Explainer: How national security permeates Hong Kong bureaucracy, 5 years after law enacted

HKFP

9 hours ago

Five years since the Beijing-imposed legislation came into effect in Hong Kong, national security terms have become increasingly common in official guidelines, permit applications, and licences issued by government departments and semi-official bodies.
Most recently, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) notified businesses of new national security clauses under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance.
The new rule is the latest addition to similar provisions in official guidelines. Government departments and statutory bodies across different sectors, including education, labour, social welfare, arts and culture, and the environment, have added clauses relating to national security to their terms and conditions.
John Burns, honorary professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, believes that the increasing prevalence of national security provisions in government guidelines and conditions reflects an intention to align the city's political culture with that of mainland China.
'Hong Kong is learning a new way of behaving,' Burns said, adding that he believed such measures would primarily function, in effect, as a deterrent mechanism. 'What they're encouraging everyone to do is self-censor, to behave.'
As Hong Kong marks the fifth anniversary of the enactment of the national security law on Monday, HKFP looks at how the government has made national security near-ubiquitous in the years since the law was enacted at the end of June 2020.
From restaurants to the environment
First reported in early June, the FEHD's new guideline affects restaurants, entertainment premises like cinemas, gaming centres, and saunas, as well as funeral parlours.
In letters sent to businesses, the department said that it could revoke business licences if operators – including license holders, directors, management, employees, agents, and subcontractors – engage in 'offending conduct' against national security or the public interest.
The move has raised suspicions as to whether it targets 'yellow shops' – businesses sympathetic to Hong Kong's democracy movement.
In addition, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan pledged earlier this month to tighten scrutiny of applicants and recipients of the government's Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF), saying public resources must not fall into the hands of 'non-patriots.'
Applications for community waste reduction projects supported by the ECF come with an agreement for NGOs to safeguard national security.
NGOs applying for community waste reduction projects that receive ECF support are required to sign a declaration pledging compliance with the security law and all local laws. Authorities also review the background and past work of applicant organisations to verify that they are 'patriotic.'
Previously, in February 2023, 11 green groups, including ECF beneficiary Greensense, were named in a Wen Wei Po report, accusing them of inciting hatred against the government at a fundraising event.
Education
Theatre troupe Fire Makes Us Human was left without a venue for two plays in February last year after a school cancelled its venue booking, citing an instruction from the Education Bureau (EDB) under national security guidelines.
The Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity (HKICC) told HKFP that it had complied with the EDB's request after the bureau received complaints about remarks on 'controversial' issues made by the troupe's founder, Alex Tong.
Under national security guidelines, schools should 'prevent inappropriate use of school premises,' including situations where facilities are rented out to external organisations and when external individuals are invited to participate in school events.
The responsibility falls on school management to forbid any person from conducting activities involving 'political propaganda' on campus.
The 34-page document lists specific national security measures in schools, including a requirement for all newly appointed teachers at public schools, Direct Subsidy Scheme schools, and kindergartens joining the Kindergarten Education Scheme to pass the Basic Law and National Security Law Test.
Contracts and quotations issued by government-subsidised schools must also include clauses relating to safeguarding national security.
Under a separate document, the School Administration Guide, school librarians are required to ensure that the school library does not have any elements that endanger national security. Public libraries are similarly required to scrutinise public library materials in the name of national security.
Arts and culture
Such terms are also ubiquitous in bodies governing the arts sector. Film censorship rules were among the first to undergo national security-related changes, just a year after the Beijing-imposed legislation took effect.
Any film 'objectively and reasonably capable of being perceived as endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying, encouraging or inciting' an act or activity that may amount to an offence endangering national security may also be censored by the Film Censorship Authority under the new guidelines introduced in June 2021.
Since then, a number of independent films have failed to pass the city's censors.
Short film festival organiser Phone Made Good Film cancelled the screening of Wake in Silence in April 2023, saying that the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA) refused to issue a permit for the screening, allegedly because the nine-minute short showed a flag containing 'potentially seditious intent.' Wake in Silence contained a scene in which a flag with the words '100% freedom' could be seen.
National security provisions are also formalised in the project grant guidelines of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), the statutory body that oversees government funding for arts projects.
According to the guidelines, the council will not accept applications if it has any reason to believe that the applicant has engaged or is engaged in any act or activity that is likely to constitute or cause the occurrence of any offence endangering national security.
In January last year, the HKADC, whose funding examiners are also required to safeguard national security under their appointment terms, pulled funding from the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies, the organiser of the city's largest theatre awards ceremony.
The 2023 awards featured presenters including political cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, known as 'Zunzi,' as well as journalist Bao Choy. Choy was arrested in 2020 after being accused of making false statements to access vehicle records while investigating the Yuen Long attacks during the 2019 protests, but was cleared of any wrongdoing at the city's top court.
HKADC chair Kenneth Fok said that the council pulled the award show's funding to 'reduce the risk of potentially breaching' the national security law.
Arts venues and bookstores are among the establishments that may need a public entertainment licence to operate, the application for which includes a declaration to the FEHD that 'no act or activity on the licensed premises may constitute or is likely to cause the occurrence of an offence endangering national security.'
Labour and social welfare
The social welfare sector, a core part of Hong Kong's once-vocal civil society, has also undergone its own national security overhaul.
In December, activist Lau Ka-tung's social work licence was suspended for five years under new national security terms in the Social Workers Registration Ordinance. Later, in February, the registration board warned him not to publicly describe himself as a 'former social worker.'
In July last year, the Legislative Council (LegCo) passed a bill giving government appointees a majority on the Social Workers Registration Board, which is in charge of vetting the qualifications of the city's social workers.
As part of the overhaul, the ordinance now includes an expanded section on the board's powers to disqualify a social worker convicted of an offence that 'may bring the profession… into disrepute.' The authorities said the move was needed to 'better protect national security.'
National security clauses are also codified in the Social Welfare Department's grant subvention manual, which states that the government's NGO funding agreement with an organisation may be immediately terminated if it is found to have engaged in acts that may endanger national security.
On Wednesday, lawmakers passed amendments to the city's union laws, banning anyone convicted of national security offences from serving in unions for life, requiring foreign funding to be vetted by authorities, and allowing the registrar to reject any union registrations or mergers on national security grounds.
The amendments, scheduled to take effect in January next year, were proposed to 'better fulfil the duty of safeguarding national security ' under the Beijing-imposed national security law and the locally enacted Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, also known as Article 23.
Development
A national security provision was inserted into all land sale tenders and short-term tenancy agreements under the Lands Department in November 2022.
According to the amendment, the government reserves the right to disqualify potential buyers or suspend short-term leases of government land on national security grounds.
Hong Kong's major property stocks tumbled in mid-February 2023 after the national security clause was first reported by the Hong Kong Economic Times. New World Development led the plunge with a loss of 6.68 per cent from its stock price.
Nonetheless, the Real Estate Developers Association chairperson, Stewart Leung, said that month he heard no objections from members, as the national security clauses would not affect developers' or overseas investors' intentions to bid for land.
Chief Executive John Lee also maintained that the national security clauses had 'no relevance' to any business decisions related to land sales.
Audit Commission
The Audit Commission, in charge of reviewing the finances of public administration, is now also tasked with identifying national security gaps in government departments and public organisations, ensuring that safeguarding national security is a government-wide endeavour.
In April last year, Director of Audit Nelson Lam said the commission found no clauses mentioning national security in Hongkong Post's contracts with stamp designers, the Department of Health's contracts with an institution to provide dental services for the elderly, and the Transport Department's contracts for rehabilitation services buses.
Two months earlier, Lam warned that some government departments and public organisations had 'completely disregarded' the Beijing-imposed national security law.
The remark came after the official auditor released a report in October 2023, saying that the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) had not incorporated safeguard measures relating to national security in tender documents, contracts, and guidelines.
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department stepped up its scrutiny of library materials in the name of national security after the commission advised in April 2023 that greater efforts were needed to ensure government-managed library collections did not contravene the Beijing-imposed security law.
To date, public libraries have received around 140 reports from the general public about suspected national security violations and other potentially 'objectionable content' since the reporting mechanism was introduced in July 2023.
The commission recommended in March this year that the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications incorporate national security clauses in its agreements and contracts to strengthen guidance and regulation over such matters.
It also suggested that the Transport and Logistics Bureau include national security provisions in its contracts under the Maritime and Aviation Training Fund.
'Getting up to speed'
Kenneth Chan, associate professor in the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, said it was in government officials' interests to introduce national security terms, 'partly because this happens to be also the easiest thing for them to say to display loyalty, and partly because it serves to expand the government's remit against what it has called 'soft resistance' which remains unspecified.'
However, he warned that formalising national security-related terms and conditions, particularly in contracts and agreements, 'does not help much to clarify where the lines are drawn.'
Compared with mainland China, where national security has been in the making for 'generations,' national security is still young in Hong Kong, Burns said.
'People on the mainland have a different understanding of what's permissible behaviour,' he said, adding that Hong Kong is still 'getting up to speed' on the matter of national security.
The HKU academic also cited the environment minister's remarks last week that implementing national security clauses in laws, guidelines, and permit agreements had a twofold purpose: to have civil servants safeguard national security and to tell residents that they also have a responsibility to do so.
In addition to indicating the bureaucracy's loyalty to the central government, formalising national security terms would allow the government to 'train its own people and educate [residents],' said Burns.
As stated in Article 23, Hong Kong's homegrown security law, all public officers are duty-bound to safeguard national security.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang said in November that civil servants would be issued confidential national security guidelines this year to 'change the mentality and mindset of our colleagues, to embed the concept of national security into their brains.'
Meanwhile, a new version of Hong Kong's civil service code was introduced in June last year, stipulating that civil servants must uphold six new core values, including 'upholding the constitutional order and national security' in first place.
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Original reporting on HKFP is backed by our monthly contributors.
Almost 1,000 monthly donors make HKFP possible. Each contributes an average of HK$200/month to support our award-winning original reporting, keeping the city's only independent English-language outlet free-to-access for all. Three reasons to join us:
🔎 Transparent & efficient: As a non-profit, we are externally audited each year, publishing our income/outgoings annually, as the city's most transparent news outlet.
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