'Hong Kong is now a police state', Benedict Rogers

It can no longer be treated as the free and open trading city it once was

To impose one draconian national security law that almost entirely silences domestic dissent, dismantles civil society, undermines the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, and intensifies the crackdown on basic freedoms in Hong Kong would, one might have thought, be enough.

To impose a second, even more repressive domestic security law might be regarded as over the top, particularly in light of China’s original commitment in an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, ahead of the handover from British rule, to preserve Hong Kong’s freedoms.

To then impose new legislative measures, in addition to these two laws, as the Hong Kong authorities did last week, is not only to hammer the nails into the coffin of promised freedoms, but to embed the tombstone upon the grave of basic human rights and the rule of law in the city.

It is yet another step toward the goal of creating a Stasi-style secret police, not only to persecute pro-democracy protesters but to exert total control over Hong Kong. The government is preparing for the total absorption of the city into China’s Greater Bay Area.

Last week, the Hong Kong legislature enacted new laws with breakneck speed, again bending to the will of Beijing.

Just a day after the new legislation was presented, out of schedule, at the Beijing-controlled Legislative Council, the Orwellian-named Safeguarding National Security Regulation came into effect.

What do these new measures mean?

In essence, an even further tightening of the screws.

Anyone disclosing investigations by Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong could be jailed for seven years.

Six sites in Hong Kong — including four hotels — are now prohibited locations, because they are bases for the national security bureau.

These include the Metropark Hotel Causeway Bay, the City Garden Hotel in North Point, the Island Pacific Hotel in Sai Wan, a China Travel Service hotel in Hung Hom, and two locations along Hoi Fan Road in Tai Kok Tsui.

Places for tourists have now been converted into centres of surveillance and repression.

I won’t be going to Hong Kong anytime soon, having been denied entry in 2017, threatened with a prison sentence in 2022, named as a collaborator in the trial of media entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai last year, and having received numerous threatening letters over the past seven years.

But for those who do wish to visit Hong Kong in the future, it is important to know that it is no longer the freedom-loving, open city it once was. The Hong Kong people themselves have not changed, but their city is now controlled by a repressive police state — and so visiting it carries risks.

You may wish to check what reading material you pack, as the books or magazines you bring could be banned as subversive, and you should review your social media posts if you have been critical of China.

Perhaps the gravest measure proposed is to allow mainland China to exercise jurisdiction over national security cases, enabling prosecution across the border from Hong Kong in CCP-controlled courts.

While this has always been possible under the Beijing-imposed national security law introduced five years ago, it has now become a stark reality.

The trajectory is clear — Beijing is exercising direct rule of Hong Kong, resulting in the total dismantling of Hong Kong’s previous freedoms, basic human rights, the rule of law and judicial independence.

Any pretence of Hong Kong’s promised autonomy disappeared five years ago. But now we must get real.

Hong Kong today is becoming just another Chinese city, a special autonomous region in name only, subject to the same control and repressive policies that characterize CCP rule in mainland China.

The unraveling of an international treaty, the undermining of the international rules-based order, and the undoing of freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in what was once one of Asia’s freest and most open cities is a tragedy and a betrayal.

But it is a tragedy that requires not just heartbreak and hand-wringing, but action.

The international community must condemn these new measures.

New sanctions must be imposed on Hong Kong officials and institutions responsible for demolishing the freedoms and autonomy that China had promised to respect.

And Hong Kong can no longer be treated as the free and open trading city it once was.

Hong Kong is now a police state. And — without penalising Hong Kongers — it must be held up as a pariah state.

This article was published in UCA News on 23 May 2025.