The city's constitution also contains provisions to deal with such an event, enabling the chief executive to call new legislative elections, and to pass a preliminary budget to enable the government to continue to function.
When dozens of former lawmakers and opposition activists were arrested in January, Anthony Blinken, now the US Secretary of State, said "the sweeping arrests of pro-democracy demonstrators are an assault on those bravely advocating for universal rights.""The Biden-Harris administration will stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing's crackdown on democracy," Blinken added.UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned in January that the British government "will not look the other way when the rights and the autonomy of the people of Hong Kong are trashed.""When China first imposed the national security legislation, they said it was to bring some stability to Hong Kong.