National security guidelines for HK civil servants: Too much of a good thing?

Civil servants are to get a new set of guidelines next year, according to Secretary for Security Chris Tang, which will show them how to safeguard national security in their daily duties.

Announcing this interesting project in the Legislative Council, Tang said the exercise would “change the mentality and mindset of our colleagues, to embed the concept of national security in their brains.”

This seems to be asking a lot of a set of guidelines. But the really puzzling bit comes next. The new guidelines will be confidential.

“It must be confidential. If others know about how we remind our colleagues [to safeguard national security], those endangering national security will try to escape from [being caught],” Tang said.

And at this point Tang really seems to have crossed from optimistic to delusional. According to the government publication Hong Kong: the Facts, “As at March 31, 2024, the civil service employed about 173,100 people (excluding judges, judicial officers, officers of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and locally engaged staff working in the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices outside Hong Kong) or about 4.6 per cent of Hong Kong’s labour force.”

Under modern circumstances – or ancient ones, for that matter – the idea of a secret being preserved between more than 170,000 people is clearly preposterous. A professional spy will laugh at the idea. With so many targets he will expect to have an informant already – motivated in the usual way by ideology, money or sex – who will pass him the guidelines in a matter of days.

The amateurs who just enjoy sticking it to the Man will need a bit longer. But the end result will be the same. We could run a sweepstake on how long it will take before the guidelines are uploaded to some subversive website beyond the reach of the Hong Kong government. What is your money on? One month? Two?

The good news for Tang is that this is unlikely to be a huge help to people who do not care for national security.

His idea seems to be that there is some secret giveaway, known to the Security Bureau but not to its assorted enemies, which the well-briefed civil servant can spot in a subversive. If this secret gets out, then the assorted enemies can change their spots, abandon their tell-tales, whatever they are, and so avoid detection.

This sounds very much like the sort of thing which used to go on in Western countries when they still believed in witches. Elderly lady living alone? Suspicious. She has a cat? Clearly an emissary from the Dark Lord. She has a broomstick? What more evidence do we need? Send for the witchfinder, who will locate the definitive sign: a place where she does not feel pain.

We can all look forward with interest to discovering what the secret giveaway for national security violators might be. A foreign phone? Stays late in the office alone? Arrives early? Wears Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirts at the weekends?

There is a serious side to this, of course. Whatever the concealed Mark of Treason might be, it is not going to be conducive to good morale if everyone in the civil service is constantly casting a suspicious eye over his colleagues.

There will, I fear, be cases in which a sincere mistake is made, leading to unjustified suspicion being cast, and much distress and anxiety to the victim. Alas, there will also probably be cases in which a spurious mistake is made, as a way of putting a spoke in the wheel of some rival candidate for promotion or apres-office sex. If you give everyone a dangerous weapon, some people will mishandle it.

I do wonder if someone could perhaps persuade Tang that even in national security matters there can be such a thing as Having Too Much of a Good Thing.

Civil servants are already required to swear allegiance to the government. Their code of conduct now starts with “upholding the constitutional order and national security.” Judicious pruning has removed objectivity and impartiality, so the persecution of independent bookshops and inconvenient political bodies is now unimpeded.

Most civil service jobs have little or no connection to national security, however broadly defined. They have taken the oath and read the code. Surely that should be enough. Or are they also required to love Big Brother?

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