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China on Monday threatened counter measures against the united States if it was punished by the plans to impose a law of sedition in Hong Kong, the business center’s chief of security, the acclaimed as a new tool that would end the “terrorism”.
Beijing plans to pass a new security law in Hong Kong, which prohibits treason, subversion and sedition after months of massive, often violent pro-democracy protests in the last year.
But many Hong Kongers, business groups and western countries fear that the proposal could be a death blow to the city’s cherished freedoms and thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday despite the ban on mass gatherings introduced to combat coronavirus.
As the police dispersed the crowd with tear gas and water cannons, Washington’s national security advisor, Robert O’brien, warned that the new law could cost the city a preferential US trade status.
But China’s ministry of foreign affairs said that Beijing might react to the sanctions of Washington.
“If the united states insists on hurting the interests of China, China will have to take all the necessary measures to counteract and oppose this,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, told reporters on Monday.
Hong Kong has become the latest flashpoint in the rise of tensions between the two super powers, China has compared to “the brink of a new Cold War”.
The refusal to grant Hong Kongers democracy has resulted in rare bipartisan support in a bitterly divided Washington during the Triumph of the administration.
Beijing portrays the city of the protests as a foreign-backed plot to destabilize the country and says other nations have no right to interfere in the way the international business center that is run.
– The continental part of the agents? –
The protesters, who have hit the streets in their millions, they say that they are motivated by years of Beijing undermine the city’s liberties, as it was returned to China by Britain in 1997.
Hong Kong enjoy freedoms unseen on the mainland, as well as its own legal system and the trade of state.
The activists of view of the security of the proposed law as the most brazen move yet by Beijing to crush freedom of expression and the ability of the city to make its own laws.
Of particular concern is the provision that allows the Chinese security agents to operate in Hong Kong, with the fear that it could unleash an offensive against those voicing dissent against China’s communist rulers.
On the continent, the subversion of the laws are usually wielded against critics.
The proposed law, which China’s rubber stamp legislature is expected to act quickly, and also bypass Hong Kong’s own legislature.
The city’s influential bar Association on Monday described the proposed move as “disturbing and problematic,” and warned that it may even violate the territory’s mini-constitution.
The proposal has frightened investors of Hong Kong stock exchange suffers its largest drop in five years on Friday. Monday had yet to recover, closing only 0.10 percent.
– “Restore the social order’ –
Hong Kong’s unpopular pro-Beijing government has welcomed the law.
“Terrorism is growing in the city and the activities that harm national security, such as “Hong Kong independence’, they become more rampant,” minister of safety and security John Lee said in a statement announcing the legislation.
Police chief Chris Tang cited 14 recent cases in which the explosives had been confiscated and said that the new law would “help to combat the strength of Hong Kong independence’, and restore social order”.
Last year’s protests were initially sparked by plans to allow extraditions to the mainland, but soon snowballed into a popular revolt against Beijing, and the city’s police force.
Beijing has dismissed the protesters demands for an investigation of the police, the amnesty for the 8,500 detainees, and the universal suffrage.
The demonstrations failed in the beginning of the year, as the mass arrests and the coronavirus took its toll.
But have been raised in the last few weeks with the rally of the Sunday produce the most intense fighting for months and the police that at least 120 arrests.
During the last year of the large pro-democracy rallies, the mob attacks were common on both sides of the political divide and a video of protesters beating a lawyer at the rally on Sunday was seized by China’s state media.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, published the video on Twitter-a platform banned in mainland China.
“Let’s see what the Washington-copy of Hong Kong democracy really looks like,” he wrote.
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