US Consul General on Hong Kong's new security law

America's top representative in Hong Kong on Monday strongly condemned China's new national security law for the city, stressing that "fundamental freedoms" were under threat.

“Using the national security law to erode fundamental freedoms and to create an atmosphere of coercion and self-censorship is a tragedy for Hong Kong,” Hanscom Smith, US consul general to Hong Kong and Macau, told reporters.

Smith was at Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) to answer questions on its Monday morning "Money Talks" radio show.

The law, imposed last week following anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year, makes secessionist, subversive, or terrorist activities illegal, as well as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs.

Any person taking part in activities such as shouting slogans or holding up banners and flags calling for the city’s independence is violating the law regardless of whether or not violence is used.

Critics see it as Beijing’s boldest step yet to erase the legal firewall between the former British colony and the mainland’s authoritarian Communist Party system.

(Image credit: AP)