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Hong Kong's plans to approve extradition to the continent have raised alarms among business and legal circles in the city, who fear that this will end up destroying the international call of the financial center and entangling people in front of them. the opaque courts of China.
The proposal, which will be debated Wednesday in the Hong Kong Legislature, would allow the transfer of fugitives with Taiwan, Macao and mainland China on a "case base" for the first time.
But this comes at a time of utter mistrust of how Beijing exercises its authoritarian judicial system – and when two Canadian nationals languish in China's custody after the arrest of a Huawei leader in Vancouver.
Detractors fear that an extradition agreement will make both economic figures and dissidents in Hong Kong vulnerable in the politicized courts of China, undermining an economic center that has been fed its reputation for transparent and independent justice.
"At this point, Hong Kong is really part of China," AFP told an American partner of an asset management company, specifying how the business community would feel if the law was passed.
"People might still come in three or five years, but are you really going to root here if you have a real or implied political risk, I think probably not," she added.
The sudden plan to review Hong Kong's extradition agreement was launched with good intentions.
This was sparked by a high profile murder in Taiwan, where a Hong Kong man allegedly strangled his pregnant girlfriend on a vacation trip and then escaped.
This case has aroused much sympathy and frustration at Hong Kong's inability to extradite the suspect to Taiwan.
But the government's surprise decision to include mainland China in the recast has sparked a wave of opposition and suspicion of pro-Beijing local authorities is profiting from Taiwan's murder.
– One country, two judicial systems –
Historically, Hong Kong has opposed extradition to the mainland because of the opacity of the Chinese criminal justice system and the death penalty – which has been abolished in Hong Kong.
Observers say the courts are controlled by the Communist Party and are frequently used to silence critics or used by powerful people to settle personal and business accounts.
Those facing court are unlikely to be acquitted – according to Chinese judicial statistics, the conviction rate for criminal charges was 99.9%.
Under the 50-year transfer agreement signed between Great Britain and China in 1997, the city retained its independent judiciary, which allowed it to become a major regional center of contract law, unique in Singapore.
But fears have increased that China is beginning this judicial independence.
Three years ago, a group of booksellers who published books about Chinese rulers, filled with gossip, disappeared and were subsequently detained by the Chinese.
In 2017, a billionaire businessman, Xiao Jianhua, also disappeared from a five – star hotel and was detained on the mainland.
And when a new high-speed rail link was opened in Hong Kong last year, the authorities announced that mainland China's law would apply in the key sections of the station.
– Partial descent –
The criticisms of the projects were formulated by a large sample of Hong Kong, not only by China's political critics. The powerful chamber of lawyers of the city, the American Chamber of Commerce, and even pro-Peking legislators have spoken.
"A business environment needs a very clear legal system.If you have a regulation that makes the opposite and makes it less clear … it will have a huge impact on the economic development and commercial activities of Hong Kong, "said Felix Chung, a pro-Beijing legislator.
To illustrate the unintended consequences, the Mainland Taiwan Business Council warned that it could issue warnings to travelers if the extradition agreement included China.
In the face of growing opposition, the Hong Kong government stepped back Tuesday, exempting nine predominantly economic crimes from the list of offenses that could be covered by the new extradition law.
The Hong Kong Security Bureau also said that prosecutions based on "race, religion, nationality or political opinion" would be denied.
It remains to be seen whether this will beget enough lawmakers, especially given Hong Kong's repression of political freedoms and the pursuit of those who are supposed to promote independence or autonomy.
In a statement issued after the fall of the government, the US Chamber of Commerce said its revised proposals "raised serious concerns."
"We strongly believe that the proposed arrangements will reduce the attractiveness of Hong Kong for international companies that consider Hong Kong as a base for regional operations," the statement said.
For the US partner of the asset management company, she says that international companies will inevitably think more carefully about the direction Hong Kong is taking.
"I do not think it changes my ability to stay here now," she said. "But that does not make me really happy to see my kids stay here."
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