Hong Kong’s former No 2 Anson Chan urges Americans who do business in city to protest proposed change in fugitive transfer law
- Concerns must be voiced ‘before it is too late’, she tells the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington
- Says Hong Kong’s basic freedoms are progressively being whittled away
The former No 2 official in Hong Kong on Monday urged all Americans who do business in the city to voice their concerns over the government’s proposal to allow the transfer of fugitives to mainland China, “before it is too late”.
Anson Chan Fang On-sang, who served as the city’s chief secretary before and after its handover to Chinese rule in 1997, also said it had never been more important for the US government to continue to support the city’s basic freedoms, which she said were being progressively whittled away.
Chan was making the public appeal in Washington as she delivered a keynote address to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank that promotes limited government and individual freedom.
She, alongside lawmakers Dennis Kwok and Charles Mok, are in the midst of a 10-day trip to the US at the invitation of the White House. Their visit included a face-to-face meeting with US Vice-President Mike Pence at the president’s official residence and discussions with members of the National Security Council.
Among the concerns they flagged to the White House, Chan said, was the government’s recent proposal to allow the reciprocal handing over of fugitives to mainland China and any jurisdictions with which the city lacks an extradition deal.
