Hong Kong Civil Service Secretary Nip Tak-kuen said Monday (March 8) that more than 100 to 200 civil servants have not signed a declaration of support for the Basic Law and allegiance to the HKSAR, and that these people may need to leave the civil service.
He also said he did not yet have the exact number of civil servants who had not signed the declaration and the departments they belonged to.
If civil servants refuse to sign the declaration to accept and assume basic responsibilities, the government will lose confidence in them and will therefore follow up according to the mechanism to arrange for them to leave the civil service, Nip Tak Kuen said.
According to statistics from the Hong Kong Public Service Bureau, there are currently more than 170,000 civil servants in Hong Kong, not including judges and judicial officers, Independent Commission Against Corruption officers and locally employed staff of Hong Kong’s economic and trade offices in foreign countries.
The Hong Kong government previously required civil servants to sign declarations of support for the Basic Law, allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, loyalty to duty and accountability to the HKSAR government. Civil servants recruited to senior positions, such as department heads, are also required to take an oath.
In an interview with Hong Kong media, Nip Tak-kuen said signing the declaration is a basic responsibility of civil servants. Most colleagues have already signed the declaration to be clear and accept the responsibility, “If there is something they cannot accept, it is their own choice to leave the government, and it is not a bad thing for any of the civil service team.”
Nie Dequan also said that colleagues who remain in the civil service team are clear about their responsibilities, namely to serve the public well while implementing the “one country, two systems” policy, the report said.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said last month that “patriots ruling Hong Kong” must always be upheld. He said the country allows different political views, but must not allow people to do “things that undermine the socialist system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China”. “Patriots must sincerely protect the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and respect and maintain the country’s fundamental system and the constitutional order of Hong Kong.
According to the report, Nip also believes that the civil service team should clearly know and accept that love for the country means love for the People’s Republic of China and that the ruling organ of the People’s Republic of China is the Communist Party. He stressed that senior civil servants need to take on greater responsibility, so it is more important to accurately understand and implement the “one country, two systems” approach.
Beijing wants to ensure that the massive anti-government protests that erupted in Hong Kong in 2019 do not recur. Last June, Beijing enacted the National Security Law, according to which anyone who organizes, plans, commits or participates in acts aimed at secession or undermining national unity, whether or not by the use or threat of force, commits an offense. Anyone who incites, aids, abets, or finances others with money or other property to split the country or undermine national unity commits a crime and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years and not more than 10 years if the circumstances are serious; if the circumstances are less serious, he or she shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years, detention or control. macos/deepLFree.translatedWithDeepL.text
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