BEIJING — Echoing the crackdown on freedoms in neighboring Hong Kong, the former Portuguese colony of Macau has overhauled its legal system to deal with “adverse new challenges in terms of national security”.
The tiny enclave’s government, heavily dependent on its gaming industry, said changes to the National Security Safeguards Act were needed as an update to legislation first enacted in 2009, a decade after Macau’s handover in the Chinese domain.
“As the country is currently facing new adverse challenges in terms of national security, revising Macao’s National Security Safeguard Law is a mandatory step to effectively respond to risks and threats,” the government said.
He did not give details of the changes approved by the special administrative region’s rubber-stamp legislature on Thursday.
However, the Global Times newspaper published by China’s ruling Communist Party said on Friday that the changes are aimed at espionage, “foreign interference” and supporters of Taiwan independence. It also expands the definition of crimes such as inciting and supporting insurrection and preparing or intending to commit such criminal acts, according to the newspaper.
These changes — especially the inclusion of foreign influence, which has been loosely defined and applied broadly in Hong Kong to include any contact with a foreign political or civil rights entity — would strengthen Beijing’s control and align the legal system of Macao with that of the mainland. from China
Unlike the former British colony of Hong Kong, which in 2019 saw months of sometimes violent anti-government protests that led to a sweeping crackdown, Macau has shown little relish for challenging Beijing’s authority.
Most of its 686,000 people are recent migrants from the mainland and appear willing to accept tough party control as long as their casinos continue to attract customers, mainly from China. Both Macau and Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, were promised to retain their unique political, social and economic freedoms for 50 years.
In Beijing, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the Cabinet praised the passage of the legislation, saying “the constantly evolving and complex international environment presents new challenges to safeguarding national security in both regions.”
Meanwhile, Hong Kong removed books related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and certain political figures from its libraries, further curtailing the city’s freedoms. The city’s leader said Thursday that public libraries would not recommend books with undefined “bad ideologies” to residents.
Critics said the book removal would further undermine Hong Kong’s reputation for free access to information and freedom of expression, especially after the school curriculum was rewritten to inject patriotism and downplay sensitive issues.
Since Beijing’s imposition of a National Security Law in 2020, opposition figures have been arrested and intimidated into silence, or fled into exile; the city’s independent media have been torn apart; and the city’s electoral system was overhauled to ensure that only pro-Beijing voices are represented.
