Hong Kong Launches Controversial National Security Hotline

Pro-democracy demonstrators crowd the streets to protest Hong Kong’s extradition bill in June, 2019 (WIkimedia Commons).

The Hong Kong Police Department announced a new hotline for citizens to report violations of the territory’s new national security law. According to the police, residents may report these infractions through email, text, or WeChat, and they can even send in pictures or audio.

The national security law—which came into effect on June 30—penalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion. The law bypassed Hong Kong’s legislature, and it was announced the day it was ratified by the national government. 

Beijing’s tightened control comes after months of protests within the city. In 2019, demonstrators took to the streets after the pro-Beijing territorial government unveiled a bill to allow the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China. Though the government eventually retracted the bill in question, the move was widely seen as an encroachment on the special autonomy Hong Kong has held since it was re-incorporated into China in 1997, which includes self-adjudication. 

The new national security law has been described by some commentators as the end of China’s “one country, two systems” agreement with Hong Kong. 

"With this law being superior to all local law and the Basic Law (Hong Kong's constitution) itself, there is no avenue to challenge the vague definitions of the four crimes in the law as violating basic rights," Michael C. Davis, a Wilson Center fellow, said. "Now people take their rights subject to the interest of the state."

Beijing has a history of accusing peaceful protestors of operating under the design of foreign governments—so anyone who goes to a nonviolent demonstration may be arrested for collusion. The government has also regularly used the charge of subversion to imprison journalists and activists. If citizens are suspected of these charges, they may even be taken to mainland China for trial—the very issue which ignited the current pro-democracy movement.

The police department’s hotline ensures that China may execute the new security law to its fullest extent, incentivizing pro-government citizens to use this resource against their opponents.

"Informants may use this hotline against people who they dislike or are in a different political camp," explained Maya Wang, a Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The Hong Kong police hotline represents part of a larger pattern of emboldened action against the city’s pro-democracy faction. Earlier this week, seven pro-democracy policymakers were arrested for clashing with pro-government leaders over a committee chair. This legislative power may continue restrictive bills, such as the one passed in June with criminal penalties for refusing to observe the national anthem.

As Beijing continues to erode the territory’s political autonomy, Hong Kong’s loyalist governmental bodies have served as a virtual proxy for the national government itself. In its application, the national security law has erased any possibility of a more democratic Hong Kong. The new police hotline enables supporters of the government to take the suppression of the pro-democracy movement into their own hands.