Democracy has been binned. Twenty-three years after its handover from Britain to China, Hong Kong on Sunday virtually lost its independence over matters security.

It would be an understatement to call the island nation a protectorate; the President for life, Xi Jinping’s China has entrenched its authority as never before with its firm resolve to enforce controversial national security laws on Hong Kong “without the slightest delay”.

The response of the police in the semiautonomous territory has been as prompt as it was swift. Teargas was fired at protesters demonstrating against the unprecedented decision.

The internal security establishment, such as it is, has almost immediately played to the Beijing gallery. Dissenting voices against China have been muffled with severity though the comity of nations is unlikely to concur with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi’s feeble defence of an ugly truth ~ “Enacting the proposed anti-sedition law,” he said, “to stop anti-government protests that have persisted for the past year had become a pressing obligation. We must get it done without the slightest delay.”

China has tightened its screw on the island nation in the wake of the spirited ~ and now renewed ~ movement for democracy. A legislative process to spell out the details of the law will begin after the decision is approved next week at China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), known as the country’s rubberstamping Parliament where delegates pass already approved policies.

As thousands of protesters in Hong Kong defied social distancing orders and confronted riot police on Sunday, Wang attempted to assuage concerns about how the law could be used against protesters, media and any critics of the government. More basically, he has attempted a defence of the indefensible. The nub of the crisis must be that Hong Kong has lost its freedom to administer internal security or home affairs, if you will.

It is pretty obvious too that China has put in place a praxis on its own terms. It was only to be expected that the people would be up in arms. Given its obsessive concern over buttressing its agenda, China’s withers remain unwrung.

Last Thursday, the National People’s Congress made the announcement that it would force a law banning subversion, separatism, and acts of foreign interference on Hong Kong ~ in what critics and legal observers say is one the most blatant violations of the “one, country, two systems” framework since the handover of Hong Kong from UK to Chinese control in 1997.

Beijing’s decision has further soured US-China ties, already at record lows as Washington claims China is to blame for the coronavirus pandemic. The national security laws, imposed by the mainland, are a death-knell for Hong Kong’s autonomy and political freedom. The protectorate has now been brought to its knees. This is the grim irony of Asia’s business and financial hub.