A rally in Hong Kong this week. The Chinese government said it had a plan to “safeguard national security” in the territory. |
By Keith
Bradsher, BEIJING
China
China will roll out new steps to
“safeguard national security” in Hong Kong after months of anti government protests that
have destabilized the semi autonomous city, the Chinese Communist Party
leadership announced on Thursday.
The vague yet potentially
far-reaching proposal for Hong Kong was announced at the end of a four-day
meeting of the party’s Central Committee, which brings together about 370
senior officials to decide the direction of party policy around once a year.
The official summary of the
meeting, released by Xinhua,
the official Chinese news agency, contained few details of that and other
proposals intended to defend the authority of the Communist Party and its
leader, Xi Jinping, and to improve decision making. Details may come out in
documents and speeches released days or weeks later.
The most eye-catching language
was about Hong Kong, where for some 21 weeks protesters have challenged the Beijing-backed
government, demanded democracy and denounced China’s growing hold
over the city, a former British colony that maintains its own laws and
freedoms.
Hong Kong and Macau, a former
Portuguese colony, are both run as “special administrative regions” under
Chinese sovereignty. China would “build and improve a legal system and
enforcement mechanism to defend national security in the special administrative
regions,” the meeting summary said.
The vague language leaves plenty
of guesswork about what the Chinese leaders may have in mind. Some pro-Beijing
hard-liners in Hong Kong have suggested the
time may have come for the Chinese authorities to impose new security
legislation on the territory, which Britain returned to Chinese sovereignty in
1997.
Article 18 of the Basic Law, the
mini-constitution that defines Hong Kong’s status, gives Beijing broad
authority, which it has never exercised, to act on a perceived threat in Hong
Kong to national threat or unity.
The Basic Law also requires that
Hong Kong pass its own national security laws, but it has not done so,
especially after protests in 2003 prompted the territory’s government to
abandon proposed legislation.
The Communist Party leadership
met as China is grappling with a trade war with
the Trump administration and a marked slowdown in China’s economic growth.
The official summary did not
mention those issues — top-level party documents often stick to broad
statements — but one clause suggested that Mr. Xi and his colleagues feel that
the risks have risen. The summary said the leadership had withstood “a complex
situation of clearly increasing domestic and external risks and challenges.”
Over the past year, Mr. Xi
has repeatedly warned Communist
Party officials to steel themselves for “struggle” and hazards such as possible
economic turbulence, rising debt levels linked to local governments,
technological competition and sparks of social discontent spread across the
internet.
The wording from the latest
leadership meeting suggests that Mr. Xi sees no easing in those risks.
The Central Committee echoed Mr.
Xi’s frequent demands that the “Communist Party leads everything,” and that the
authority of central leaders, like himself, be fiercely protected. And it
hinted that there may be more changes to bolster Mr. Xi and the party, while
also trying to improve coordination in policy making.
Since coming to power in 2012,
Mr. Xi has created party policy groups and investigation bodies that
enhance the power of central leadership, above all himself.
Last year, he swept away a term
limit on his presidency, opening the way to an indefinite stay in power. But
investors, experts and officials have complained that the flurry of change has created caution and confusion among
policymakers, and held back promised reforms.
The latest meeting promised both
stronger centralized leadership and better policy decisions.
“Improve the leadership system
for managing the overall situation and coordinating all sides,” the summary
said. “Improve every institution for firmly defending the authority of the
party central leadership and centralized, unified leadership.”
Such sweeping language could, for
example, open the way to changes in how party’s policy-setting commissions
operate.
Some details
may become clearer if the party issues the decision on improving the “national
governance system” that the committee approved. Precedent suggests that the
decision may be published in the coming days or weeks.
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