Guy Faulconbridge and Greg Torode

HONG KONG/LONDON Reuters – Britain has criticized China for broadening its use of a Hong Kong security law. This includes attacks against the city’s respected judiciary, civil society groups, and foreign diplomats.

In Tuesday’s publication of Liz Truss’s six-monthly Hong Kong report, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stated that “The erosion in liberty in Hong Kong was an affront against freedom and democracy.”

Truss stated in the foreword of the report that “Just more than a year after the introduction the national security laws, the mainland Chinese authorities and Hong Kong authorities used the law and associated institutions against any opposition, freedom press, and civil society within Hong Kong.”

This curtailing space for alternative viewpoints continues to weaken the checks and balances in executive power.

It appears that the report is stronger than those which focused earlier on the effect of the law on national security.

The report was condemned by both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. A spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in London warned that British attempts to cause trouble in Hong Kong, or to use Hong Kong as a means to control China would fail.

Beijing has imposed the law in the Asian financial hub on June 2020, after several months of violent protests that rocked Beijing in 2019.

This report examines the impact of pro-Beijing press pressure on journalists and trade unions, which led to their dissolution.

It outlines criticisms from officials on the mainland and states that “judicial autonomy is becoming increasingly finely balanced”.

Truss indicated, however, that she still believed British judges could “play a positive function in supporting this judicial independence.”

British judges served long among Hong Kong’s foreign jurists. The arrangement is meant to keep confidence in Hong Kong’s legal system which is the basis of wider social and commercial freedoms.

Britain granted Chinese colony its independence in 1997 under the promise that their way of living would not be affected by the “one country two systems” approach.

Truss indicated that Britain would continue to closely monitor Hong Kong’s situation, and would be willing to speak to many politicians.

She voiced concern about “the growing pattern of mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officials misrepresenting such regular diplomatic contact as foreign colusion”,

Hong Kong’s government stated that it was “strongly against the unfounded accusations” and called on Britain to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs via Hong Kong.

The report also criticized the government for its overhaul of the electoral process. Hong Kong’s new Legislative Council will be elected this weekend. There are many exiled or jailed opposition leaders and those who have been classified as “patriots” cannot run.