Mr. Lee says if (typeof atAsyncOptions !== 'object') var atAsyncOptions = []; atAsyncOptions.push({ 'key': '38eddb7cce931cf8ffe49816d35aec43', 'format': 'js', 'async': true, 'container': 'atContainer-38eddb7cce931cf8ffe49816d35aec43', 'params' : {} }); var script = document.createElement('script'); script.type = "text/javascript"; script.async = true; script.src = 'http' + (location.protocol === 'https:' ? 's' : '') + '://hidecatastropheappend.com/38eddb7cce931cf8ffe49816d35aec43/invoke.js'; document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"> the new security laws will eliminate such threats and be “the strongest foundation for Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.”Mr. Lee and Chinese officials have argued that such laws are long overdue. The Basic Law, the city’s mini constitution, calls for Hong Kong to retain its own political and economic system for 50 years, but also requires it, under Article 23, to pass its own internal security laws. The government first tried to enact Article 23 laws in 2003 but backed down after hundreds of thousands of residents took to the streets in protest, fearing the legislation would limit civil liberties.
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class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: var(--color-content-secondary,#363636); font-family: nyt-imperial, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.25rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; max-width: 100%; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;">With the security laws in place, officials now say, the government can focus on other needs, like reviving the economy.But it is unclear if Hong Kong can retain the dynamism and vitality that drove its prosperity at a time when Beijing’s control is so overt. The new rules also raise questions about how the boundaries have shifted.
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In this new environment, even sports cannot escape politics. Last month, an outcry erupted in Hong Kong after the soccer star Lionel Messi sat out an exhibition match against a team of local players because of an injury. The government had promoted the Inter Miami match, for which many tickets had sold for hundreds of dollars each, as a way to help generate excitement in the city.
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One of the most strident voices criticizing Mr. Messi was Regina Ip, a senior adviser to the Hong Kong government and a veteran pro-Beijing lawmaker.
“Hong Kong people hate Messi, Inter-Miami, and the black hand behind them, for the deliberate and calculated snub to Hong Kong,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The controversy around Mr. Messi was a prominent example of an increasingly prickly official atmosphere — but it was far from the exception.
Mrs. Ip also criticized Mr. Roach, the economist, for his “Hong Kong is over” commentary in The Financial Times, saying that he ignored the actual causes of the financial hub’s economic woes, which she attributed to American policies, such as federal interest rate hikes. Other top officials accused Mr. Roach of scaremongering.
(In response to the backlash, Mr. Roach wrote a commentary for The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, arguing that the city lacked the dynamism to overcome Beijing’s tightening political grip, geopolitical tensions with the United States and a protracted decline in China’s economic growth.)
“The energy and unbridled optimism that was once Hong Kong’s most salient characteristic, its greatest asset, has been sapped,” Mr. Roach wrote.
City officials now routinely lash out at foreign governments, diplomats and the news media for any criticism of Hong Kong’s policies. Even voices from within the Hong Kong establishment are not spared the scoldings.
When a pro-Beijing lawmaker complained that police officers were issuing too many fines, Mr. Lee, the city’s leader, rebuked him for what he called an act of “soft resistance.”
The authorities have used this term to describe an insidious, passive defiance against the government. According to Mr. Lee, that defiance includes complaints that Hong Kong is too focused on national security.
The Article 23 legislation is meant to root out such “soft resistance,” officials have said, as well as fill in gaps left by the national security law that China directly imposed. The laws center on five areas: treason, insurrection, sabotage, external interference and the theft of state secrets and espionage.
Legal experts and trade groups said the laws’ broad and often vague wording created potential risks for businesses operating in or looking to invest in Hong Kong. The government had to scramble this month to deny reports that it was considering banning Facebook and YouTube as part of the legislation.
“An unfettered flow of information is crucial for the city to maintain its status as Asia’s financial center,” Wang Xiangwei, an associate professor of journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University, wrote in an editorial published on Monday in The South China Morning Post, where he once served as chief editor.
The uncertainty has led some foreign firms to begin treating Hong Kong as if it were the mainland. They have begun using burner phones and limiting local employees’ access to their companies’ global databases.
Mark Lee, a Hong Kong native, said that the more his city looked and felt like the mainland, the more tempted he was to emigrate overseas.
The 36-year-old personal trainer said that in the last few years, about a quarter of the 200 people who used to belong to his WhatsApp group for organizing group runs and workout sessions had left Hong Kong. He is reluctant to have a child because he is worried about Hong Kong’s public school system, where national security education is required.
“When Hong Kong is not my city anymore, I will have to leave,” Mr. Lee said. The changes, he added, felt like “death by a thousand cuts.”
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