How China's new national security law subverts Hong Kong's rule of law

With China becoming a political hegemon as well as an economic powerhouse, its leaders feel able to unilaterally declare the joint declaration obsolete, bar British critics from entering Hong Kong

Tensions are running high in Hong Kong at a decision by China’s ruling body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), authorising its standing committee to draft a national security law for Hong Kong. The decision, drafted in secret, is likely to become law by August.

It should never have come to this. Article 18 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law – the territory’s de facto mini-constitution that came into effect after the British handover in 1997 – specifically limited Beijing from applying national laws to the territory, except in matters of defence and foreign affairs. The