British Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday all but confirmed that the UK would suspend an extradition treaty with Hong Kong owing to a National Security Law imposed by Beijing, bringing another clash with China following last week’s decision over Huawei Technologies Co (華為).
Speaking on a visit to a school in Kent, England, Johnson said that British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab would explain later yesterday “about how we are going to change our extradition arrangements to reflect our concerns about what’s happening with the security law in Hong Kong.”
Raab was due to address the UK House of Commons yesterday afternoon and was widely expected to suspend extradition to Hong Kong in light of the law, which effectively criminalizes most political dissent and can even target actions outside of Hong Kong or mainland China.
Photo: AFP
The US, Canada and Australia have already taken similar actions over extradition to Hong Kong.
Earlier yesterday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said such a move by the UK, plus other mooted plans, such as actions against individual Chinese officials due to rights abuses, would harm relations between the two countries.
“These HK-related remarks turn a blind eye to the basic facts that the National Security Law is for the sustained success of ‘one China, two systems,’” Wang said, referring to the system by which Hong Kong has been governed since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Photo: Reuters
“We strongly condemn these actions. We urge the UK to take no more steps down the wrong path, so as to avoid further damage to China-UK relations,” he said.
The UK government last week said it would strip the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei of any role in the UK’s 5G network from 2027 owing to security concerns, which also enraged Beijing.
Johnson, during the school visit, said he did not seek confrontation with China, but the UK had grave concerns about Hong Kong and widespread reports of mass repression and rights abuses targeting the Uighur population in China’s Xinjiang region.
These have included accounts of forced sterilization of Uighur women and the incarceration of huge numbers of people in what appear to be concentration camps.
“There is a balance here,” Johnson said. “I’m not going to be pushed into a position of becoming a knee-jerk Sinophobe on every issue, somebody who is automatically anti-China. But we do have serious concerns. We have concerns about the treatment of the Uighur minority obviously, about the human rights abuses.”
“China is a giant factor of geopolitics, it’s going to be a giant factor in our lives and in the lives of our children and grandchildren. You have got to have a calibrated response and we are going to be tough on some things, but also going to continue to engage,” he added.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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