[FlameOn]

Axios takes a look at the national security law that China passed. Basically it outlaws all criticism of the CCP at home or abroad to citizens and non-citizens alike. So... according to the article 38, everyone critical of the CCP on this forum is a criminal.

What's happening: Article 38 of the national security law states, "This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region."

• In other words, every provision of the law applies to everyone outside of Hong Kong — including you.

Several experts in Chinese and international law confirmed this interpretation of the law to Axios.

• "It literally applies to every single person on the planet. This is how it reads," said Wang Minyao, a Chinese-American lawyer based in New York. "If I appear at a congressional committee in D.C. and say something critical, that literally would be a violation of this law."
  
• This means that anyone advocating democracy in Hong Kong, or criticizing the governments in Hong Kong or Beijing, could potentially face consequences if they step foot in Hong Kong, or have assets or family members in Hong Kong.

What they're saying: "One of the main purposes of having the national security law is to quash the international front of the movement," said Nathan Law, a Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker, who spoke to Axios after he fled the city last week.

"For Hong Kong, we have to understand that it is the foreground of a very global fight, authoritarianism versus democracy."
He and other leaders of the pro-democracy movement, including Joshua Wong, have traveled the globe in recent years to promote their cause, including meeting with U.S. lawmakers — an activity that the new law prohibits.
The big picture: This marks a historically unprecedented expansion of extraterritoriality — the application of a country's domestic laws abroad.

• U.S. counterterrorism laws have a degree of extraterritoriality, but those laws are intended to fight actual violent terrorism — not free speech — and are not used to crush peaceful political organizing.

The new law codifies and extends to non-Chinese nationals the extraterritorial practices that the Chinese Communist Party has long applied to its own citizens abroad.

https://www.axios.com/china-hong-kon...5bea3f78f.html