Andrew Kan Kai Yan has retired from the Hong Kong Police Force after 35 years, ending a career that took him from frontline patrol and crime prevention to the senior role overseeing national-security work. As he left office, Kan said risks including “soft resistance” had not disappeared and called for national-security education to be deepened to raise public awareness.
Kan, 57, joined the force in 1991 and worked in operational command and human-resources management before moving into national-security work about six years ago. He became deputy commissioner responsible for national security in 2023.
He said it was a great honour to witness and take part in work connected with the National Security Law and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance during the final stage of his career. The law was enacted in 2020 and the ordinance was gazetted in 2024. Kan said the measures had raised awareness of national security and provided a legal basis for police enforcement.
In comments reported by i-CABLE News, Kan said the national-security hotline had received 1.3 million messages, with more than one in 10 followed up. He also said police officers had become familiar with the relevant legal provisions and enforcement grounds.
Kan said there was no such thing as inadvertently falling foul of the law, and rejected suggestions that police had engaged in indiscriminate enforcement or arrests. He said officers consider both the conditions of a public-assembly application and the applicant’s motivation when deciding whether to approve it.
He also said a banned-books list was unnecessary. According to Kan, officers read and closely examine books before taking action against a bookshop, rather than acting without examining the material.
His recollections also returned to routine street-level work. When he was a newly recruited uniformed patrol officer stationed in North Point, Kan said he and colleagues stopped traffic to help an elderly woman cross safely before escorting her back to her home. Later, as an inspector involved in tackling illegal gambling, he said such work could help prevent families being destroyed by addiction.