China s Clampdown on Hong Kong | by Barbara Demick | The New York Review of Books

For the better part of the year, the protests repeatedly swelled, receded, and came back larger than before. (I visited that fall during a brief lull when authorities were mostly scrubbing graffiti off public buildings.) Hong Kong was still heaving early this year when the Covid-19 pandemic forced it into lockdown which provided a convenient pretext to ban protests.

Beijing bided its time until June 30, when the Standing Committee of the National People s Congress issued a far-reaching national security law for Hong Kong that in effect criminalizes most forms of dissent by defining four separate categories of offense: separatism, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign countries. Passed in secret with little input from local authorities, it essentially ended Hong Kong s autonomy. The legislation is so broadly written and so punitive that it could result in a life sentence for someone who vandalizes a government building or subway station. And its scope is so wide that it covers offenses committed outside Hong Kong by people who are not residents (mainlanders and foreigners both), which could empower a newly formed secret police unit to pick up and extradite to the mainland any errant professor or journalist passing through.

via www.nybooks.com