Hong Kong’s security law

China has imposed a security law on Hong Kong that specifies severe penalties for what Beijing deems to be secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities and ‘collusion with foreign external forces to endanger national security’. Beijing is determined to bring Hong Kong to heel, whatever the international repercussions. In the long term it is likely that Beijing will progressively eliminate all vestiges of Hong Kong’s separate identity along with all remnants of the territory’s colonial past.