Why should you get your money out of Hong Kong and how to do it? part 1 -that will be the topic of today’s article.
Why are people moving their money out of Hong Kong?
Before we get to know about the methods available for moving money out of Hong Kong, we must discuss why people are trying to move their money out of Hong Kong.
On June 30, 2020, a new National Security Law has been passed for Hong Kong by the People’s Republic of China, which bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council.
China took these measures as a reaction towards the mass protests that took place in Hong Kong in 2014 and 2019, which gathered thousands of people who support pro-democracy.
Not just this, but the success of pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong’s 2019 local elections was also a reason.
Hong Kong used to be a British colony from 1842, and the UK handed over the dominion to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, and from then onwards, Hong Kong was considered as a Special Administrative Region of China.
During the process of transferring sovereignty, both UK and China agreed to a Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong.
According to this declaration, the concept of a single country with two systems was cherished, and based on this, Hong Kong will be able to benefit from a high degree of autonomy along with the access to maintain its judiciary, legal system, and borders.
All of this has been enshrined within the Basic Law (Hong Kong’s Constitutional Document) and this came into effect in 1997 when the transfer of sovereignty happened.
However, there are no consequences mentioned in the declaration form if China was ever to breach this agreement, and therefore, there are no effective resolutions.
According to the Basic Law’s Article 18, it has been mentioned that Chinese laws can’t be imposed in Hong Kong unless those laws have been listed in Annex III.
As specified by the Basic Law, this provision declares that the Hong Kong government is to be consulted by China, if China intends to propose any laws.
Adding to that, China can only propose laws regarding defense, foreign affairs, or other matters that do not come under the limits of the autonomy of Hong Kong.
At the same time, Article 23 of the Basic Law declared that the Hong Kong government should pass national security legislation in order to eradicate acts related to treason, secession, sedition, and subversion towards the Central People’s government and prevent the influence of the foreign political organization.
Anyhow, because of the internal opposition, no HKSAR government was able to pass such kind of legislation.
According to what China has to say, supporting national security and making laws related to national security reside with the Chinese Central Government.
As Hong Kong was not able to pass the legislation by itself, it made it clear that the country was defenseless, and this situation created the necessity for China to step in and take things into its hands.
However, some legal experts claim that the phrase in Article 23 declares that Hong Kong shall impose laws on its own when it comes to national security, and thus China should not involve in the respective field.
Keeping the argument aside, the National Security Law provisions for Hong Kong are that the legislation should criminalize ant acts related to secession, subversion, terrorism, and collaboration with external or foreign sources).
This law led to an establishment of a new security office in Hong Kong, which in turn was led by the law enforcement personnel from Beijing.
The political leader of Hong Kong has the necessary power to appoint judges for hearing national security cases, and not only that, but Beijing also gets the power over how the law should be interpreted instead of any other Hong Kong body.
Under these circumstances, if there ever was a conflict between the laws of Hong Kong and Beijing, then the Beijing law would be given priority.
Additionally, the National Security Law is applicable to all Hong Kong citizens and residents regardless of where they live.
However, the UK government tried to make some effort by stating that the National Security Law happens to be a breach of the Joint Declaration agreement, and China is wholly responsible.
As a result of this, the UK government suspended its extradition treaty, which was in effect with Hong Kong, and it also restricted the trade embargo.
Additionally, a new visa route has been made available for the people from Hong Kong, who are of either of the British National (Overseas) status or their family members.
Some of the popular personalities such as politicians and the members of the Labour Party called for additional sanctions which are similar to the “Magnitsky Act”.
They asked for these sanctions to be placed on both Chinese and Hong Kong officials who stand responsible for the impact on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
In the year 2020, the Chinese embassy located in the UK made a declaration about Hong Kong’s national security legislation saying that all the scenario is simply an internal affair of China and there is no country with the necessary rights to interfere.
The same embassy stated that the protests in Hong Kong were nothing but uncontrolled activities of Hong Kong trying for independence, which was also considered as exhaustive protestor acts.
Furthermore, the embassy said that these acts were deemed responsible for the increasing violence and anti-social activities in Hong Kong.
In the same declaration, China also made some statements such as “One Country, Two Systems”, “High Degree of Autonomy”, etc., which made it seem like Hong Kong was not administered properly after it was handed over.
After the law came into existence in June 2020, there have been a significant number of arrests regarding the activists who were responsible for the 2014 and 2019 protests.
Nevertheless, the National Security Law never objectifies the media or press in a direct manner. Anyhow, it was indirectly targeted towards journalists, who self-censored their output.
This also led the Hong Kong authorities to target the press such as Apple Daily (a pro-democracy newspaper) and because of that most of them were shut down because of arrests of editors and owners.
Recently in February 2021, a new educational curriculum (by the national security law) came into effect in the schools of Hong Kong.
Significant changes were made by China’s legislative body after it brought considerable changes to the electoral rules of Hong Kong, and this led China to have more grip over Hong Kong.
In August 2021, the largest teacher’s union in Hong Kong was shut down after Chinese media considered it responsible for supporting the pro-democracy movement.
With these consequences, even the number of elected seats in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council were reduced by half.
Even the anticipated members of the legislative council were vetted by a committee known as the “Candidate Qualification Review Committee”, and this committee makes sure that the people who were running for these positions were only available for people who were patriotic.
The laws, which were created from Hong Kong’s past situation are not used in many years are known to infringe the laws mentioned in the Basic Law for upholding the political rights are being used again, and they are being used for punishing the authors and political activists.
We cannot say it with uttermost confidence, but the Hong Kong government now plans on passing its very own National Security Law, which allows it to gain some control instead of the offenses in the Basic Law set forth by the Chinese government.
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