香港特別行政區維護國家安全委員會 | |
Agency overview | |
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Formed | 3 July 2020 |
Jurisdiction | Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region |
Agency executives |
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Parent department | State Council of the People's Republic of China |
Parent agency | Central People's Government Central National Security Commission of the Chinese Communist Party |
Committee for Safeguarding National Security | |||||||||||
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Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 香港特別行政區維護國家安全委員會 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 香港特别行政区维护国家安全委员会 | ||||||||||
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Committee for National Security in HKSAR | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 港區國安委 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 港区国安委 | ||||||||||
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Politics and government of Hong Kong |
Related topics Hong Kongportal |
Chinaportal |
The Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a national security committee established by the Government of Hong Kong under the Article 12 of the Hong Kong national security law. [1] The committee is supervised and accountable to the Central People's Government of China. [2]
The committee is chaired by the Chief Executive, as stated in the Article 13 of the law. [1] The committee's other members are the Chief Secretary for Administration, the Financial Secretary, the Secretary for Justice, the Secretary for Security, the Commissioner of Police, the head of the department for safeguarding national security of the Hong Kong Police Force, the Director of Immigration, the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, and the Director of the Chief Executive's Office. [1]
On 2 July 2020, Eric Chan was appointed as secretary-general of the committee. [3]
On 3 July 2020, a Hong Kong government spokesperson stated that the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was formally established with Carrie Lam as chairwoman and Eric Chan as secretary-general. The other members are Matthew Cheung Kin-chung (Chief Secretary for Administration), Paul Chan Mo-po (Financial Secretary), Teresa Cheng (Secretary for Justice), John Lee Ka-chiu (Secretary for Security), Chris Tang (Commissioner of Hong Kong Police Force), Edwina Lau Chi-wai (Deputy Commissioner of Hong Kong Police Force and the head of the Department for safeguarding national security of the Hong Kong Police Force), Au Ka-wang (Director of Immigration), and Hermes Tang Yi-hoi (Commissioner of Customs and Excise). [4] Also on 3 July 2020, Luo Huining, the director of the Liaison Office was appointed by the State Council to the role of the committee's National Security Adviser. The creation of this post is stipulated by Article 15 of the national security law. [4] [5] The Australian Strategic Policy Institute opined that the post now appeared to be the most powerful position in Hong Kong. [6]
The committee convened its first meeting on 6 July 2020. [7]
Carrie Lam, Eric Chan, Teresa Cheng, John Lee, Chris Tang, and Luo Huining were among those sanctioned by the United States Treasury in August 2020 pursuant to the Normalization Executive Order (Executive Order 13936). The order had been issued by US President Donald Trump on 14 July in response to the imposition of the national security law. [8] [9] Edwina Lau was sanctioned by the US on 9 November as one of four more officials. [10]
In January 2023, the committee said that the law in Hong Kong should be changed to ban overseas lawyers from national security cases. This came after Jimmy Lai had attempted to hire Tim Owen as his lawyer, and a subsequent approval in December 2022 by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of an interpretation –not in relation to a Lai's case –that the chief executive and the committee had the final say in whether overseas lawyers could be admitted in national security cases. [11]
According to the Hong Kong national security law, the Committee comprises the following ex-officio members:
The Committee also includes a secretary-general and a national security adviser. [1] The secretary-general heads the secretariat under the Committee and is appointed by the Central People's Government upon nomination by the Chief Executive. The National Security Adviser is appointed by the Central People's Government to "provide advice on matters relating to the duties and functions of the Committee". [1]
Article 14 of the Hong Kong national security law specifies three duties and functions of the committee:
Article 14 further states: "No institution, organisation or individual in the Region shall interfere with the work of the Committee.", and that its decisions are not amenable to judicial review. Article 18 specifies that prosecutors of the division "for the prosecution of offences endangering national security and other related legal work" – established by the same law – have to be approved by the committee prior to their appointment by the Secretary of Justice. [1]
Article 43 stipulates that the committee supervises the implementation of the powers which law enforcement agencies, including the Hong Kong Police force, have under the national security law.
In March 2021, after the National People's Congress passed a decision to only allow "patriots" to serve in the government, the committee added a new responsibility; it will make decisions on the suitability of candidates for elections. As laid out in Annexes I and II of the Basic Law as amended by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, it will do so through making a recommendation to the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee (CERC). [12] The CERC was established on 6 July 2021. [13]
Under the amended Annexes of the Basic Law, a Candidate Eligibility Review mechanism is established to review and confirm of eligibility of candidates for the Election Committee, Chief Executive and Legislative Council elections, consisting of the following steps:
On 26 August 2021, lawmaker Cheng Chung-tai was disqualified from his ex officio membership in the Election Committee in the vetting process, thereby losing his Legislative Council membership. [15]
The politics of Hong Kong takes place in a framework of a political system dominated by its quasi-constitutional document, the Hong Kong Basic Law, its own legislature, the Chief Executive as the head of government and of the Special Administrative Region and of a politically constrained multi-party presidential system. The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China is led by the Chief Executive, the head of government.
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, is the executive authorities of Hong Kong. It was formed on 1 July 1997 in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1983, an international treaty lodged at the United Nations. This government replaced the former British Hong Kong Government (1842–1997). The Chief Executive and the principal officials are appointed by the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The Government Secretariat is headed by the Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, who is the most senior principal official of the Government. The Chief Secretary and the other secretaries jointly oversee the administration of Hong Kong, give advice to the Chief Executive as members of the Executive Council, and are accountable for their actions and policies to the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council.
The chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is the representative of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and head of the Government of Hong Kong. The position was created to replace the office of governor of Hong Kong, the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom during British rule. The office, stipulated by the Hong Kong Basic Law, formally came into being on 1 July 1997 with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China.
Elections in Hong Kong take place when certain political offices in the government need to be filled. Hong Kong has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in the Legislative Council. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong is nonpartisan but has to work with several parties to form a coalition government.
The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is the representative office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong. It is located in Sai Wan, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong.
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is a retired Hong Kong politician who served as the fourth Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022, after serving as Chief Secretary for Administration for five years.
Eric Chan Kwok-ki is a Hong Kong politician who is the incumbent Chief Secretary for Administration since 1 July 2022. He was also the secretary-general of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security (2020–2022). Previously, he served as Director of the Chief Executive's Office (2017–2022) and Director of Immigration (2011–2016).
Luo Huining is a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party who was the director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong between 2020 and 2023. A native of Yiwu, Zhejiang, he was previously the Governor, then Party Secretary of Qinghai province before being appointed Party Secretary of Shanxi province.
The administration of Carrie Lam as Chief Executive of Hong Kong, or Lam administration, officially referred to as "The 5th term Chief Executive of Hong Kong" relates to the period of governance of Hong Kong headed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2022.
Erick Tsang Kwok-wai is a Hong Kong government official. Since 2020, he has been Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, one of the principal officials of Hong Kong. Prior to that, he was Director of Immigration.
Hermes Tang Yi-hoi is a former Commissioner of Customs and Excise of Hong Kong.
The 2022 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 8 May 2022 for the 6th term of the Chief Executive (CE), the highest office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). Incumbent Carrie Lam, who was elected in 2017, declined to seek a second term for family reasons and finished her term on 30 June 2022. Former Chief Secretary John Lee was the sole candidate approved by the central government of China in the election and the only candidate to be nominated. He received 1,416 electoral votes (99.44%) and assumed office on 1 July 2022.
Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah is a Hong Kong Senior Counsel, arbitrator and politician. She served as Secretary for Justice of Hong Kong from 2018 to 2022. She was also the chairperson of the Financial Dispute Resolution Centre, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) and vice-president of the International Council of Commercial Arbitration (ICCA).
The Decision of the National People's Congress on Establishing and Improving the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to Safeguard National Security is a congressional resolution passed by the third session of the 13th National People's Congress on 28 May 2020. This resolution authorizes the National People's Congress Standing Committee to promulgate a national security law in Hong Kong.
In the subsequently postponed 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election, 12 opposition candidates were disqualified by the returning officers from running in the election, including four incumbent legislators, Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki, Dennis Kwok and Kenneth Leung, as well as activists Joshua Wong, Ventus Lau, Gwyneth Ho and Cheng Kam-mun and incumbent District Councillors Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, Fergus Leung and Cheng Tat-hung.
The 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was originally scheduled on 6 September 2020 until it was postponed by the government. On 31 July 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she was invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to postpone the election under the emergency powers granted to her by it, citing the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 cases, adding that the move was supported by Beijing.
Executive Order 13936, entitled "The President’s Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization", is an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on July 14, 2020. On the same day Trump had signed into law Hong Kong Autonomy Act, one of the laws from which the order derives authority. The act and the executive order are the U.S. response to the imposition of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China on June 30, 2020, which was described as "an unusual and extraordinary threat [...] to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States" in the preamble.
The 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes were initiated by the National People's Congress (NPC) on 11 March 2021 to "amend electoral rules and improve the electoral system" of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) for its Chief Executive (CE) and the Legislative Council (LegCo), in order to ensure a system in which only "patriots", according to the Chinese definition, govern Hong Kong. The reforms have been widely criticized for their negative impact on the democratic representation in the Hong Kong legislature.
The 2021 Election Committee subsector elections were held on 19 September 2021 for elected seats of the 1,500 members of the Election Committee (EC) which is responsible for electing 40 of the 90 seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo) in the 2021 election and the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE) in the 2022 election.
The administration of John Lee as Chief Executive of Hong Kong, or Lee administration, officially referred to as "The 6th term Chief Executive of Hong Kong" relates to the period of governance of Hong Kong headed by Chief Executive John Lee, starting from 1 July 2022.