Australia’s prime minister said the country will halt its extradition agreement with Hong Kong over the passage of a new Beijing-backed “national security” law and will extend temporary visas from Hong Kongers in Australia.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Thursday that the visa extension will allow those from Hong Kong with temporary visas to stay for five additional years and will open a path to permanent Australian residency, according to the New York Times. Morrison also encouraged businesses to move to his country.
“We are a great immigration nation,” the prime minister said.
The move comes in response to a controversial new national security law. The law is expected to have profound effects on the freedom of residents in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region claimed by China. In response to the law, Canada has suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom has opened a path to citizenship for up to 3 million residents of the former British colony.
“Our government, together with other governments around the world, have been very consistent in expressing our concerns about the imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong,” Morrison said. “Today we have agreed to announce that that national security law constitutes a fundamental change of circumstances in respect to our extradition agreement with Hong Kong.”
Winston Peters, Australia’s deputy prime minister who handles foreign affairs, said that China’s move to pass the new national security law has “fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there.”
China immediately denounced Australia for its decision.
“We urge the Australian side to immediately stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs,” the Chinese embassy in Australia said in a statement. “Otherwise it will lead to nothing but lifting a rock only to hit its own feet.”
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said the news from Canberra “seriously violated international law and the basic norms of international relations” and warned that China “reserves the right to respond further.”
Because the new national security law is written vaguely, there are concerns that it will be used to clamp down on dissidents who has been protesting for democracy and for less control by the Chinese government in Hong Kong for months.
The law reads that the government will punish “any person [who] organizes, plans, carries out, or participates in carrying out” conduct that can be viewed as “seriously disrupting, obstructing, or undermining the central government organs of the People’s Republic of China or Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s performance of their functions.”
