On February 4, 2021, China Brief published The Rollback of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong, by USALI Affiliated Scholar Michael C. Davis. This piece provides background to the new National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong and an analysis of the impact of NSL’s implementation.
Excerpt:
“After the Hong Kong protest movement exploded in 2019, the world looked on with both hope and trepidation. Protestors made five demands: that a proposed extradition law be withdrawn; that there be an independent investigation of police behavior; that the protests stop being characterized as riots; that any charges against arrested protesters be dropped and that promised universal suffrage be implemented. After months of protest, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam publicly withdrew the extradition bill, fulfilling the first of the protestors’ demands (SCMP, September 4, 2019). But this temporary victory was too little too late and overshadowed by the ongoing and often violent crackdown on the protesters, and then in 2020, with Beijing’s imposition of the new National Security Law (NSL).”
