The 212-page draft bill tabled into the city’s opposition-less legislature introduces a range of new national security crimes including treason, espionage, external interference and disclosure of state secrets. The most serious offenses are punishable with up to life imprisonment, with the involvement of “external forces” – a byword for foreign governments and organizations – treated as an aggravating factor.
Many of the city’s leading pro-democracy figures are in jail either convicted or facing charges under the 2020 national security law. Others have fled overseas, and the city’s once raucous legislature has been cleared of pro-democracy opposition politicians, resembling instead the type of rubber stamp bodies favored by the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland.