UK, US, Australia and Canada scold China over Hong Kong

The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Canada scolded China on Thursday for imposing a new security law that they said would threaten freedom and breach a 1984 Sino-British agreement on the autonomy of the former colony.

"Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom," the countries said. The new national security legislation would "curtail the Hong Kong people's liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong's autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous."