China’s top legislative body has unanimously approved a national security law for Hong Kong that critics say will be used to stamp out all forms of dissent.
It is the most far-reaching development in the territory’s history since it was handed to China by Britain in 1997.
It comes after months of mass unrest sparked by fear of China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong.
Al Jazeera has Katrina Yu standing by in Beijing, and Adrian Brown in Hong Kong.
Tanya Chan is a legislator and convener of the Pro-Democracy Camp in Hong Kong. She joins us live by Skype to discuss the latest updates.
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In This Story: Hong Kong
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.