HK's National Security Law brings benefits: China Daily editorial

Contrary to what the China-bashers are claiming in their relentless smear campaign against the National Security Law implemented in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the legislation has enjoyed the support of an overwhelming majority of Hong Kong people since its enactment by the National People's Congress on June 30 last year.

As many as 75.7 percent of Hong Kong residents are satisfied with the implementation of the law, a survey conducted by local think tank Bauhinia Institute just prior to the law's first anniversary reveals. The finding of the survey will be vexing for those China-bashers, particularly Western politicians who are mired in ideological bigotry or have a geopolitical agenda targeting China, and have launched waves of verbal attacks on the law, in their desperation to vilify it.

Notwithstanding that most — if not all — of their own countries have similar or harsher security laws, they have been trying to derail the implementation of Hong Kong's security law with various political stunts and arguments, no matter how ridiculous and hypocritical those are.

Decrying it as an attack on "civil rights", "freedom" and "rule of law" in Hong Kong, they ignore altogether the fact that the National Security Law targets only those who endanger national security by committing crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with external forces. It guarantees the well-being of the absolute majority of Hong Kong residents, who are not seeking to harm their own country in any way.

This has been proved by empirical evidence: 76.2 percent of the respondents in the Bauhinia Institute survey said the freedoms and rights they are granted by the Basic Law have not been affected by the National Security Law.

"Concerns" about rights and freedom in Hong Kong are totally unwarranted. Protection for all those rights and freedoms Hong Kong residents enjoy under the Basic Law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are specifically incorporated into Articles 4 and 5 of the National Security Law. Equally important to Hong Kong residents is that the law has restored the special administrative region's stability and enabled Hong Kong residents to resume their normal lives, shaking off the nightmare of violent rampages that threatened to push the SAR into an abyss.

Indeed, 82.6 percent of the respondents in the Bauhinia Institute survey said they believed that peace and order in Hong Kong have improved compared with the situation before the promulgation of the National Security Law. Also a testament to the benefits the law has brought about to Hong Kong residents is the 10 percent decline in crimes in the first quarter of this year.

If those China-bashers genuinely care about the well-being of Hong Kong residents as they claim, rather than merely using it as an excuse to cover up their political machinations against China, they should stop trying to meddle with the implementation of the National Security Law.