Following US penalties on his predecessor and five other officials over Beijing’s human rights crackdown, Hong Kong’s new police chief emphasized on Wednesday the importance of safeguarding national security.
Officials accused of undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and engaging in “acts of transnational repression”—the use of national security laws by the city to “intimidate, silence, and harass” activists overseas—were sanctioned by the US on Monday.
Beijing has promised “countermeasures” while Hong Kong officials have denounced the punishments and defended their application of the rules.
Police commissioner Raymond Siu, one of the six people sanctioned, retired on Tuesday after nearly four years in charge.
His replacement Joe Chow, 52, said he was not worried about the sanctions and that national security was the “most important” priority.
“The US sanctions are barbaric acts attempting to intimidate… police officers, so that we will stop working hard on national security,” Chow told reporters on Wednesday.
“This shows that (the United States) considers our actions to be successful and effective. This means we should do more of it.”
Most famously, Chow, who joined the force in 1995, oversaw the police siege of Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University in November 2019, during the height of the widespread demonstrations for democracy.
The most violent altercations between demonstrators and police occurred during the operation, which resulted in 1,377 arrests.
Since then, Beijing has used a comprehensive national security statute that it imposed on Hong Kong to suppress opposition in the city.
Since 2023, authorities have used their authority under the security statute to impose bounties on 19 foreign advocates for democracy, while numerous opposition leaders have been detained and imprisoned in Hong Kong.
Some of the named activists — including UK-based Tony Chung and Carmen Lau and Australia-based Ted Hui and Kevin Yam — last month reported being targeted by anonymous letters promising hefty rewards for people who inform on them.
Hong Kong officials have denied any involvement in the letters.
Chow told AFP the bounties were a “very sensitive” matter and declined to say if more were in the pipeline.
At the news conference, he said Hong Kong society had returned to stability but there were still “undercurrents everywhere” and warned of “soft resistance” via the arts, culture and media sectors.
Asked if more public protests will be permitted under his tenure, Chow said it depended on event specifics and added that police would conduct threat assessments.
