Tag Archives: subversion

Hong Kong to teach children as young as six about subversion, foreign interference

By Pak Yiu and Sarah Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong has unveiled controversial guidelines for schools in the Chinese-ruled city that include teaching students as young as six about colluding with foreign forces and subversion as part of a new national security curriculum.

Beijing imposed a security law on Hong Kong in June 2020 in response to months of often violent anti-government and anti-China protests in 2019 that put the global financial hub more firmly on an authoritarian path.

The Education Bureau’s guidelines, released late on Thursday, show that Beijing’s plans for the semi-autonomous Hong Kong go beyond quashing dissent, and aim for a societal overhaul to bring its most restive city more in line with the Communist Party-ruled mainland.

“National security is of great importance. Teachers should not treat it as if it is a controversial issue for discussion as usual,” the guidelines said.

Teachers should “clearly point out that safeguarding national security is the responsibility of all nationals and that as far as national security is concerned, there is no room for debate or compromise”.

After the 2019 protests in which many of the demonstrators were teenagers, Chinese leaders turned to re-education in a bid to tame the city’s youth and make them loyal citizens.

Head of the Professional Teachers’ Union, Ip Kin-yuen, said the guidelines would cause “uncertainty, ambiguity and anxiety” for teachers and enforce a “restrictive and suppressive” education style that does not foster student development and independent thinking.

Raymond Yeung, a former teacher partially blinded by a projectile during 2019 protests, described the guidelines as “one dimensional, if not brainwashing”.

Wong, mother of primary school children, said the law was “clamping down on people’s individual thoughts” and adding national security to the curricula created a climate of fear.

“I am angry. They shouldn’t be bringing this into classrooms,” said Wong, who declined to give her first name due to the sensitivity of the issue.

However, not all parents were opposed to the changes.

“It’s a good start, no matter who you are and where are you from, you have to love your country,” said Feng, mother of a six-year-old.

‘WISE OWL’

Children in primary schools will learn how to sing and respect China’s national anthem, and gain an understanding of the four main offences in the new security law, including terrorism and secessionism.

In secondary schools, pupils will learn what constitutes such offences, which can carry sentences of up to life in prison.

Some legal scholars have said the law’s language is broad and vague, and the range of activities authorities might see as potential threats to national security was unclear and fluid.

An educational cartoon video released by the government shows an owl wearing glasses and a graduation hat explaining Hong Kong’s institutional architecture, its duties to the central government in Beijing and the national security law.

At one point the video says “national security affairs are of utmost importance to the whole country,” while showing smiling faces of a student, a chef and an engineer.

Schools are encouraged to “organize various game activities, such as puppet theatre, board games … to establish a good atmosphere and improve students’ understanding of national security”, according to the guidelines.

The guidelines said kindergartens can help students learn about traditional festivals, music and arts and develop fondness for Chinese customs to “lay the foundation for national security education.” Kindergarten children were not expected to learn about national security crimes.

The Education Bureau said it accepted international and private schools had different curricula, but said they had a “responsibility to help their students (regardless of their ethnicity and nationality) acquire a correct and objective understanding … of national security”.

Schools should also stop students and teachers from participating in activities deemed as political, such as singing certain songs, wearing various items, forming human chains or shouting slogans.

Teachers and principals are required to inspect notice-boards, remove books that endanger national security from libraries and call police if they suspected any breaches.

The bureau said national security education will become part of subjects such as geography and biology to enhance students’ sense of national identity.

(Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom and Sarah Wu in Toronto; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Richard Pullin, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Michael Perry)

Factbox: What China’s tougher national security regime could mean for Hong Kong

By Greg Torode and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s parliament has approved a decision to go forward with national security legislation on Hong Kong to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in a city roiled by anti-government protests.

The move is seen as a turning point, as leaders of the ruling Communist Party tighten control over China’s freest international city, undermining its reputation as a financial hub with substantial autonomy and an independent legal system.

U.S. reaction was swift, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling Congress that Hong Kong no longer qualified for special status under U.S. law, potentially dealing a crushing blow to its status as a global financial center.

WHAT DOES CHINA WANT?

Greater control and a sense of security. For several years, Chinese officials have expressed increasing frustration and anger over what they see as a weak national security regime in the city.

Last year’s large and sometimes violent anti-government protests have sharpened that frustration, with China determined to thwart what it calls threats of terrorism, independence, subversion of state power, and interference by foreign forces.

SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

Having been approved by parliament, the legislation will be grafted into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution without any local legislative scrutiny, as has been past practice.

Details of the law are expected to be drawn up in coming weeks. It is expected to be enacted before September.

China says Hong Kong has failed to implement national security laws on its own as stipulated in the city’s mini-constitution under the terms of its 1997 handover from Britain.

WHAT REMAINS UNCLEAR?

Hong Kong lawyers are puzzled over how the imposed provisions will work in practice.

Questions include whether all protections already in the Basic Law apply and whether locally based mainland agents have enforcement power.

Another issue is whether the standing committee of the National People’s Congress has extra powers to ultimately interpret Hong Kong court rulings on national security.

“There are suddenly a lot more questions than answers and it is not even clear whether anyone in the Hong Kong government is standing up internally against these changes,” one legal scholar said.

China also said its intelligence agencies would have the right to set up offices in Hong Kong to “safeguard national security”. It is not clear, however, whether they will carry out enforcement activities, a critical concern.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING NOW?

The issue sits at the heart of the “one country, two systems” formula under which China agreed to protect Hong Kong’s extensive freedoms, its high degree of autonomy and its independent legal system until 2047.

Those freedoms are protected by the Basic Law, which guides the relationship between Hong Kong and Beijing.

But Article 23 of the document also says Hong Kong must “on its own” enact laws against treason, secession, sedition, subversion and the theft of state secrets. It also seeks to outlaw ties between local and foreign political groups.

The Hong Kong government proposed such local legislation in 2003 but encountered vast opposition, with more than 500,000 people marching peacefully against it.

However, the Basic Law also gives Beijing the power to annex national laws into the document – which the Hong Kong government must then legislate for or effectively impose by executive fiat.

Hong Kong lawyers and politicians sometimes call this the “nuclear option”, but some scholars have questioned whether this power of promulgation applies to Article 23.

DO ANY SUCH LAWS ALREADY EXIST?

Yes. Britain left behind a raft of old laws covering most of the elements of Article 23, aside from subversion and secession – the act of formally withdrawing from a state.

Most are decades old and lawyers say they would be hard to deploy, given more recent protections on freedoms of speech, assembly and association written into the city’s Bill of Rights and the Basic Law itself.

IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?

Highly. Given Hong Kong’s protest movements and polarised politics, a fresh push even for local legislation would be tough.

Many fear that new national security legislation would prove a “dead hand” on the city’s large and pugnacious press and rich artistic traditions, while curbing its broad political debates.

Any step by Beijing to impose its own version via promulgation risks panic and chaos, many observers believe, potentially sparking a flight of people and capital and denting Hong Kong’s international financial role.

(Editing by Stephen Coates)