On Feb. 24, The Hong Kong government announced a new budget for fiscal year 2021–2022, allocating HK$ 8 billion (US$ 1 billion) for the national security crackdown, despite facing a huge deficit. This is the first time that national security expenditures appeared in the Hong Kong government’s budget, following Beijing putting out and implementing the sweeping “Hong Kong National Security Law” at the end of June last year. However, the Hong Kong government did not provide any details of the national security budget, which caused public concerns. Following the resignation of Hong Kong’s democratic legislators in November last year, the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong Paul Chan Mo-po announced the 2021 Budget for the first time in the parliament led by the pro-Beijing establishment on Wednesday. At the press conference, Chan said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong’s fiscal deficit in 2020 was HK$ 257.6 billion (US$ 33.2 …