Hong Kong’s police chief has pledged vigilance against lingering threats of external interference, home-grown terrorism and “soft resistance”, five years after the Beijing-imposed national security law was promulgated.

Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming said that while Hong Kong had returned to a state of stability in recent years, “undercurrents” remained that required the force to boost its intelligence-gathering and law enforcement efforts.

“Now we are talking about how to advance from stability to prosperity … there is no room for complacency. There are still undercurrents that we have to be vigilant at all times,” he said in an interview marking the coming fifth anniversary of the law’s implementation.

The legislation was promulgated on June 30, 2020, and outlaws secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

The police chief said the United States was among several Western governments that still sought to use Hong Kong as a means of “targeting” mainland China.

“For example, by enforcing so-called sanctions against Hong Kong and mainland government officials, or by threatening to close our Economic and Trade Offices, also the cancellation of preferential trade treatment,” he said.

On the domestic side, threats such as home-grown terrorism and soft resistance also remained, Chow said.

While some blatantly violent activities had vanished, there was still a small group of people who had gone underground, he said.

“When they become radicalised, they will initiate some attacks,” Chow said, citing a bomb plot at an educational institution and a plan to ambush police that involved the “Dragon Slaying Brigade”.

In July 2024, police arrested four boys, aged 13 to 15, after chemicals used in bomb-making and weapons were found at the Kwun Tong branch of the Institute of Vocational Education. Two of the teenagers were later charged.

That same year, a court sentenced eight people over their roles in a plot to ambush police with firearms and use up to 20kg (44lbs) of explosives amid the 2019 social unrest. Six other defendants were acquitted by the jury.

Mastermind Ng Chi-hung was given a nearly 24-year term, the longest sentence to arise from the months-long protests, for hatching the plot alongside the “Dragon Slaying Brigade”, led by Wong Chun-keung, 26, who was also jailed for 13½ years.

“These kinds of home-grown terrorists, we just cannot ignore them. We have to be very, very cautious,” the commissioner said.

On the subject of soft resistance, Chow said there remained a small number of people seeking to incite hatred against authorities.

Chow said there had been a recent exhibition where someone had displayed drawings featuring images and comments from the 2019 protests.

While he did not name the exhibition, an incident came to light in a widely seen social media post by a local illustrator who attended an art fair on May 31.

The illustrator said officers had told him at the event that someone had reported him, before they took pictures of all his work for the records of the force’s National Security Department.

“So, I believe they are still using these ways to continue their so-called ideology,” Chow said.

He also pointed to a series of children’s books containing provocative depictions of the mainland that were published by speech therapists a few years ago.

“Purportedly, these books were meant to teach vocabulary, but then inside, they described the government as some sort of evil and that Hong Kong people were being persecuted,” he said.

“They also said the government was a wolf, and how the measures to safeguard security would be weapons.

“I think it’s so obvious and conspicuous. These people are trying to incite distrust among Hong Kong people against the government.”

In 2022, five speech therapists were jailed for 19 months each under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law over the books.

The books were published between June 2020 and March 2021. They told the story of a village of sheep forced to defend themselves against a group of intruding wolves after the shepherd had left.

On March 23 of last year, the city also passed the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. The law’s implementation was required under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

The ordinance revised the definition of existing prohibited acts, such as sedition, and introduced new ones to broaden the range of national security-related offences.

According to government data obtained by the Post, police had arrested 320 people as of March 1 on suspicion of endangering national security since the relevant laws came into effect.

The figures also showed that 91 people and four companies were charged under the 2020 law, with 76 people convicted.

Another five among the larger figure were charged under the domestic national security law, with three of them having been sentenced so far, according to the government. – SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST