HK legislation won't worry law-abiders: China Daily editorial

Over the past year, radical elements in Hong Kong have been encouraged and emboldened by external forces to "color" their violent challenge to the "one country, two systems" framework as being above and beyond the law.

Since the consequences of that are evident to all, that forceful measures are required to prevent, forestall and punish acts of separatism, subversion and terrorism in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and any collusion with foreign forces to engage in such acts that endanger national security is not up for debate.

Yet there are those pretending it is.

Those who have been engaging in such acts, the parties colluding to plan and carry them out and those who out of malevolence or misplaced imperiousness have endorsed such activities in the SAR have all raised their voices in outrage.

More than 20 years after China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong, these elements still try to portray the SAR as being a British colony and thus try to suggest that national security in the SAR does not fall under the purview of the central authorities.

On Friday, for instance, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which unwarrantedly criticized the formulation of national security legislation for Hong Kong by China's top legislature claiming it to be an assault on Hong Kong's autonomy.

Although the Basic Law stipulates that the SAR should enact laws on its own to safeguard national security, nearly 23 years after Hong Kong's return to China, the relevant legislation has still not materialized due to the sabotage and obstruction by anti-China elements in Hong Kong as well as hostile forces from the outside.

Given the situation that has developed in the SAR over the past year, the central authorities can no longer indulge the antics of those destabilizing elements.

Some of those elements may justifiably fear the introduction of the law because it targets the activities on which they have pinned their ambitions, but the legislation will not infringe on, and instead will only better protect, the legitimate rights and freedoms of law-abiding Hong Kong residents.

The draft law, which the National People's Congress has completed its first review of, stresses that the rights and freedoms stipulated in the Basic Law and related international covenants will be protected, and that the relevant law enforcement and judicial work will be carried out by the SAR, aside from a few exceptional cases.

The legislation for Hong Kong does not change the "one country, two systems" principle. It does not change the high degree of autonomy practiced in Hong Kong. It does not change the legal system in the SAR or limit its executive, legislative and independent judicial powers.

What it will do is ensure Hong Kong is better able to handle the national security threats that have become more acute over the past year and better able to safeguard social stability for the well-being of the residents in the SAR.