculations in the local media, the national security law was not among the list of legislation passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) on Saturday.

A brief report published by Xinhua News Agency on Saturday afternoon said a number of laws were passed – including penalties for public officers, archive law and provisions for its armed police force – but there was no mention of the national security law for the SAR.

This came after a three-day NPCSC session ended on Saturday morning.

Ma, associate professor in government and public administration at Chinese University, said based on media reports since May, it seems a lot are still being negotiated, so it is not surprising that the law was not passed at this NPCSC session.

He told RTHK’s Violet Wong that one of the unresolved issues could be disagreement arising in talks between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and China's foreign policy chief, Yang Jiechi held in Hawaii.

“I believe that what happened in Hawaii was an unfinished negotiation, and a lot of issues were raised between the United States and China. And then, it seems that a lot of issues were unresolved … and the national security law being one of them,” said Ma.

“To what extend would the law hurt investors’ confidence? To what extend would it entail sanctions from the US and maybe also the European Union now? I think these are serious issues which [could not be] considered by the NPCSC,” he further explained.

Other difficulties, he added, could be technical issues on ‘how to make the law practicable in Hong Kong’, which adopts the common law system rather than mainland’s civil law system.

But Ma said the central government will probably not postpone it for too long, as it will be ‘a show of weaknesses’ on the part of Beijing.

Once passed, the legislation will eventually be inserted into Annex III of the Basic Law, and will then be promulgated rather than going through the Legislative Council.

Pompeo told the online Copenhagen Democracy Summit overnight on Friday that if "the Chinese Communist Party treats Hong Kong as it does Shenzhen and Shanghai, we will treat them the same."

"Any agreements that are unique between the United States and Hong Kong, separate and different to those we have with Beijing, we will move away from every one of those," the US official had said.