Main security risks to Hong Kong, and assessment of intelligence collection method for each risks

Hong Kong is considered as one of the cities which has a high degree of systematic and all-rounded protection against military and economic espionage and rated the safest cities in the world with significantly low crime rate. However, Security threats once again become a serious issue, alerted by the penetration of foreign power intervention to Hong Kong’s politics, which eventually led to political and opinion split against the ruling methodology of Hong Kong and China, while the emergence of separatists’ terrorism brought by series of protests has alarmed the social security of livelihood and properties of the citizens in Hong Kong. With the full implementation of <National Security Law> in Hong Kong, controversy has risen whether the law will genuinely safeguard political freedom of Hong Kong out of foreign intervention. Existing human intelligence threats like cyber-attacks, human trafficking, and financial crime, though the intensity is minimal, they will still affect the law and peace of a country, thus hindering the harmonious co-existence of people in the society. Therefore, this policy paper will further discuss in more details about various security risks in Hong Kong, and critical assessment of the ideal intelligence collection methods of the threats mentioned in this paper.

Intervention of foreign governments and regimes

In terms of national security threat, the intervention of foreign governments and regimes with the penetration of divisive power and spreading of separatist ideology poses a great security threat to Hong Kong in terms of political sovereignty. Hong Kong is ruled under China under “1 country, 2 systems” which guarantee Chinese sovereignty right towards Hong Kong but retaining its parliamentary and political freedom, while the legislative council existed political cleavage between pro-Beijing camps and Pro-democratic political parties, which the latter one is highly suspicious and discontent with Beijing’s political participation. At the same time ideologies as “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong”, “Safeguarding freedom of Hong Kong people” (Ruhlig, 2016), and even indirectly support the independence of Hong Kong by providing various monetary and human supports to parties like “Hong Kong First” and “People Power”, which greatly undermining the governance prestige of Chinese Communist Parties. Pro-democrats Politicians and businessman like Martin Lee Chu Ming and Jimmy Lai Chee Ying greatly advocates “confronting against the pressure from Beijing government”, and appealing support from foreign government like UK, and America to support Hong Kong’s freedom that was limited under the Communist parties ruling (Wong, 2021), their political spectrum greatly inclining towards Anti-Communism, alongside with the action and monetary support of appealing foreign states to intervene political affairs of Hong Kong, that sews the seed of foreign subversives, which includes power penetration that support divisive and separatism out of China, and putting Hong Kong to the verge of instability of national security safety.

Domestic subversives’ emergence

Hong Kong also is suffering the national security threat of domestic subversives’ emergence, brought by the advancement of Internet communication and mental manipulation through news agencies which highly proposed Anti-communism ideologies towards the adolescents and radicals in Hong Kong. The millennials in Hong Kong commonly perceived as the generation which “hugely discontent and dissatisfied towards Chinese communist parties” and considered the handover in 1997 to China is “the end of freedom of speech and people’s rights” (Chappell, 2019). Such distortion is amplified by the information inculcated by the news agency that greatly acclaim pro-democratic and anti-communism, one of the typical examples is “Apple Daily'', a news conglomerate in Hong Kong that utilizes massive promotion of the “dark sides of CCP ruling towards Hong Kong”, and publishing of “soft news” that stirs up anti-China’s emotions and cognitive behaviors of hatred towards China (Tan, 2020). Brought by the internet advancement and the emergence of independent news groups and tabloids, such emotions are greatly brewing and exacerbated by the communication application tools like Telegram, Facebook, Instagram etc. As a result, adolescents whose mental and mind are not fully matured will be highly susceptible and vulnerable by false news and radical information from the internet.?

Charismatic groups

Students groups and organizations who have high charisma within the Hong Kong population pose significant national security threats to Hong Kong, due to their attitudes and political advocations are directly opposing the legislative ideologies of Hong Kong. Their actions, like Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai, which includes appealing support from foreign government and persuasion of foreign governmental officers to show solicitude for the “suppressed freedom and rights of Hong Kong people”, also cultivates conflicts and deterioration of national security safety by extreme advocation of such nationalism (Lo, 2017). The typical examples of Nathan Law Kwun Chung, elected but disqualified by the legislative council, and claimed as “political asylum” of Hong Kong, participated and elected as the president of “Demosisto”, a political party which comprised with students and participated in protests that acclaims getting rid of Chinese ruling and self-determination of Hong Kong peoples. Moreover, Joshua Wong Chi Fung was the most significant student leader of “Scholarism” (a student political party that defended against Beijing’s influence), involved in many mass movements which created large-scale chaos such as the 2014 Umbrella Revolution and 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill social movements. With their widespread political ideologies by the aid of media agencies and communication tools, their ideologies are deeply rooted and planted deeply in the mass adolescents’ population, accelerating the rise of domestic subversives, posing obvious security threats to Hong Kong, in terms of the local governance.?

Domestic terrorism

Due to the above inherited threats and oppositional factors, Hong Kong subsequently faced a more disastrous and large-scale national security threats, related to domestic terrorism, or the widespread of scorched earth policy, related to massive vandalism, sabotages, and political cleavages within the Hong Kong community (Holbig, 2020), which leads to apparent life and property damages and long-lasted split of the society. For instance, the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill exemplifies the emergence of progressive democracy camps and took full control of organizing illegal activities like illegal assembly, sabotage of public facilities and violence against dissidents. The legislation of Extradition Bill provoked massive discontent and distrust towards Chinese and Hong Kong judiciary assistance which will contain unlawful and untransparent judicial procedures, and in turn leading to a series of violent protests and mass destruction towards Chinese-sponsored and enterprises under the funding of China, such as CTBC and China Bank (Jones, 2020), in the second half of 2019, while the society is split into two distinctive camps as “yellow and blue ribbon” population groups. Dissidents who oppose the thoughts and actions of the protestors will be treated violently and be bullied or even doxed in the forum, consequently insulted in the web space (Lukasz, 2020). Moreover, the social movements also targeted the violence and weaponry treatment towards the unarmed protestors, which also led to intimidation to police and their colleagues and families. Such life-threatening incidents creates danger to life and property within the population in Hong Kong, and such terror also leads to tension within the society, while business proprietary rights are in the verge of danger which their business are highly susceptible to societal violence, most of these protests and demonstrations are caused terror and tensions within the society, dampening the security safety of Hong Kong.

Origins of security threat

Emergence of reactionary news agencies

The threats of National security of Hong Kong also originated from the internet and in the domain of media and communication, such as emergence of reactionary news agencies with the messages which highly inciting offenders to exercise public nuisance and injure, greatly undermining the reputation of Hong Kong as the safest cities in Asia. Freedom of press is upheld under the Basic Law, however, with the transformation of newspaper industries, most of the news agencies switched to desktop and mobile appliances, while Facebook became the hottest online tool to receive and disseminate news materials in a highly convenient manner. On the other hand, independent media (alternative media), which is self-funded and organized by the communities, emerged rapidly, and intensified the danger of information overload, and flooded with controversial fake news. (Hodkinson, 2017). Like the “Arab Spring Incidents”, protests and mass movements are organized by the promotion in this way. With the help of Facebook, instant messages and updates can easily spread in an exponential way, even with the falsified or inflammatory messages. (Kirkpatrick, 2020) These also highlighted the threat to Hong Kong’s overall security that the population is manipulated or being fed with such misinformation. Moreover, the effect of filter bubble and echo chamber also endangered the security of Hong Kong, that the effect is amplified and exercised through online communication, and sharing tools including YouTube and LiHKG (a user-generated blog room in Hong Kong). Peoples are reinforced with a fixed, unintended, and biased perception in a closed system under the repetitive reporting on a biased perception of a particular news (Panke, 2018), while the algorithm in online tool directs peoples to browse and receive information which is “in favor and aligning their interests” (Haim, 2017). Applying to the situation of Hong Kong, the population is fed with messages with the setbacks of the government, negative perception to the communist parties and even inflammatory messages to promote extremism and separatism messages with violence, tainting the national security regarding the citizens and the governance of Hong Kong.

Implementation of National Security Law

The other national security threat also comes from the implementation of National Security Law, foreign intervention, and accusation of personal rights of freedom makes Hong Kong a wrestling battlefield between Euro-American States and China (Tam, 2020), measures such as “immigrants and sheltering program” by UK, USA and Canada creates turmoil on the international perception of Hong Kong under such national security threats and quarreling under the law implementation. (Lau, 2021) <National Security Law> was implemented on 1st July 2020 and greatly suppressed the separatism and Hong Kong Independence messages, however, the efforts of foreign intervention turned obvious and directly confronted Hong Kong and China. Sanctions towards government officials of the chief of executive, Miss Carrie Lam are proposed under the Executive Order No. 13936 by President Donald Trump and Secretary of States, Mike Pompeo (US Federal Government, 2020). At the same time, in response to the National Security Act which “limit the personal freedom of speech and assembly”, claimed by the spokesman of UK and Canada (Brinstow, 2020), various immigration programs and sheltering programs are also implemented to attract immigration of Hong Kong’s population. National security threats though turn minimal under the National Security Act, however there is a slight turbulence and turmoil in international images of Hong Kong and the slackening confidence of the reputation.

Unlawful financial activities

In the perspective of human security, Hong Kong is also facing the security threat of unlawful financial activities, such as bribery, and money laundering. When people pay bribery to get favors of any kind, the principle of equality and fairness to all are not compromised. This poses a major security risk as those compromised may opt to engage in unlawful activities to make ends meet. Misuse and embezzlement of the resources and the funds set aside for society's development. Moreover, Hong Kong is a financial center of Asia, and a bridge linking the international financial market and the Chinese Renminbi Market. There is a rapid exchange and transaction of the Hong Kong financial market, which also cultivated an ideal ground for conducting illegal monetary activities. (Wombolt, 2020) Although various departments like Custom and Clearance Departments, Police Force and Monetary Authority dedicated to combat such activities through operations and renditions, and successfully dissolve the money laundering groups which costs over 25 Billion HKD in April 2021 (Wee, 2021), some citizens occasionally involve in money laundering unintentionally and being maliciously manipulated by the offenders, under the relations of proxy and business proprietary relations. (Lo, 2021). Innocent victims under the cases of money laundering is often observed and considered as a common security threat to the appropriate use of financial resources and the health of the financial market.

Cyberattack

Cyberattack is a major security risk in Hong Kong as it has affected individuals at the business level and big organizations and corporations. The network systems of organizations are intruded on by hackers who extort and defrauded innocent citizens. In most instances, the hackers demand a high and unrealistic amount of ransom to restore a given company's system. Some of the most affected sectors by cyber-attack include telecommunications, the financial service sector, aviation, real estate, hospitals, and many more. This has become a significant security risk as most culprits manage to go Scott-free after attacking the business system with ransomware. They demand ransom in terms of cryptocurrency, which is most of the time challenging to trace (Tsui, L. 2015).?

Additionally, hackers also hack into the bank account details of unsuspecting individuals and illegally transfer huge amounts of money from people's accounts. When vital information of an organization is hacked, it becomes a very challenging issue as the normal running of the organization is compromised and interfered with. This information may be used by the hackers for their own malicious gains.

Various mean of cyberattack, endangering the human security of Hong Kong includes phishing, blackmailing and phone scamming together with online baking scams are also experiencing surging trend recently, these unlawful activities resurge especially during the pandemics recently (Lee, 2020), where citizens are money-strapped and opt for additional financial income in a convenient manner, or completely innocent. These human security threat although being constantly followed up and eliminated by cross-departmental effort of Hong Kong, the old saying goes, “As virtue rises one foot, vice rises ten; The more illumination, the more temptation”, cyberattack and cyber-scamming remain the utmost threat of Hong Kong’s security threat.

Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking is the ultimate security threat of Hong Kong, that includes “transit men or women trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor” (Asia News Monitor, 2018), which endangers the health of the society. There is no clear law that targets on punishment against human trafficking organizations and overseas, leaving chances for unscrupulous organizations to treat illegal immigrants in an inhumane manner. For example, a Pakistani man being threatened to work in Hong Kong but providing a container house with extremely bad living conditions and working overtime with excessive working hours with no compensation on holiday, such slaveries-like working conditions happen in most of the victims of human trafficking (Lau, 2020). The Pakistani man won the lawsuit but had been undergoing a time-consuming and difficult times in the lawsuit. This incident proved that Hong Kong labor’s market is not fully protecting the labor rights of workers, and such incident also exemplified the loopholes of Hong Kong labor law that “slavery, and human trafficking is not legally criminalized and there is absence of monitoring under the legislation.” (M2 Presswire, 2016), sexual exploitation also happens within the women of Vietnam, Myanmar, and Mainland China, being scammed working in Hong Kong but involved in such working nature, these scenario depicts that Hong Kong is sill experiencing security threats of citizen safety and poses serious destruction to the morals of the Hong Kong society.

Assessment of intelligence collection method for each risk

These threats will pose Hong Kong risks of losing a vast array of tourists who could earn the country revenue due to the continuous instability in security, leading to massive riots and protests. No one would risk visiting a city with continuous disputes between the local authorities and its citizens and enjoying time in a society that is filled with negative and suppressive ideologies of violence and terror. On the other hand, under the pandemic, since many people engage themselves in unlawful activities, It is only the hardworking residence who end up suffering by losing their hard-earned belongings to criminals in the long run, therefore different intelligence collection methods are applied in different security threats of Hong Kong, based on its effectiveness, threat intensity, targeted population, and the resources that Hong Kong government possess in the recent times.

Open-source intelligence

Open-source intelligence can be obtained from the information and the data that is available to the general public (Lowenthal and Clark, 2015). This information is not limited to the information in the Google but also the one found in the surface web, but also with the open forum, newspapers, online media, opinions left on the social media, which is highly effective when the government or departments to analyze the motivation of the organizations related to protests, subversives’ actions and steps. Most of the tools and techniques here are designed to help the security professionals. It also enables the threat actors are focus all their efforts on their areas of interest. However, anything that can be found by the security experts can be found by threat actors and be used as well and therefore a clear strategy is important.?

This open-source intelligence is the most used as it is usually free but is often misused and misunderstood. This is what is used to identify weaknesses in friendly networks so that they can be repaired before they are identified by threats. It is used to identify accidental leaks of information on social media; unsecured internet connected devices and leaked assets. Organizations should also have a firewall for the internet that is being used to avoid hacking. There should be frequent downloading and installation of software updates for the operating systems and applications whenever possible. Wi-Fi networks for the workplace should be hidden and secure to prevent hacking incidents (Lewis 2002). Each employee should have their account, and this will limit the number of people accessing office computers and systems, and passwords should be changed regularly. The Federal Communications Commission also offers an instrument for the businesses to create a cyber-security plan for the business that contains advice on how to address specific business concerns and needs.

One of the setbacks of utilizing open-source intelligence as a means for intelligence collection is the resources may be torrent and time consuming to analyze. Different opinions coming from different perspectives may constitute ambiguous information and data that may highly deviate against the purpose of the intelligence collection of the threats (Dokman, 2019). Biased information or even misinformation may even be the agent that leads to false decisions of curbing the threats, therefore, departments like Police Force, Immigration and Customs and Clearance Department are necessary to share information and exercise a high degree of information sourcing using sophisticated analysts.?

Human Intelligence

On the issue of protests, we can use Human Intelligence by collecting information from human sources like spies and the people of Hong Kong. This is mostly done openly for example when suspects are being questioned about a certain protest that they were planning. This will enable the police force to have detailed information of what is going on even before it happens, and this will help avoid a lot of deaths and destruction of property in Hong Kong. People will also be able to run their activities smoothly without any distractions because there will be no protests. The government through the police force will disrupt the protests on time before it becomes violent and dangerous. Mostly HUMINT is conducted by the CIA and the FBI as it enables them to collect a lot of intelligence on certain threats. HUMINT can also be used to collect intelligence on criminal activities and criminal gangs in towns.? ? What ought to be done is that the arrested suspects and criminals should be thoroughly interrogated to get enough information about the gang activities and who runs them and so on. Once the police force has this information, they will be able to plan on how to go about the ambush of a certain offensive group. Lowenthal and Clark, (2015) state that the use of undercover police could also be effective as the officer will be feeding the police on the information on what and when a certain deal will be conducted so that they can be ambushed. This will greatly help reduce the rate of crime in Hong Kong as most of the young people are involved in social unrest like the mass movements and sabotages of public facilities.

Signal Intelligence

Use of Signal Intelligence which consists of electronic transmissions collected by ships, drones, planes and satellites will enable the government of Hong Kong to identify potential offenders related to domestic aggressive localists groups. This equipment will be spying on people without their knowledge, and it will enable the police force to gather enough information about potential terrorists in the country. The government of Hong Kong will be aware, and they will come up with measures to ensure that no terrorist activities are being planned by these individuals. This will help reduce destruction of property in the country and the country will remain in normalcy. This intelligence will also be able to detect any suspicious activities going on and they will take the necessary measures to deal with it before it escalates. This will also enable the country to identify violent activities before they escalate, and people start dying and losing property. The government is concerned with the welfare of the people of Hong Kong and they should be ready to ensure that they are living in peace and harmony (Lowenthal and Clark, 2015). This intelligence will also be able to identify when the people of Hong Kong are dissatisfied with a certain court ruling and they want to start a violent protest the police force will be able to intervene before it gets out of hand.

Imagery Intelligence

Imagery Intelligence also known as photo intelligence was used in the past during the Civil War though it can be used now to gather intelligence on culprits ’of human trafficking and there will be evidence from the photos. These images will enable the police force to gather the required information on the traffickers, what they are planning, and they will get a good chance to ambush them as they know where they are located (Lowenthal and Clark, 2015). This will enable the country of Hong Kong to be free of immoral and hazardous activities, and consequently returning into a healthy society with no labor and sexual exploitation, enabling the growth of the country as there will be enough laborers in the companies and organization. These images can also be used in court as evidence in a case ruling. Once information about a certain gang has been collected, the police force can come up with measures to stop them before they do harm to the community.?

Conclusion

To sum up, the outlined above security risks should be addressed adequately as they affect the people of Hong Kong adversely. The government of Hong Kong should work together with its people to solve these problems. Unity is power, and I believe these two parties can solve these issues once they work together. We want peace in the country, which will help us work together towards development and increase the country's productivity. The government should implement such intelligence to identify the threats to the security of the country even before it happens.