HONG KONG (Reuters) – Beijing’s top representative in Hong Kong on Thursday warned foreign powers that they would be taught a lesson if they tried to use the global financial center as a “pawn” as tensions rose between China and Western governments over the city. .
Luo Huining, director of China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office, spoke at a ceremony on the occasion of an “educational day” for national security law, which the authorities have organized to promote general legislation. which China imposed last year.
“We will give a lesson to all foreign forces that intend to use Hong Kong as a pawn,” Luo said.
The new law called on the West to curb rights and freedoms in the former British colony, to which a high degree of autonomy was promised when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Supporters say the law has restored order after mass protests against the government and against China in 2019.
China, the United States, Britain and the European Union have changed sanctions over the past year, as security law and measures taken to reduce democratic representation in city institutions exacerbated tensions.
Earlier this week, a letter signed by more than 100 British politicians called on the Boris Johnson government to expand the list of Chinese officials accused of “serious human rights abuses.”
National Security Education Day will be marked with school activities, games and shows, and a parade of police and other services who will perform the Chinese Army’s “goose step” march.
The Chinese routine, in which troops keep their legs rigidly straight when they lift them off the ground and their arms swing at a 90-degree angle in front of their chest, will replace British-style walking exercises in a parade of cops and others. forces.
A booth set up at the Hong Kong Police College sold keys that read “Warn of Tear Smoke” and stickers that read “Scatter or Shoot,” replicas of police banners that were commonly seen during the 2019 protests.
‘SUPPORT! SUPPORT! SUPPORT! ‘
Elsewhere, in schools and cultural centers, Hong Kong residents were asked to build “mosaic walls” of national security to instill, according to a government website, the idea that people should work together to protect his homeland.
Stickers and bookmarks saying “Maintain National Security, Let’s Safeguard Our Home” have been handed out to schools and kindergartens.
At Wong Cho Bau High School in the city, students gathered to hold a flag-raising ceremony.
“As Chinese, as people of Hong Kong, what we need to do is be prepared and make efforts for the country,” director Hui Chun Lung told students.
Today he stressed the “stability” the security law brought to the city, ahead of a two-minute video showing different students expressing their support for the legislation.
The students then lined up to stick “wish letters” on a mosaic wall.
“Supporting the national security law is not a problem. Support Support Support I hope we can be one with the continent, “one student wrote.
In February, Hong Kong unveiled national security education guidelines that include teaching students up to six years old about collusion with foreign forces, terrorism, secession and subversion, the four main crimes of the new law.
Chinese officials have partly blamed liberal studies for the restlessness of the city’s youth.
Changes in the school curriculum and promotional campaigns are seen as signs that Beijing’s plans for the city go beyond nullifying dissent and seek a social overhaul that fits it more in the governed mainland. by the Communist Party.
Additional reports by Jessie Pang, Sharon Tam, Joyce Zhou and Aleksander Solum; Written by Marius Zaharia; Edited by Stephen Coates and Raju Gopalakrishnan