China on Tuesday accused the United Kingdom of interfering in its internal affairs and said it would “defend” after Britain announced that it would suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong as a result of China’s decision to impose a national security law on the territory.
An unidentified spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in London claimed that the United Kingdom had repeatedly violated international law and the basic rules of international relations.
“The UK will have the consequences if it insists on going the wrong way,” the spokesperson said, according to the statement posted on the embassy’s website.
The United Kingdom announced on Monday its plan to suspend its extradition treaty with the former British colony.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told parliament that the measure would be effective immediately and that an arms embargo would also extend to Hong Kong.
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“We will not consider reactivating those agreements, unless and until there are clear and robust safeguards that are capable of preventing UK extradition from being misused under the new national security legislation,” Raab said.
The United States, Australia and Canada have already suspended their extradition agreements with the territory.
On Tuesday, the Chinese embassy spokesman added that “any attempt” to pressure China on the law “will meet with strong opposition” from its people.
“Such an attempt is doomed to failure.”
In a social media post, Joshua Wong, the most prominent leader of the civil rights and democracy movement in Hong Kong, said that “it was not exactly the wisest course” to describe the national security law as part of domestic politics from China.
The end of an era
The UK ban is another nail in the coffin of what then-Prime Minister David Cameron launched in 2015 as a “golden age” of ties to China, the world’s second-largest economy.
London has been shocked by an offensive in Hong Kong that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, the treatment of ethnic Uighurs in the western Xinjiang region, and the perception that China did not tell the whole truth about the coronavirus outbreak.
A London analyst said extraditions between Hong Kong and the UK are extremely rare, making the UK decision “a symbolic gesture, but a very important one”[[[[Lam Yik / Reuters]
“Extraditions between Hong Kong and the UK are extremely rare, so this is a symbolic gesture, but a very important one,” said Nick Vamos, a partner at London law firm Peters & Peters.
Raab said he would extend a long-standing arms embargo against China to include Hong Kong, which means that no weapons or ammunition will be exported and any equipment that can be used for internal repression, such as shackles and smoke grenades, will be banned.
United States President Donald Trump has already signaled the end of preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong, and last week British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered the Huawei Technologies team from China to withdraw from the 5G network. of the country by the end of 2027.
China, once courted as the main source of investment in British infrastructure projects, from nuclear to rail, accused Britain of pleasing the United States.
Britain says the new security law violates guarantees of freedoms, including an independent judiciary, which has helped keep Hong Kong as one of the world’s largest financial and commercial centers since 1997.
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Raab was pressured by fellow lawmakers to consider targeted sanctions against individuals, both by Hong Kong and by concerns about China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in its Xinjiang region, but said such measures were not imminent.
“We will patiently collect the evidence; it takes months,” he said.
Officials in Hong Kong and Beijing have said the security law is vital in closing the national security gaps exposed by the pro-democracy protests that started in June last year.
China has repeatedly told Western powers to stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs.
On Sunday, China’s ambassador to Britain warned of a harsh response if London tried to sanction Chinese officials, as some Conservative Party lawmakers have demanded.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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