LONDON (Reuters) – The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Canada criticised China on Thursday for imposing a new security law on Hong Kong that they said would breach the 1984 Sino-British agreement on the former colony and threaten its freedoms.
“Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom,” the four countries said in a joint statement expressing their deep concern over Beijing’s move.
The security law would “curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong’s autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous,” they said.
China’s parliament approved a decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists, diplomats and some in the business world fear will jeopardise its semi-autonomous status and its role