WITH less than seven months to go before China takes over Hong Kong, the British administration has proposed changes to the territory's criminal law designed to tie Beijing's hands on human rights after the change of sovereignty on June 30th next year.
Predictably, the intended bill, which would amend existing laws on treason, sedition, subversion and secession, provoked a fresh war of words between British and Chinese officials, who already disagree on how the territory should be run during and after the hand over period.
A senior negotiator on the Hong Kong handover, Mr Chen Zuo'er, said Britain should not have acted unilaterally and a spokesman for China's de facto embassy in Hong Kong, the Xinhua News Agency office said Britain had "violated promises on the transition" and London "must bear all the consequences of its actions".
The Hong Kong governor, Mr Chris Patten, accused China of ignoring his attempts to get agreement on new sedition legislation since early last year. "On this particular issue we really have been negotiating with a brick wall," he said in Tokyo yesterday at the start of a six day visit to Japan. "We've been discussing for 17 months - 17 months - with Chinese officials on this issue and frankly, by and large, Chinese officials have refused to enter into a dialogue." In a reference to China's record on human rights, he said: "People living in glass houses should be careful of lobbing bricks around." China maintains all legal issues should be decided through negotiations in the latter stage of transition. However at issue is not just human rights but the authority of Governor Patten in the dying months of British rule.
Ignoring Mr Patten's objections, China has already begun the process of setting up a new legislature to replace the existing body elected under new democratic procedures the governor introduced. Beijing has also spurned British requests that the legislature be allowed to serve out its time after the handover. A pro China legislature installed after June 30th could dispense with any new legislation on human rights and replace it with new measures, a western diplomat said, but Beijing officials would clearly being forced into taking such action in the glare of critical world publicity. Under the amended law, sedition would carry a maximum jail term of two years, subversion and secession 10 years, and treason life.
In China these crimes are subject to lengthier jail sentences and the death penalty, which does not exist in Hong Kong. The draft bill proposes jail sentences only for those who plot the violent overthrow of the government, Hong Kong officials said.
The new legal standards would give space to prominent Chinese dissidents like Mr Wei Jingsheng and Mr Wang Dan - both serving lengthy sentences in China for subversion - because it would not put non violent critics and dissenters in jail, an official said. Both Mr Wei and Mr Wang have criticised the government and called for democratic change in China but have not advocated violence. Under present Hong Kong criminal laws, there is no crime of sedition or treason. The last time anyone was prosecuted for sedition was in 1953, and for treason in 1946. But Britain and China have already agreed on a Basic Law for the post 1977 period under which both sedition and treason will become offences.
Chinese dissidents living in Hong Kong have expressed fears that the new legislature will introduce anti sedition laws similar to those in mainland China to silence dissent. Mr Patten said that the breach of the agreement came from China, which recently announced it was setting up a provisional legislature.
Hong Kong's Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, told a news conference: "They are not prepared to talk to us about the Basic Law Article 23 relating to treason, subversion, sedition and succession. As a result, we have no alternative but to introduce the bill to the Legislative Council." The proposed amendment will be published by the Hong Kong government tomorrow and introduced on December 4th to the Legislative Council (LegCo) which called last January for new legislation to safeguard the civil rights of Hong Kong's six million people. British officials said they were confident the bill would be passed but pro China members were sceptical.