The United Kingdom government is planning to reinstate extradition cooperation with Hong Kong, which was suspended five years ago due to concerns about the city’s Chinese national security laws. The Home Office applied to Parliament to make the changes on July 17, followed by a letter to Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp the next day. Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the move is in the UK’s national interest, as it would prevent criminals from evading justice and the UK becoming a haven for criminals.
However, Conservative MP Alicia Kearns strongly opposed the move, saying it is “morally indefensible”. “The Chinese Communist Party has turned Hong Kong into a surveillance state where freedom of expression, rule of law, and basic civil liberties are systematically dismantled,” Kearns wrote on X. “This move risks legitimizing a regime that imprisons critics, silences democracy activists, and uses extradition as a tool of persecution,” she added.
The UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and the United States all suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong in 2020 due to concerns about how the national security laws would be used. Hong Kong’s 2020 national security law criminalized secession, subversion, terrorism, and foreign interference, and was supplemented in 2024 to include treason, sedition, theft of state secrets, espionage, sabotage, and external interference.
Ronny Tong, a Hong Kong barrister and member of the city’s executive council, said concerns about a potential extradition deal were overblown. “Extradition is in relation to non-political criminal cases, so any fear that it’d be used to transfer persons with political crimes, eg, national security cases, is totally unfounded and only shows ignorance of the procedure,” he said.
The reinstatement of the extradition deal has raised concerns about the potential impact on Hong Kong’s residents and the city’s autonomy. Hong Kong’s government has said the national security laws are necessary to protect the city from political sabotage and foreign influence, following months of pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019. However, critics argue that the laws are being used to suppress dissent and undermine the city’s autonomy.
The UK’s decision to reinstate the extradition deal comes amid growing concerns about China’s increasing influence over Hong Kong and the erosion of the city’s freedoms. Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 as a “special administrative region” and was promised special rights and freedoms until 2047, under the Sino-British Joint Declaration.