Under a new national-security law, Hong Kong is already a changed city

HONG KONGERS had long worried that the Communist Party would transform the territory by stealth into just another Chinese city. In the past few days, armed with a new national-security law which it imposed on Hong Kong on June 30th, it has been doing so brazenly. From the appointment of a party commissar to work with the chief executive, to the pulling of politically sensitive books from library shelves, Hong Kong is changing fast. The stockmarket has leapt, but many hearts have sunk.

On July 8th the central government opened a new outpost in Hong Kong called the Office for Safeguarding National Security. It occupies a luxury hotel, pending a move to permanent quarters. The director is Zheng Yanxiong, a hardline official from the neighbouring province of Guangdong (in 2011 he helped to suppress an outbreak of pro-democracy unrest in Wukan village that had grabbed global headlines). His two deputies are from the mainland’s Ministry of Public Security and secret police. In “complex” or “serious” cases, the office will enjoy sweeping powers to investigate and detain people for crimes covered by the new law: subversion, sedition, secession and collusion with foreign countries.