China’s appointment of a top intelligence official to run Hong Kong’s national security regime underscores its determination to tighten its grip on territory, diplomats and analysts said.
Dong Jingwei (董經緯), 59, is the highest-level Chinese security official to be appointed to a senior role in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed the National Security Law on the territory in 2020.
He has been appointed director of the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Beijing said in a statement on Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters
Dong would be expected to bolster security oversight of Hong Kong, rocked for months in 2019 by pro-democracy protests that posed a crisis for the Chinese Communist Party leadership.
Under the security law, China’s national security office has sweeping investigative and surveillance powers, and enjoys immunity from Hong Kong laws.
The office is also charged with oversight of “foreign countries and international organizations.”
Dong was Chinese vice minister of state security, a role that included catching foreign spies in China, state media reports said.
Dong told a ministry symposium in 2021 of the need for a “people’s war” against espionage, working to “not only catch spies but ... to catch internal traitors” who colluded with foreign spy agencies, a Chinese government statement said.
The Chinese Ministry of State Security is playing a major role in a clampdown on some foreign due diligence firms in China that has added to tensions with the US, diplomats say.
The ministry could not be reached for comment.
Dong’s appointment comes as Hong Kong prepares to bolster its national security regimen with a new law, called Article 23, that Hong Kong officials say would encompass espionage and treason among other offenses not covered in the 2020 legislation.
In an essay published in July last year in a journal dedicated to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) thinking on the rule of law, Dong said that “Western forces” had been instigating a “color revolution” in Hong Kong, and the security law had been vital to restore order.
“The appointment of such a powerful intelligence figure as Dong to take charge in Hong Kong is a bit of surprise,” one Asian envoy said. “The government is trying to show it is open for international business, but this will send a shiver and raises fresh questions about the future operating environment.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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