Maas: HK autonomy must not be undermined

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the European Union was in agreement Hong Kong’s “high degree of autonomy cannot be undermined" after China officially ratified a plan to write a national security law for the territory which exerts Beijing's broader, new control.

"We expect the freedoms and rights of citizens to be respected clearly and in the principle of one country, two systems," Maas said ahead of an informal meeting of the EU Foreign Council to discuss China and the COVID-19 pandemic in the Asia-Pacific region and Afghanistan.

As the law, a bid to prevent a return of the months of often-violent protests last year, was rubber-stamped by the 3,000-member Congress in Beijing, Hong Kong's legislature was taking on another bill that would criminalize insulting or abusing the Chinese national anthem. That raucous session saw three pro-democracy lawmakers being ejected and proceedings were halted for about five hours.

The Beijing-backed Hong Kong government sought to assure its citizens that the law would not infringe on their freedoms, while the pro-democracy opposition described the move as the end of the core values that set the former British colony apart from the rest of China.