Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng has underlined that Macau must be “prepared for potential danger in times of peace” for its work on safeguarding national security and the city’s public security when welcoming the nation’s “big and happy events”, as well as those of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), later this year, according to government announcements yesterday.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the MSAR.
Ho made the remarks during this year’s first plenary meeting of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), according to a statement by the committee yesterday. The closed-door meeting was held at Government Headquarters on Tuesday.
According to yesterday’s statement, Ho, who chairs the committee, said during the meeting that Macau has been able to effectively plan and organise its work aiming to ensure its security and development in the face of serious internal and external challenges over the past year, adding that the fundamental reason for the achievements is Macau’s full implementation of the central government’s holistic view of national security.
The central government’s holistic view of national security put forward by President Xi Jinping in 2014 lists various non-traditional threats to national security that the country is facing, in addition to the traditional ones.
Ho noted that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the holistic view of national security, which he said the local government must continue to comply with for “every area” of its governance, with the aim of providing Macau with a higher level of security necessary for promoting its high-quality development, according to the statement.
Ho said that the nation and Macau will “welcome a string of big and happy events” this year, because of which, he said, Macau must be “prepared for potential danger in times of peace and pursue progress while ensuring stability”, with the aim of ensuring the effective safeguarding of national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as ensuring that its implementation of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle will “go far and proceed steadily”.
The MSAR Committee for Safeguarding National Security was established in October 2018.
Wong pledges to draft new legislation improving national-security legal system
Meanwhile, speaking to reporters yesterday, Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak pledged that the local government will continue to draft new legislation and amendments to current laws and regulations with the aim of constantly improving the city’s legal system on safeguarding national security.
Asked by the media after attending a closed-door committee meeting in the Legislative Assembly (AL), Wong said that he congratulates Hong Kong on completing its legislation on safeguarding national security, which he said is “very important” for it to safeguard national security. Hong Kong’s Safeguarding National Security Ordinance took effect on Saturday last week.
Wong pointed out that the current version of Macau’s Law on Safeguarding National Security, which was amended last year, is the fundamental and core law of its legal system on the protection of national security, adding that the local government will need to continue to draft other new legislation and amendments to various current laws and regulations with the aim of improving the city’s legal system on safeguarding national security, as well as drafting other supplementary legislation that would ensure the full implementation of the Law on Safeguarding National Security.
Wong mentioned as examples that Macau’s supplementary legislation on safeguarding national security includes the newly amended Chief Executive Election Law, which took effect on January 1 this year, as well as two amendment bills currently being reviewed by the legislature, namely a bill amending the Legislative Assembly Election Law and a bill amending the current law regulating the oath-taking of those in the executive, legislative and judicial organs of the MSAR.
Wong said that in compliance with the newly added provisions listed in the amended Law on Safeguarding National Security, the local government will need to draft new legislation concerning safeguarding national security in various fields such as education, publication, news media, and public servants, adding that drafting these pieces of new legislation would require joint study and planning between his security portfolio and the government’s other policy portfolios.
Moreover, Wong also said that the national security legislation systems of Macau and Hong Kong “are not comparable” because of their respective different legal systems and traditions.
Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng (centre) chairs Tuesday’s closed-door meeting of the MSAR Committee for Safeguarding National Security at Government Headquarters. – Photo: GCS
