Taipei, September 25, 2024—Hong Kong authorities should renew Associated Press photojournalist Louise Delmotte’s visa, and allow foreign correspondents to work freely in the city, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday.
“Denying Louise Delmotte’s entry is a petty act of retaliation against her journalistic work,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “This pattern of denying journalists entry has become a way for government authorities to pressure and harass the media.”
Associated Press photojournalist Louise Delmotte was denied entry into Hong Kong on September 14, following a refusal by authorities to renew her work visa, and repatriated back to France after her arrival to the city’s airport as a tourist. Delmotte’s work visa expired in the first half of this year, and the immigration department denied her visa extension application without any stated reason, according to mediareports.
In August 2023, the Associated Press published Delmotte’s photographs of Jimmy Lai, founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, walking in and out of solitary confinement at the maximum-security Stanley prison. Lai faces charges of conspiracy to print seditious publications and collusion with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The media mogul faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
The Hong Kong Immigration Department did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment. During a media session on Tuesday, Hong Kong chief executive John Lee was asked about Delmotte’s entry denial and said, “the Immigration Department is doing the same as all other immigration authorities are doing in other jurisdictions; that is, they will look at the entries’ characteristics and examine the entries in accordance with the policies and the laws.”
The Associated Press told CPJ in an email that immigration authorities did not provide a reason for Delmotte’s denial. “Louise Delmotte is a talented journalist, and we are proud of the important work she has done in Hong Kong for The Associated Press,” the outlet wrote. “AP continues to have a presence in Hong Kong and is working with Louise on next steps.”
China was the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with at least 44 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.
Authorities in Hong Kong have jailed three people for wearing a ‘seditious’ T-shirt and making protest-related graffiti and social media posts, the first imprisonments under the Article 23 security law.
The West Kowloon Magistrate’s Court handed down a 14-month jail term to Chu Kai-pong, 27, the first person to be sentenced under the new law, on Sept. 19.
Chu was found guilty of wearing a T-shirt and a mask emblazoned with a banned slogan of the 2019 protest movement, “Free Hong Kong, Revolution now!” and “Five Demands, Not One Less,” a reference to the five demands of the protest movement that included calls for fully democratic elections.
The court jailed a second defendant, 29-year-old Chung Man-kit, for 10 months after he pleaded guilty to three charges of sedition. Chung had repeatedly scrawled slogans in support of independence for Hong Kong, as well as the “Free Hong Kong” protest slogan, on the back of bus seats in March and April, the court found.
A day later, the same court handed a 14-month jail term to defendant Au Kin-wai, after finding him guilty of “knowingly publishing publications with seditious intent,” based on posts he made to YouTube, Facebook and X calling on ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee to step down.
What is the Article 23 legislation?
The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance was passed on March 23, 2024, fulfilling the Hong Kong government’s obligations under Article 23 of the city’s constitution, the Basic Law, which gives the law its nickname.
The law covers many of the same offenses as the 2020 National Security Law, but with expanded definitions, new crimes and penalties.
It adds the crime of “treason,” “theft of state secrets” and “external interference” to the statute book, while expanding maximum sentences for “sedition” from to 7 years’ imprisonment, 10 if the person is found guilty of “collusion with external forces.”
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, government officials and lawmakers applaud following a group photo, after the Safeguarding National Security Bill, also referred to as Basic Law Article 23, was passed at the Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, in Hong Kong, China March 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Joyce Zhou)
Previously, the charge of “sedition” under colonial-era laws carried a maximum penalty of just 3 years in jail.
Suspects can be detained for up to 16 days before being charged, and be prevented from seeing a lawyer in some circumstances.
In May 2024, police arrested six people under the law for making “seditious” Facebook posts mentioning the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, including vigil organizer Chow Hang-tung.
Rights activists have warned that the law gives officials too much power, especially when it comes to defining what is meant by “collusion with foreign forces” or “state secrets,” or what constitutes subversion.
It is the second national security law to be passed in the city since 2020, and, like its predecessor, applies to speech and acts committed by anyone, of any nationality, anywhere in the world.
Why the need for a second security law?
The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, also known as Article 23, has been described by Hong Kong-based former Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong, who served a five-year prison sentence in China for “espionage” for doing his job, as a “sword of Damocles” over Hong Kongers’ heads.
According to Ching: “Essentially this law is the culmination of a long-running attempt to graft the ideology, political ideas, and behavioral patterns of the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian system onto a pro-Western capitalist society that respects universal values.”
While the 2020 National Security Law was an emergency response from Beijing to what it saw as chaos and instability during the 2019 protests, the Article 23 law was always inevitable, dating back as it did to Sino-British negotiations ahead of the 1997 handover, in which the people of Hong Kong had no say or control.
But the process faced mass popular anger and opposition.
The Hong Kong government was supposed to have passed national security legislation decades ago, but officials shelved the bill following a mass protest in 2003 that took leaders by surprise.
What was the point of the first security law?
The Article 23 legislation remained on ice throughout the mass pro-democracy movements of 2014 and 2019.
Protesters take part in a rally in solidarity with Hong Kong residents, as the Article 23 national security laws come into force, in London, Britain, March 23, 2024. (REUTERS/Hollie Adams)
But when protesters started defacing the emblems of Chinese rule in 2019, both in the Legislative Council and outside Beijing’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Chinese officials started calling for a crackdown on dissent to prevent “hostile foreign forces” from destabilizing Hong Kong.
At 11.00 p.m. local time on June 30, 2020, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee imposed the Hong Kong National Security Law on the city by inserting it into one of the annexes of its constitution, bypassing the Legislative Council, or LegCo.
More than 10,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,800 prosecuted in a citywide crackdown in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, mostly under public order charges.
Nearly 300 have been arrested under 2020 National Security Law, according to the online magazine ChinaFile.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Joshua Lipes.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jasmine Man for RFA Mandarin, Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
Falling revenue from land auctions — once a mainstay of the city’s fiscal strength — has hit Hong Kong government coffers hard in recent months, resulting in a spike in the fiscal deficit and dwindling fiscal reserves.
Government expenditure between April and July topped HK$242.6 billion (US$31 billion), with revenue at just HK$90.1 billion (US$11.5 billion) over the same period, resulting in a cumulative year-to-date deficit of HK$135.4 billion (US$17.4 billion), the government said.
The government reported a budget deficit of about HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, almost double its earlier estimate.
The latest figures from April through July suggest it could be on track for an even larger hole in public finances in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.
Hong Kong reported a budget deficit of HK$257.6 billion for the 2020-21 fiscal year, the largest deficit in 20 years, reflecting huge government expenditures during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apartment blocks at Oi Man housing estate, May 8, 2024, in Hong Kong. (Dale De La Rey/AFP)
But the deficit, which analysts say is mostly the result of reduced revenues from land auctions and recently cut stamp duties, hasn’t disappeared since then, largely due to a flagging property market and a post-lockdown economic slump.
Fiscal reserves stood at HK$599.2 billion (US$76.8 billion) as of July 31, their lowest level in 14 years. However, the figures have taken into account proceeds and payouts on recent government bond transactions, the government said in an Aug. 30 statement.
Fiscal obligations
Hong Kong is obliged under its constitution, the Basic Law, to avoid deficits by keeping spending within revenue limits, yet the city has reported four deficits in the past five years.
“The government has slowed down the supply of land to give the market time, but the Hong Kong property market is facing structural changes,” Joseph Ngan, former finance channel chief at i-CABLE News, wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Cantonese.
“The effect of the stimulating measures at the beginning of this year has now worn off, and real estate prices have seen further downward pressure in recent months,” Ngan wrote.
“This has impacted developers’ willingness to invest in land, and will eventually mean a huge fiscal deficit.”
The situation has left some government departments charged with managing affordable housing and cultural assets in dire financial straits, including the Housing Authority, which runs the city’s public housing estates, and the Urban Renewal Authority, which spearheads urban redevelopment and refurbishment projects.
Hong Kong apartment buildings, May 15, 2024. (Dale De La Rey/AFP)
Such departments are now in need of fresh injections of capital, analysts said.
The Housing Authority, which relies on public housing rentals and the sale of premium-free Home Ownership Scheme housing as its main income, is in a similar situation.
Revenue in recent years has been lower than expected, leaving the body with an operating surplus that shrank from HK$12.6 billion (US$1.6 billion) in 2023 to HK$2.6 billion (US$330 million).
Public rental housing revenue is expected to move into the red this fiscal year, with a projected deficit of around HK$2.143 billion (US$276 million) next year.
Housing construction promised
At the same time, the Hong Kong government has pledged to speed up construction of more than 10,000 subsidized housing units within the next five years, boosting annual construction expenditure by HK$10 billion (US$1.2 billion) to HK$40 billion (US$5 billion).
The authority has tried to staunch the losses by slashing discounts to its affordable Home Ownership Scheme private sector apartments from 62% last year to just 30% this year, but the move has made it harder to sell the apartments in what was already a difficult market.
Financial commentator Simon Lee said the authority was forced to sell off some of its public housing assets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
“The Housing Authority was the first to be affected when the real estate market froze during the 1997 financial crisis,” Lee said. “Public housing rentals can carry on when the market is strong, but Hong Kong is tied into the public policy model of real estate subsidies.”
He said the government also holds a stake in train and subway operator MTRC, and subsidizes it to build housing and other developments on its land, and around stations.
A worker walks past a large advertisement photo of a property project of the China Evergrande Group outside its local headquarters in Hong Kong, Oct. 4, 2021. (Vincent Yu/AP)
Meanwhile, the Urban Renewal Authority has been issuing bonds in a bid to raise enough funds.
“Exorbitantly high construction costs and high interest rates, coupled with high prices for previously acquired land … have put considerable pressure on the [Urban Renewal] Authority,” Joseph Ngan told RFA Cantonese’s Free to Talk Finance show.
“The reversal in the real estate market has left a lot of property-related public bodies under tremendous pressure,” he said.
Bond sale
The Urban Renewal Authority’s recent triple-tranche HK$12 billion (US$1.5 billion) senior bonds offering under its US$3 billion Medium Term Note Programme will help to fund its capital expenditure on urban renewal projects and for general corporate purposes, the authority said in an Aug. 21 statement.
The offering was well-received by a diverse group of high-quality local and overseas investors, including banks, asset managers, corporations, insurance companies, hedge funds, central banks, official institutions, family offices and private banks.
It had a peak combined orderbook of over HK$22.8 billion (US$2.9 billion), representing an oversubscription rate of around 2 times, the statement said.
The bond sale came after the authority suffered its first loss in nine years in 2022/23, totaling more than HK$3.9 billion last year. Projected construction costs this year will run to HK$64.3 billion (US$8.2 billion), but current cash reserves are only HK$18 billion (US$2.3 billion).
The authority has also been allowed to borrow up to HK$25 billion (US$3.2 billion) under government guarantees.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
Authorities in Hong Kong have interrogated and denied entry to a German rights activist amid warnings from the United States of growing personal and business risks for those traveling to the city.
Immigration officers turned away rights activist David Missal, deputy managing director & press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany, after he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on Sept. 7 from Beijing’s Daxing International Airport, according to a copy of an official “Refusal Notice” he shared to his X account on Sunday.
“I was just refused entry to Hong Kong,” Missal, who is also the co-founder of a group called Freedom for Hong Kong, wrote in his X post.
“After 13 sleepless hours under immigration examination in the middle of the night, I was told that I could not enter the city and was eventually allowed to take a plane to Vietnam.”
Missal, who isn’t the first foreign rights activist to be denied entry to Hong Kong, described being “questioned several times and held in a room without any daylight,” adding that immigration officers also searched his luggage.
“The police did not provide any reason for the entry refusal. In the end, I was accompanied by plainclothes police officers to the plane to Vietnam,” Missal wrote, adding that he had been allowed to enter mainland China for two weeks on a visa waiver program with no issues.
“I hope Hong Kong will be free – one day,” he said.
Eroding freedoms
Ray Wong, who heads Freedom for Hong Kong, said the erosion of the city’s freedoms was clear to all, including foreign passport-holders.
“That Hong Kong has become less free is something not only we, who come from Hong Kong, notice,” Wong said in a statement. “Foreigners are also not safe from the regime’s arbitrariness. The National Security Police has become an instrument of repression.”
Tenzyn Zöchbauer, executive director of Tibet Initiative Germany, strongly condemned the treatment of Missal.
“It is unacceptable that even private travelers with critical voices are denied entry,” Zöchbauer said. “These measures are not only an alarming sign of the ongoing loss of Hong Kong’s autonomy but also a clear violation of international human rights standards.”
Missal told RFA Mandarin in a later interview from Vietnam that the move was an example of China’s “transnational repression.”
“The Hong Kong government and a lot of authoritarian countries are doing this now; I think it’s very common,” he said. “It’s pretty scary.”
A screenshot of a post on X by David Missal, deputy managing director & press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany he says shows a plainclothes policeman following him in the Hong Kong airport, Sept. 8, 2024. (@DavidJRMissal via X)
Yet Missal was allowed to enter China, spending time in Beijing and southwestern Sichuan province in a private capacity before boarding the plane to Hong Kong.
This suggests the city’s officials are now even more zealous than their mainland Chinese counterparts when it comes to turning away “undesirables.”
“I feel like Hong Kong is the same as mainland China now, or it may be more strict, which is a real shame,” Missal said, adding that he didn’t know if the incident would affect his ability to go back to mainland China in future.
Personal details probed
From Sept. 3, anyone traveling to Hong Kong will have their personal details sent to the city authorities before they board their flight, making it easier for officials to turn away foreign journalists, members of international organizations, and anyone else they see as “undesirable” before they travel.
Missal’s denial of entry came as the U.S. government issued risk advisories to American citizens and businesses, warning them of “personal safety and legal risks” when traveling to Hong Kong or doing business there.
Five government departments issued a statement to “highlight new and heightened risks” to U.S. companies operating in Hong Kong in the wake of the latest national security legislation, known as “Article 23.”
“Hong Kong’s diminishing autonomy from the central government of the People’s Republic of China, creates new risks for businesses and individuals in Hong Kong that were previously limited to mainland China,” the departments said in a joint statement dated Sept. 6.
A screenshot of a post on X by David Missal, Deputy managing director & press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany that shows his denial for entry into Hong Kong, Sept. 8, 2024. (@DavidJRMissal via X)
The warnings were aimed at individuals, businesses, academic institutions, media organizations, research service providers and investors operating in Hong Kong, it said.
“The vaguely defined nature of the law and previous government statements and actions raise questions about risks associated with routine activities,” it said, in a reference to the “Article 23″ legislation passed in March.
The U.S. State Department has warned Americans to “exercise increased caution when traveling to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws” since April 2024, when its advisory was updated following the implementation of Article 23.
‘I don’t think this ploy will succeed’
The Hong Kong government rejected the advisory as “misleading and untruthful,” accusing Washington of “trying to create panic.”
The city’s second-in-command, Chief Secretary for the Administration Eric Chan said the U.S. advisory was an attempt to suppress China’s rise.
“The National Security Law has been enacted for a long time and we can all see that we have never groundlessly arrested any business people,” Chan told reporters on Saturday.
The warnings “involve an element of intimidation, to scare away business people hoping to invest in Hong Kong. I don’t think this ploy will succeed,” Chan said.
Anouk Wear, U.S. Research and Policy Advisor for the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, welcomed the U.S. advisory, however.
“This advisory … rightly highlights the new and increased risks of operating in Hong Kong,” Wear said in a statement, which called for further sanctions on Hong Kong officials responsible for ongoing human rights violations
“We urge American businesses and citizens in Hong Kong to take this seriously and reconsider the risks of remaining in the city, in addition to the decreasing rights and freedoms on the ground.”
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by .
A journalist who made a feature-length documentary using on-the-ground footage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests has spoken about the need to face up to the trauma of the months-long movement.
The protests, which began as an outpouring of anger over plans to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China, were a key milestone in Hong Kong’s transformation from one of the most free-wheeling cities in Asia to the restrictive semi-police state it is today.
The filmmaker, who gave only the nickname Alan for fear of reprisals, will screen his film “Rather be Ashes Than Dust” in Canada this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the protest movement this year.
Built from thousands of hours of handheld footage from Hong Kong’s streets, much of the action takes place amid pitched street battles between frontline protesters wielding umbrellas, bricks and Molotov cocktails confronting fully-equipped riot police with non-lethal bullets, water cannons and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of tear gas.
For Alan, editing his film involved reliving the chaos, terror and heartache of those months, as well as facing up to his own traumatized response.
“I knew all of the scenes inside out,” he told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “Every location, exactly what happened there — where shots were fired, where people were arrested, where blood was spilled.”
PTSD
Alan, who like many Hong Kongers has suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing so much violence and anguish on Hong Kong’s streets, had to take the edit slowly.
“There were some scenes where I really couldn’t stop crying,” he said. “I would cut for maybe one or two minutes, then I wouldn’t be able to carry on.”
Only some protesters took on police at the barricades, however. The film also portrays peaceful protesters in their thousands and millions coming out in support of the “Five Demands”: the withdrawal of amendments to extradition laws; fully democratic elections; an amnesty for all arrested protesters; accountability for police brutality and the withdrawal of the use of the word “rioters” to describe them.
Hong Kong director “Alan,” whose film “Rather be Ashes Than Dust” premieres in Canada in September 2024. (RFA)
At times, Alan found that his role as a supposedly impartial observer was at odds with his desire to help those he was filming.
“One time, the police pinned down a couple,” he said of one incident, which happened as protesters occupied the Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. “I was some distance away at the time, but I could see them going after people.”
“I really, really wanted to warn them to get out of there fast,” he said. “But I was a coward and kept quiet – I just kept on filming the whole thing.”
That decision haunts Alan to this day, leading him to feel that the film could encourage similar “soul-searching” in others.
“The couple got arrested in the end,” he said.
An image from the trailer from the documentary “Rather Be Ashes Than Dust”. (Doc Edge via Youtube)
Later, he was to act as a witness for protesters who were being arrested.
“Everyone who got arrested started saying their names and ID card numbers in front of a video camera,” Alan said. “Because there were rumors going around that anyone who got arrested would likely just disappear, never to be heard of again.”
“So we recorded all of their images and their voices, as evidence,” he said.
Sold-out theaters
“Rather be Ashes Than Dust” has already been screened at film festivals in South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden.
At the Busan International Film Festival last October, it played to three sold-out theaters that were packed with young Koreans.
“Hong Kong’s government is actually quite similar to that of South Korea: there’s a lot of conflict and disputes,” he said. “That atmosphere was the reason why so many young South Koreans came to watch my film.”
Alan thinks his film, which is scheduled to screen in Toronto on Sept. 28 and 29, will encourage others to face up to Hong Kong’s recent history, even if the wounds are very far from healed.
“It’s been five years now, and regardless of how you see things, I think we have to face up to what happened with courage and fortitude, because it’s our history,” he said.
“Then, maybe we can reflect on it, maybe do some soul-searching, ask if we did the right thing, and if it was enough?”
Even from exile, the film has a role to play, he believes, adding: “The media should never abandon its duty to speak out on behalf of the powerless, the vulnerable and the oppressed.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sze Tsz Shan for RFA Cantonese.
Taipei, September 2, 2024—Hong Kong authorities are criminalizing normal journalistic work with the “openly political” conviction of two editors from the shuttered news portal Stand News for subversion, the Committee to Protect Journalists and four other rights groups said.
By weaponizing the legal system against journalists, China has ruthlessly reneged on guarantees given to Hong Kong, which should enjoy a high degree of autonomy after the former British colony was handed back to Beijing in 1997, the groups said in a joint statement.
Former Stand News editors Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen are due to be sentenced on September 26 and could be jailed for two years.
“We now await with trepidation the outcome of trials targeting senior staff from the defunct Apple Daily newspaper, especially its founder Jimmy Lai who faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars,” they added.
A Hong Kong court on Thursday found two editors of the now-defunct Stand News guilty of conspiring to publish seditious material, marking the first sedition conviction against any journalist since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.
The publication’s former editor-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen, and former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, could face a maximum prison term of two years.
The journalists were charged with conspiracy to publish seditious material under a colonial-era law that has been increasingly used to target dissent as part of a crackdown that followed huge anti-government protests in the Asian financial hub in 2019.
Sedition laws were introduced during British colonial rule but had not been used until 2020 when China imposed new national security laws in response to the protests, which it blamed on outside interference.
Along with new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” and subversion, prosecutors began charging Hong Kong people with sedition for the first time in more than 50 years.
The trial was initially expected to last 20 days but ran over to 56.
Hong Kong government lawyers said some of the articles published by Stand News helped promote “illegal ideologies,” and smeared the security law and law enforcement officers.
During the trial, Chung, who pleaded not guilty, denied that Stand News was a political platform, and stressed the importance of freedom of speech, while Lam, who also pleaded not guilty, chose not to give testimony.
This frame grab from AFPTV video footage shows Chung Pui-kuen (R), the former chief editor of Hong Kong’s now shuttered pro-democracy news outlet Stand News, arriving at the Wan Chai District Court ahead of a verdict in a landmark sedition trial in Hong Kong on Aug. 29, 2024. (Daniel Lee, Grace Wai/AFPTV/AFP)
Stand News, founded in 2014, was one of the last openly critical media outlets in Hong Kong following the closure of the Apple Daily newspaper in June 2021.
During the 2019 protests, Stand News gained prominence for its live-streaming from the streets and for its critical reporting of the city authorities, who dubbed the publication “misleading.”
In 2021, dozens of civil society groups shut in the city after China imposed a national security law, with many activists arrested.
Stand News was among the publications that shut down under the shadow of the law. On Dec. 29, 2021, police raided its office, arresting senior staff. Its assets were also frozen, forcing Stand News to cease its operations.
The pro-democracy Apple Daily was also forced to close following police raids on its newsroom and the freezing of its assets in the same year.
Jimmy Lai, the Apple Daily’s founder, is on trial, accused of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces” and “conspiring to publish seditious materials.”
The crackdown on Hong Kong’s media has drawn criticism from rights groups and some Western governments. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Stand News as “one of the few remaining bastions of free and independent media” in Hong Kong.
City leaders deny that the media has been targeted and stress the importance of preserving stability to protect Hong Kong’s economic success.
Days after Stand News shut down, another Hong Kong-based independent news outlet, Citizen News, announced it would cease operations, citing the deteriorating media environment and risks to its staff.
The closure of the Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News within months of each other dealt a blow to the city’s once vibrant press scene.
Some foreign news organizations have closed their offices, or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny by the authorities.
The city’s press freedom ranking fell from 73 out of 180 territories and countries in Reporters Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index to 135 last year, just above South Sudan.
“Once a bastion of press freedom, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China has suffered an unprecedented series of setbacks since 2020, when Beijing adopted a national security law aimed at silencing independent voices,” the media watchdog said.
The Hong Kong government, while insisting that civil liberties are guaranteed in the city, has further tightened the sedition laws, which they say are necessary to ensure the media does not “endanger” national security.
In April, the city passed its own version of the national security law, known as Article 23, adding several new offenses, including treason, sabotage, and espionage, and allowing police to hold suspects for up to 16 days without charge. Sedition has also been added, and its scope expanded to include “inciting hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.
The government says the provisions were similar to laws in places like the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore to tackle covert and overt foreign influence over political systems.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
Taipei, August 23, 2024 – The Hong Kong Immigration Department has denied a work visa to Bloomberg News reporter Haze Fan, a Chinese national who was previously detained for at least 13 months by national security officials in Beijing.
“Hong Kong authorities should not normalize the practice of refusing foreign or mainland Chinese journalists visa applications or renewals,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “The government must recognize that the city’s economic vitality heavily depends on the work of these journalists.”
On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s independent news site Hong Kong Free Press reported that Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait announced in a staff notice Fan’s visa denial and her subsequent transfer to the outlet’s London office.
Fan was first detained in Beijing by plainclothes security officials in December 2020 on suspicion of participating in activities that endangered national security. She was released on bail in January 2022, according to a statement by Chinese authorities dated May 2022. However, the journalist was unable to be located for more than a month, according to her employer.
On Tuesday, a Hong Kong Journalists Association reported in its annual survey that the city’s press freedom is currently at its lowest point in 11 years. The survey, which gathered responses from 1,000 public members and 251 journalists, revealed journalists’ significant concerns about the impact of Article 23 national security legislation, which can be used to criminalize journalistic practice under the guise of national security,on Hong Kong’s media.
A Bloomberg News spokesperson declined to comment on Fan’s visa application in an emailed request for comment sent by CPJ.
The Hong Kong immigration department did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.
“Glory to Hong Kong,” the anthem of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, has been taken down by major streaming platforms Apple Music and Spotify around the world, despite only being banned in Hong Kong, its creators have said.
“Distribution companies in the U.K., United States and Canada are kneeling down [to China],” DGX Music, the creative team behind “Glory to Hong Kong.” wrote on their Instagram account on Tuesday. “It has completely disappeared from all streaming platforms.”
“We couldn’t find the original version of ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ released by DGX Music on Apple Music or Spotify in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom or Canada,” the songwriters said.
“Glory to Hong Kong,” which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between protesters and armed riot police.
Public live performances of the song are already banned in Hong Kong, as its lyrics are deemed illegal under stringent national security legislation.
But the Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address its continued availability online, calling it a “weapon” that could be used to bring down the government, and an “rfainsult” to China’s national anthem.
‘Separatist intent’?
The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.
A survey of Spotify and Apple Music in Taiwan, the U.K. and Canada yielded no results for the original version of the song during a search by RFA Cantonese on Wednesday. However, some remixes and cover versions were still available.
Multiple versions of the song were still visible following a search of YouTube in several locations.
The song’s disappearance comes after YouTube blocked access to dozens of videos containing the song to viewers in the city in May, following a court injunction that said it could be used as a “weapon” to bring down the government.
The company, which is owned by Google’s parent Alphabet, said 32 videos featuring the banned song had been geoblocked and are now unavailable in the city.
DGX Music reported in June that a newly released a capella version of the song was suddenly deleted by U.S. publisher Distrokid, with no reason given, while Scotland’s Emubands made it clear that it had removed the song due to the injunction.
Threat to freedom of speech
But the songwriters said the injunction only applies to Hong Kong, and should have no overseas effect at all.
“Some Western media organizations have complied with the Hong Kong government’s political injunction unnecessarily, resulting in the violation of basic human rights,” DGX Music wrote.
“This has a fundamental impact on Western democratic societies, and poses a serious threat to the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of artistic expression,” they said.
Hong Kong lawyer-turned-musician Adrian Chow said even big multinational platforms will adopt unnecessarily conservative attitudes “in order not to alarm senior management or the legal department.”
“They just give in, saying it’s just one song, not Taylor Swift’s entire back catalog,” Chow said. “Maybe when their legal departments found out how little income it makes, they felt it wasn’t worth the risk … as the legal fees [in case of a lawsuit] would far exceed any income from the song.”
He said independent creators have very little bargaining power with the online streaming platforms, and there is scant opportunity for negotiation.
The Hong Kong authorities can also step up pressure on overseas corporations through any business operations they have in the city, he said.
The song’s labeling as “Hong Kong’s national anthem” on YouTube has been “highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests,” the Court of Appeal judges said when they granted the injunction on May 8.
Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi for RFA Cantonese.
Press freedom in Hong Kong has fallen to its lowest point since an annual survey of the city’s journalists began 11 years ago amid fears it will weaken still further in the wake of Article 23 security legislation passed in March.
More than half of journalists who responded to the latest Hong Kong Journalists’ Association survey said press freedom had declined over the past year, with more than 90% of respondents saying that press freedom had declined overall for the fifth year in a row.
The Press Freedom Index, carried out with the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, received completed survey questionnaires from 251 working journalists between March and May 2024, polling their opinions about the level of press freedom.
A poll of 1,000 randomly selected members of the public showed little perceived change from the previous year, however.
“Journalist respondents were highly concerned about the potential impact of Article 23 national security legislation — introduced in March 2024 — on the media in Hong Kong, with more than 90% saying this would significantly impact press freedom in the city,” the association said in a statement on its website.
Jimmy Lai
Press groups have expressed concern that the language in the law around sedition and state secrets is too vague, and could be interpreted to cover actions or speech by journalists.
Many cited the case of Next Digital media mogul Jimmy Lai, who is currently standing trial on two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces,” one count of “collusion with foreign forces” under the 2020 National Security Law, which ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent in the wake of the 2019 protests.
Much of the prosecution’s evidence centers on opinion articles published in Lai’s now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper.
Lai has been an outspoken supporter of the pro-democracy movement, and several editors at his former paper are also awaiting sentencing for calling for international sanctions in columns and opinion pieces.
The 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 legislation were also in the top five factors affecting journalists in Hong Kong, the survey found, while respondents also cited the disappearance of South China Morning Post journalist Minnie Chan on assignment in Beijing and the sacking of the political cartoonist Zunzi by the Ming Pao newspaper.
Association chairperson Selina Cheng, who was fired from her job at the Wall Street Journal for running in elections to lead the union, said there was a gap between the public perception of press freedom and journalists’ experience of it when doing their jobs.
“The public mostly notices the finished product … and may not consider self-censorship,” Cheng said. “And if journalists have concerns while reporting, writing or editing, the public may not know about it, but the journalists do.”
Publishing mogul Jimmy Lai is escorted to a prison van before appearing in court in Hong Kong, (Kin Cheung/AP)
Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the process had been one of “gradual compression” on journalists.
“The general public wouldn’t notice that as a sudden thing like a needle prick, but instead gradually adapts to the pain,” Lau said. “The government’s approach is subtle, and reduces the public’s demand for information, which is actually a way to hide things from the people.”
Cheng said she isn’t optimistic that things will change any time soon.
Vague wording
The “Article 23” Safeguarding National Security law passed in March includes sentences of up to life imprisonment for “treason,” “insurrection,” “sabotage” and “mutiny,” 20 years for espionage and 10 years for crimes linked to “state secrets” and “sedition.” It also allows authorities to revoke the passports of anyone who flees overseas.
Officials in China and Hong Kong say that journalists are safe to carry out “legitimate” reporting activities under both the 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Law, which was passed on March 23.
Getting it wrong can get a journalist censored, fired, or sent to jail.
Since the Press Freedom Index was founded in 2013, there has been a clear downward trend in the ratings of both the public and journalists, the Association said, adding that the journalists’ score has plummeted from 42 to 25 in the past decade, while the public score fell from 49.4 to 42.2.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ray Chung for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the decision by Hong Kong’s top court to uphold the conviction of publisher Jimmy Lai and six pro-democracy campaigners on charges of participating in an unauthorized assembly in 2019. CPJ is also dismayed by the participation of David Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court who also chairs an advisory panel to the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), as part of a panel of five Court of Final Appeal judges that delivered the ruling.
Former UK Supreme Court head David Neuberger was part of a panel of five Court of Final Appeal judges that delivered the ruling dismissing Jimmy Lai’s appeal on August 12, 2024. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
“It is impossible to reconcile Lord Neuberger’s judicial authority as part of a system that is politicized and repressive with his role overseeing a panel that advises governments to defend and promote media freedom. The Media Freedom Coalition should immediately review his role as chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom,” said CPJ Advocacy and Communications Director Gypsy Guillen Kaiser.
Lai, the 76-year-old founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has been behind bars since 2020. On August 12, Hong Kong’s top court rejected his appeal against a conviction for taking part in unauthorized anti-government protests. Lai, whose trial on national security charges was adjourned again last month to late November, faces possible life imprisonment if convicted. He was honored by CPJ and the organization continues to advocate for his immediate, unconditional release.
The MFC is a group of 50 countries that pledge to promote press freedom at home and abroad. CPJ is a longstanding member of the MFC’s consultative network of nongovernmental organizations.
CPJ believes the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, which serves as the secretariat for the MFC’s panel of media freedom experts, should also review Neuberger’s role.
South Korea has sanctioned a Hong Kong shipping firm and a North Korean vessel over allegations of the illegal transfer of North Korean coal in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.
The 3,000-ton De Yi, owned by HK Yilin Shipping, took coal from a North Korean vessel, Tok Song, in March off the North’s coast in a ship-to-ship transfer in violation of two Security Council resolutions imposed over Pyongyang’s illegal weapons programs, the ministry said.
Maritime transshipment with North Korean vessels and the export of North Korean coal are prohibited under U.N. Security Council sanctions.
Financial transactions with sanctioned individuals and institutions require the approval of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission or the Governor of the Bank of Korea, respectively, and unauthorized transactions may be punishable under applicable laws.
Sanctioned vessels may enter South Korea only with the permission of the relevant authorities.
The ministry said its sanctions demonstrated the government’s “strong will to end North Korea’s illegal nuclear and missile development by blocking its illegal maritime activities.”
“Going forward, the government will continue to take strong and consistent law enforcement action against vessels and operators engaged in the transportation of contraband and violations of Security Council sanctions, and will work closely with our allies in this process,” the ministry added.
RFA was not immediately able to contact HK Yilin Shipping for comment.
In March, the South Korean government detained the De Yi en route to Vladivostok, Russia, at the request of the United States, off the South Korean city of Yeosu, to investigate its alleged involvement in violating Security Council sanctions against North Korea.
At that time, South Korea also imposed sanctions on the Russian ships Angara and Lady R, which have been implicated in suspected arms transfers between North Korea and Russia, as well as Russian individuals and companies.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
Bargain-hungry shoppers from Hong Kong are flocking to Japan, taking advantage of a weak yen to cash in on affordable treats and stock up on household necessities, as well as cheaper meals in restaurants, shoppers told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews.
Hong Kongers spent HK$7.8 billion (around US$1 billion) in Japan in the first quarter of this year, according to figures from the Japanese National Tourism Organization, compared with around HK$17.6 billion (US$2.25 billion) spent by tourists from mainland China in the same period.
And instead of searching out cool, high-end tech and bargain prices for luxury brands, Hong Kongers are stocking up on essentials in bulk during their trips to Japan, searching out the best deals at supermarkets, pharmacy chains, department stores and 100-yen stores.
The trend, which comes as the city’s government struggles to woo investors and global talent, has become so marked that people in Hong Kong jokingly talk about “going back home” when referring to such visits.
For shoppers like Ah B, who asked not to be identified by their real name, Japan is starting to feel like a second home because she and her boyfriend travel there so often.
“Hong Kongers have been going back and forth to Japan for many years now,” she said. “It’s more than just tourism; it’s a feeling of being in residence there. I think it’s that way for a lot of people.”
Shoppers at a pharmacy in Tokyo, July 2024. (Ng Chi Ping/RFA)
Ah B and her boyfriend like to browse second-hand bookstores, picking up rare or out-of-print finds of the kind that have all but disappeared in heavily-censored Hong Kong.
“I’d like to support our local economy, but I don’t have that much money to spend,” she said.
Suitcases full
A shopper who gave only the surname Tang said she travels to Japan at least three times a year, and had just gotten home from Saitama prefecture when she spoke to RFA Cantonese.
Tang likes to travel with her mother, dropping around HK$25,000 (US$3,200) on four suitcase-loads of bargain items on each trip, signing up for the 10-20% discounts that are widely available through apps and loyalty cards, and stocking up on foodstuffs that will last a long time on her return to Hong Kong.
“You can become a member [of loyalty and discount schemes] after you have been there a few times, at which point you can save points or get coupons,” she said. “There are also discounts on your birthday.”
A Hong Kong travel journalist who gave only the pseudonym France for fear of reprisals said he has noticed similar changes in the shopping habits of Hong Kongers in Japan.
Laundry soap is priced in a Tokyo pharmacy at 999 yen (HK$50) in July 2024, compared to prices of more than HK$100 in Hong Kong supermarkets. (Ng Chi Ping/RFA)
“The prices are so attractive, because the yen is so weak,” he said. “There is also a much wider choice, and … everyone in Hong Kong is familiar with Japanese products, and think they are higher quality or safer [than those made elsewhere].”
“So they stock up on daily necessities in supermarkets or local stores when they go to Japan,” France said, adding that the 100-yen store Daiso and Shimamura are both hugely popular, along with wholesale supermarkets, which ship bulk orders straight to Hong Kong addresses.
Even after shipping is added, people still stand to save 20-30% on the prices they would have had to pay in Hong Kong for the same goods, he said.
Slumping Hong Kong sales
Simon Lee, an honorary teaching and research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School, said Hong Kong tourists spend around HK$2 billion (US$256 million) in Japan every month, taking money away from the local retail industry.
“Recent [retail industry figures] have been very poor,” Lee said. The city’s retail sales last month were HK$30.5 billion, and in April they were HK$29.6 billion, down from around HK$40 billion.
Lee said he also makes several shopping trips to Japan every year, adding that Taiwan is also cheap by comparison.
“Even if you go to eat one or two meals, it will still be cheaper,” he said. “You can achieve the same effect in Taiwan.”
Shoppers browse a store in Tokyo offering duty-free shopping for overseas residents, July 2024. (Ng Chi Ping/RFA)
“It’s cheaper to have a meal or two in these places than it is in Hong Kong,” Lee said, adding that Hong Kong’s streets are becoming less of a draw with the demise of its distinctive neon signs.
Hong Kongers told RFA Mandarin in a series of interviews in May that many shops and restaurants in the city have visibly closed down, and that lines are much shorter when it comes to waiting for a table since the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022.
“In Times Square [a flagship mall in Causeway Bay], there are restaurants on several floors … and you used to have to stand in line at dinner time, around 7.00 or 8.00 p.m.,” a Hong Kong resident who gave only the nickname Siu Ying told RFA Mandarin.
“Now there’s no line, and it feels like there are fewer people,” she said.
Meanwhile, even formerly bustling areas like Causeway Bay are looking woebegone, with a growing number of shuttered storefronts, according to a Hong Kong Island resident who gave only the pseudonym David for fear of reprisals.
“I’ve noticed that a lot of shops in previously prosperous areas like Causeway Bay and Wanchai have closed, and haven’t been rented out in a long time,” he said. “This has become a common sight on the streets … nowadays it’s news if a new one opens.”
At the same time, prices for would-be diners are rising sharply, David said.
“When I first got back to Hong Kong [two decades ago], a meal out would cost HK30-40, but nowadays it’s normal to spend more than HK$70-80,” he said. “Personally, I can afford that, but some of my friends are struggling.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Chi Ping for RFA Cantonese, Sun Cheng for RFA Mandarin.
Hong Kong is expecting a sharp fall in the number of primary-school-aged children following a mass exodus of middle-class families fleeing a crackdown on political dissent.
The city’s Bureau of Education estimates, based on August 2023 population data from the Census and Statistics Department, that the number of 6-year-olds will fall by 31% from 49,600 in 2024 to 34,100 in 2030.
Birth rates in Hong Kong began declining in 2014, but plummeted sharply in the wake of a 2019 pro-democracy protest movement and subsequent political crackdown, reaching their lowest level since 1960.
While the population showed a slight uptick following the scrapping of COVID-19 travel curbs, birth rates in the city haven’t caught up, with the number of newborns falling by 38% between 2019 and 2022, according to government data.
Lawmakers called on Secretary for Education Christine Choi on July 5 to do something to reverse the trend and stave off what they termed the “decline” of Hong Kong, media reported.
Choi, who is seeking to promote smaller class sizes as school-age populations fall, said her department would be brokering mergers between schools in a bid to engineer a “soft landing” for the city’s education over the next few years.
She said the government was hoping to attract 100,000 migrants to Hong Kong under talent and labor schemes, in a bid to fuel population growth over the next two decades.
By 2046, 50 years after the 1997 handover of the then British colony to Chinese rule, Hong Kong is hoping to attract a net inflow of permanent residents numbering almost 900,000, with just over half a million non-permanent residents.
To that end, the government has been handing out free plane tickets to visitors and offering work visas to attract professionals, many from mainland China, to replace those who have left.
Net departures of permanent residents from Hong Kong totaled 113,000 for the whole of 2022, prompting calls from media backed by the Communist Party for the government to act to stem the brain drain.
Education blogger Yeung Wing Yu, who runs the @edulancet Instagram account, said Hong Kong’s allure for expat families, even those relocating from mainland China, was on the wane.
Meanwhile, school numbers have been hit hard by the wave of emigration. “Primary years five and six are the hardest hit,” Yeung said. “Many students have left Hong Kong schools and emigrated overseas.”
Those who do come in on talent schemes will likely send their children to high-profile schools with a strong reputation for “patriotic education,” while other schools will be left to flounder and eventually close, Yeung said.
“The situation in Hong Kong’s education system has been created by the Education Bureau since 2020,” Yeung said, in a reference to the passing of Hong Kong’s first National Security Law and its imposition of a China-inspired patriotic education program in schools.
Letter from Xi
Last month, the Education Bureau sparked a public backlash when it criticized Hong Kong’s schoolchildren for their “weak” singing of China’s national anthem, the “March of the Volunteers,” at flag-raising ceremonies that are now compulsory as part of patriotic “national security” education from kindergarten through to universities.
“Our education system is no longer very different from the system in mainland China,” Yeung said. “Patriotic education here is even more exaggerated than in the mainland.”
“If you are caught making faces while singing the national anthem at a football game in Hong Kong, you will be arrested, then it becomes a negative news story about Hong Kong,” he said.
Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of prison for up to three years, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem.
Meanwhile, city officials are holding events to encourage praise for ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
The Education Bureau on Monday held an event at Pui Kiu Middle School to mark the first anniversary of the school’s receipt of a letter from Xi.
“Over the year, the Bureau has been striving to live up to the spirit of President Xi’s reply letter and nurture young people’s affection for and sense of belonging to the country,” Choi told the gathering, promising a wider variety of school trips to mainland China, including exchange programs and study tours.
Hong Kong Secretary for Education Christine Choi addresses staff and students at Hong Kong’s Pui Kiu Middle School on July 8, 2024. (Hong Kong Government Information Service.)
Secondary school students now take part in military-style activities at a national defense education facility in the southern province of Guangdong and “cultivate patriotism and enhance national security awareness,” the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper reported in September 2023, citing a circular sent to schools by the Hong Kong Education Bureau.
More than 930 government schools in Hong Kong have been twinned with schools in mainland China, Choi said.
Yeung said the session at the Pui Kiu Middle School resembled the “songs of praise” for late supreme leader Mao Zedong during China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, adding that commemorative books were handed out to students.
Students at Hong Kong’s Pui Kiu Middle School, July 8, 2024. (Hong Kong Government Information Service.)
“Last year, Xi Jinping wrote a letter … and one year later, Pui Kiu Middle School already has a special status within the Hong Kong education system,” he said. “I expect we’ll see more pilgrims visiting the school in future.”
Yeung said some Hong Kong schools, which mostly teach in the city’s lingua franca, Cantonese, will likely need to switch to Mandarin as a medium of instruction to cater to mainland Chinese students.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by RFA staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi and Ray Chung for RFA Cantonese.
Authorities in Hong Kong are probing allegations that mainland Chinese students are using fake academic credentials to enroll in a prestigious MBA program, sparking fears of falling standards in the city, whose officials are keen to attract migrants from mainland China in the wake of a mass wave of emigration.
As many as 30 applicants to the University of Hong Kong Business School have been found to have used fake documents supplied by a higher education agency, some of them for American universities, Business School Dean Cai Hongbin told the financial news site Caixin in a recent interview.
“As fraudulent academic qualifications seriously affect student admission by local higher education institutions and Hong Kong’s hard-earned international reputation, the [government] and all sectors of the Hong Kong community deeply resent such acts and have zero tolerance towards the matter,” Hong Kong’s Secretary for Education Christine Choi told the city’s legislature in a recent statement.
While police arrested a man and a woman on June 26 and July 3 on suspicion of using fake documents, the university is now asking students to resubmit their academic qualifications, as HKU Business School Dean Cai warned that the fake degrees were mostly found in applications that used a “guaranteed admission” service from an academic agency.
At least 30 students are believed to have used fake documents as part of the “guaranteed admission” service that costs applicants 500,000 yuan apiece, Cai told Caixin.
“Their ability to make fake academic qualifications is astonishing,” the July 4 article quoted Cai as saying. “The University of Hong Kong has carried out spot checks as part of this review of academic qualifications.”
Cai said many of the fake documents weren’t distinguishable from the genuine article, right down to letterhead, envelope, paper quality and other details.
An online search for the keyword “guaranteed admission” in Chinese found several companies offering such services, including a website called Gabroad, which offers “Guaranteed admissions to Top 20 schools” including Harvard, claiming a 100% success rate.
The same site also offers such services for universities in Hong Kong, including the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Full refunds are offered to anyone who isn’t offered a place, regardless of grades and test scores.
Falsifying or supplying fraudulent academic qualifications carries a maximum jail term of 14 years in Hong Kong.
Any violations will result in “decisive disciplinary action” against the students concerned, including expulsion, while offenders will also likely be prosecuted, Choi said in a June 26 written reply to the Legislative Council.
Education and immigration
The HKU Business School is a highly competitive school, receiving more than 24,000 for taught postgraduate programs in 2023, and only awarding places to 2,600 of them, according to Caixin.
All masters students at the school are now being required to resubmit undergraduate degree certificates, transcripts and other materials, the article said.
Year-long taught masters are particularly sought after by mainland students, because they are a quick way to secure the right to remain in the city for at least a year and look for work, offering a pathway to permanent residency.
Hong Kong’s Chuhai College of Higher Education, which once struggled to recruit enough bachelor’s degree students to balance the books, had more than 1,500 students in September 2023 after launching a range of taught, one-year masters courses and promoting them aggressively on mainland social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, according to an investigation by RFA Cantonese.
“Chuhai College in Hong Kong is known as a master’s mill, because a lot of middle-class people from mainland China come here to take a one-year master’s … during which they can get a Hong Kong ID card for their kids,” according to one video circulating on Xiaohongshu in recent weeks.
“A lot of influencers and agents promote the college as a one-stop shop for education and immigration,” the video says.
While Chuhai College once had close ties with the government of Taiwan, it has recently repackaged itself as a “red” school, setting up a research institute to study ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s influence and infrastructure program known as the Belt and Road.
University of Hong Kong Business School Dean Cai Hongbin is seen in an undated photo. (University of Hong Kong)
Taiwanese national security researcher Shih Chien-yu said he once worked as a lecturer at Chuhai College for many years, and confirmed that it has a reputation for not being too picky about who gets admitted.
“Chuhai College doesn’t check very carefully whether applicants meet admission criteria,” Shih told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “There is strict training and guidelines regarding assessment of student performance, but I don’t think it gets implemented in accordance with those standards.”
Chuhai College is now on track to upgrade to university status, if it can attract similar numbers of students next academic year.
The College hadn’t responded to inquiries about its strategy or admissions policies by the time of writing.
However, a statement on its website says the school “has always followed the principles of fair selection, transparent procedures and merit-based admissions when recruiting for both undergraduate and master’s courses.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
Nine years after the mass arrest of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers in a nationwide police operation, the authorities are now including lawyers in Hong Kong in their politically motivated prosecutions, according to a statement from dozens of rights groups.
“Human rights lawyers defend the full spectrum of civil society,” the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said in a statement that was also signed by more than 60 other rights organizations.
“They accompany and empower the most vulnerable against land evictions, discrimination, health scandals, or extralegal detention,” it said. “They embody the promise of rule of law and hold the government accountable.”
“They ensure that no one is left behind,” the statement said, marking the arrests, detention and harassment of more than 300 rights lawyers, public interest law firm staff and rights activists across China starting on July 9, 2015.
Since that operation, the authorities haven’t let up, and have now extended the crackdown to Hong Kong, despite promising to maintain the city’s traditional freedoms and judicial independence, the groups said.
“We are … concerned that the Hong Kong authorities are following a similar path,” the rights groups, which included the New York-based Human Rights Watch and PEN America, said, citing the cases of rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and Margaret Ng, who are all behind bars awaiting trial on “national security” charges.
And in mainland China, many of the lawyers who were targeted have since had their business licenses revoked, preventing them from earning a living, while many served lengthy jail terms for “subversion,” often after years in incommunicado, pretrial detention.
‘Huge turning point’
“The July 9, 2015, crackdown was a huge turning point in my life,” Wang Quanzhang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Monday. “My career as a lawyer was interrupted.”
Even after their release from prison, rights attorneys and their families are still harassed by the authorities, often subjected to repeated evictions and the denial of educational opportunities for their children.
Anti-Chinese Communist Party activists rally for the immediate release of Human Rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng on the 5th anniversary of his arrest, in front of the Chinese Consulate, Aug. 13, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP)
“The power of the state infiltrated our family, affected our lives, and distorted them,” Wang said. “Following my release, I have been constantly forced to move house, forced out of Beijing, and my kid has been forced out of school.”
“This has been disastrous, and caused no end of trouble. We can’t live normal lives like other people,” he said, adding that he has taken some comfort from international voices of support, although they may be powerless to change the outcome for him and his family.
Rights lawyers in China have defended Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers, members of religious minorities and the LGBTQ+ community, feminists, journalists and political dissidents, the statement from the rights groups said.
While acquittals are highly unlikely, independently minded defense attorneys once played a huge role in bringing such cases to international attention.
They have largely now been replaced in the criminal justice system by government-appointed lawyers who are barred from speaking to the media, according to the statement, which was also signed by the International Campaign for Tibet and the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
Vulnerable to torture
Rights lawyers are also vulnerable to torture during detention, the statement said, citing the cases of lawyer-turned-dissident Xu Zhiyong, rights attorney Ding Jiaxi and rights lawyer Chang Weiping.
“We remain deeply concerned at the Chinese government’s increasing use of exit bans to impede human rights lawyers and activists from leaving the country, sometimes to visit a critically ill relative,” the statement said, citing the cases of Li Heping and Tang Jitian.
Forced evictions are also affecting lawyers’ families, the statement said, citing 13 forced evictions of rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang and his family since his release from prison in November 2022.
A human rights lawyer who asked to use the pseudonym Lu Qiang for fear of reprisals said that while not all human rights attorneys have been treated as badly as Wang, many remain under surveillance to this day.
“They haven’t let up on the surveillance in nine years,” Lu said. “You could say it’s everywhere — once they stopped me near the embassy district and the police told me to get in their car, then drove me back two hours to my home. They’re still secretly watching us.”
“Even if we’re not in a smaller prison, we’re still in a big prison.”
Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Pinjian said the point of marking the 2015 crackdown was to acknowledge the huge price paid by rights lawyers and their families.
“The July 9, 2015, incident tore away the veil so people could see the totalitarian government for what it is,” Yu said. “Since then, it has been tough being a human rights lawyer.”
“There’s a high price to pay for speaking out against injustice.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is a “dictator” who broke his country’s 1984 treaty with the United Kingdom about Hong Kong and should not be trusted, the last governor of the former British colony has said.
In a video released by the London-based Hong Kong Watch on Sunday ahead of Monday’s 27th anniversary of the July 1, 1997, handover of the territory from British to Chinese control, Chris Patten said Beijing had not lived up to the terms of its deal with the United Kingdom.
Instead of respecting Hong Kong’s pledged autonomy and status as a free society for 50 years, he said, Beijing had exported its dictatorship.
“What’s happened in the years since then is that the Chinese Communist Party, who’ve made it clear no one can trust them further than you can spit, … trashed a treaty which had been lodged at the United Nations,” Patten said in the video posted to X.
“They said it was simply a historic document. It was not. It was a treaty,” he said, before acknowledging that “for a few years after 1997 things went pretty well,” with Hong Kong remaining mostly free.
“All that changed with Xi Jinping, China’s present – let’s not beat around the bush – China’s present dictator, who came to power at a time when the Chinese communist leadership were getting increasingly worried about things slipping out of control,” he said.
Once ranked the third most free society in the world, Hong Kong has since the late 2010s suffered a “descent into tyranny,” the U.S.-based Cato Institute said in a report on global freedom released late last year amid Beijing’s growing assertions of control over the territory.
‘One country, two systems’
Under the 1984 treaty signed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, Hong Kong was promised continuing autonomy and its British-style legal system under Chinese sovereignty until at least 2047, when the treaty would lapse.
But that did not gel with Beijing’s shifting political goals, Patten said.
China’s President Xi Jinping applauds during a signing ceremony, June 28, 2024, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Photo by Jade Gao/AFP)
Xi and his government, he said, had looked to the growing sense of freedom and autonomy enjoyed by Hongkongers and perceived a threat on their own doorstep to their plans to exert increasing control over their society and export a model of authoritarian governance.
“Xi Jinping and his colleagues were having none of it,” Patten said.
“In particular, they were very worried about the extent to which Hong Kong reflected all those values which they were trying to stamp out: freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, the rule of law, and all those things they don’t understand,” he said.
The former Hong Kong governor said he regretted how things had turned out given that “more than half, and probably two thirds” of the territory’s population at the time of the handover had arrived there as refugees after escaping communism on China’s mainland.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Radio Free Asia that Patten’s video statement on Hong Kong “is a complete reversal of black and white” and “smears” China’s leaders.
“Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs that brook no external interference,” Liu said, calling the implementation of the “One Country, Two Systems” model since 1997 a clear “success.”
“Hong Kong has actively integrated itself into China’s development and continues to serve as an important bridge and window between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world,” he said.
Patten should “have awareness of his role” as the last colonial administrator of the Chinese territory and “get a clear understanding of the change of time,” Liu added, rather than supporting “hysterical anti-China elements who attempt to create chaos in Hong Kong.”
Exhibition in Taiwan
At an exhibition held in Taipei on Monday to commemorate the handover of Hong Kong to China, attendees told RFA that they saw the anniversary of the handover as a solemn day.
One attendee, who gave only their family name of Chen for fear of arrest in Hong Kong, said the event had to be held in Taiwan because local authorities back home were making examples of anyone who negatively portrayed the anniversary of the handover in public.
Hong Kong police had even arrested more people who took part in the city’s 2019 protests, she said, in order to send out a message.
“In these past few days, the Hong Kong government has been arresting people who participated in the protests,” Chen said. “They especially arrest people on significant days to intimidate everyone from coming out, which has been a tactic they’ve used for years.”
“But Hong Kong people are resilient. Like on June 4 just passed, many still came out,” she said, referring to the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre. “People find their own ways to commemorate, and this spirit of resistance of being water and widespread still persists.”
The event’s organizer, Fu Tang, said the erosion of liberties in Hong Kong was complete, with even simple statements now criminal.
“Nowadays in Hong Kong, there’s no way to say something they don’t like,” Fu said. “Just the other day, someone said ‘Revolution is not a crime, to rebel is justified,’ and then the person got arrested.”
“Over the past 27 years, freedom has been declining, and repression against us has been getting worse,” he said. “July 1st marks Hong Kong’s return, but Hong Kongers feel it’s the day of being taken.”
RFA Cantonese contributed reporting. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
Writer Carpier Leung can remember when his Q&A format book “Hong Kong 101” was given a whole table to itself at the Eslite chain of bookstores when it came out in Hong Kong a few years ago.
Published in 2020, the book offered a handy introduction to questions of changing identity, institutional challenges and social issues in the former British colony over the past century. So much so that it was adopted as a textbook by many schools.
“Nowadays, that is completely unthinkable,” Leung said. “It can’t even go on public sale now.”
Hong Kong’s bookstores once drew Chinese-language bibliophiles from far and wide in pursuit of some of the city’s most off-beat, salacious and politically radical writings, coupled with cute or alternative takes on art and culture — like Leung’s photo essay on the city’s iconic housing estates titled “The Call of the Grid.”
And as the political crackdown gathered momentum, libraries made lists of books likely to run afoul of the new law, and pulled them from the shelves.
‘War on libraries’
In what some dubbed a “war on libraries,” titles addressing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as books written by jailed protest leader Joshua Wong and Occupy Central movement founder Benny Tai, started disappearing from public view.
And as people were actively encouraged by police to inform on any words or deeds that could be deemed subversive under the law, bookshores and publishing houses were also engaging in self-censorship.
An undated image shows Carpier Leung viewing part of his extensive collection of Hong Kong memorabilia at his home in Taiwan. (Chen Hsiao-wei)
Many writers and booksellers left the city for fear of arrest, or to seek a freer environment in which to work. Democratic Taiwan, with its educated readership and use of traditional Chinese characters, was a natural home for many Hong Kong literary folk.
“Hong Kongers are dispersing, and so are their books,” according to Chuang Jui-lin, Leung’s editor at Taiwan’s SpringHill Publishing. “Local Hong Kong publications have managed to survive in the political wilderness.”
Hong Kongers were a highly visible minority at this year’s Taipei International Book Fair, with many of their latest offerings happily published by the Hong Kong departments of major Taiwanese publishing houses.
Nostalgia and memory are a constant theme for this segment of the market, Chuang said.
“I have the very strong impression that, regardless of their political stance, many of my Hong Kong friends are working to preserve [memories and a connection to Hong Kong],” Chuang said. “This is being done very meticulously.”
Chuang said even a Hong Kong Cantonese dictionary has been selling well.
“Everyone seems to feel that buying a book like that, even if they just keep it at home, is a form of support,” she said, citing non-fiction works about Hong Kong’s bird-keeping tradition, including birdcage craftsmanship.
“Even the tiniest thing can be turned into a book, because it’s like a magnification of memories. Readers are keen to just look at such detail,” she said, adding that Leung’s book on public housing is a good example, because it captures “many details of Hong Kong.”
Sea change
One of the reasons Leung’s book can’t be sold in Hong Kong any more is the way he folds in the city’s social and political history with beautiful photography of its housing estates.
Once considered a safe seat for pro-establishment candidates in District Council elections, the housing estates were often cut off from the concerns of Hong Kong’s educated middle classes, who typically took to the streets in downtown Hong Kong Island, more than an hour’s trip away from the housing projects of Tuen Mun or Wong Tai Sin.
But in 2019, everything changed, Leung said, and local people turned out to resist plans to extradite alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, and later to demand fully democratic elections.
An undated image of Taiwan-based based author Carpier Leung. (Chen Hsiao-wei)
“The young people in particular felt that they wanted to protect the place where they grew up, and those feelings and sense of identity just came pouring out,” he said. “But how could a Hong Kong reviewer talk about such things? I found that this book could only be published in Taiwan.”
It hasn’t always been this way. Hong Kong publishers once rushed to publish books about the 2014 Occupy Central movement.
But by 2019, the Chinese authorities had decided that the lack of “patriotic education” in the city’s schools was the reason for recent waves of mass popular protest, and imposed the National Security Law on the city, while abolishing the Liberal Studies curriculum and replacing it with classes on patriotic feeling and “national security” from kindergarten to university.
For Huang Hsiu-ju, editor-in-chief of Taiwan’s Rive Gauche Publishing House, publishing works by Hong Kongers about Hong Kong is a way to resist totalitarianism.
“The Hong Kong experience has been there all along, but we have just been too focused on ourselves and didn’t realize how important it was,” said Huang, who has published 13 books on Hong Kong issues so far.
Blank boxes
One book, a memoir of Occupy Central founder Chu Yiu-ming, bears the scars of the Hong Kong crackdown openly, offering up 16,000 blank boxes in lieu of Chinese characters in a chapter that the pastor feared could turn into evidence against him at his trial.
But Huang persuaded Chu to persevere with the rest of the book.
She remembers telling him: “If you don’t write it, then it’s gone, and the things that should be remembered will disappear.”
Eventually, she and the art director assuaged Chu’s concerns by “censoring” parts with blank boxes, a choice that echoes the blank sheets of the 2022 “white paper” protests, Huang said.
An undated image shows large portions of Occupy Central founder Chu Yiu-ming’s memoir replaced by blank boxes to indicate censorship, amid concerns the chapter could be used against him by Hong Kong prosecutors. (Yang Tz-lei)
Rive Gauche’s best-selling books are both about the 2019 protests. Published in 2020, they have sold around 9,000 copies each, and while sales have slowed in recent months, they have not dried up entirely.
What Rive Gauche is doing in non-fiction, author Leung Lee Chi and Ho Kwun-lung, editor-in-chief at Taiwan’s ECUS Publishing House, are doing for literary works by Hong Kongers.
Leung Lee Chi’s next novel “Everyday Movement” will soon be translated into English, offering up 10 short stories depicting Hong Kong in 2019 for an international audience.
“Winning literary awards or publishing books in Taiwan seems to be where the future of Hong Kong writing lies,” she said, adding that she has long wanted to be published in the island, which is home to many of her literary heroes.
‘Red lines’
Leung, 29, fled Hong Kong in 2021 after Everyday Movement ran into censorship issues with the original publisher.
“There were a lot of sensitive passages in my manuscript,” she said. “I wanted to know if it was OK to refuse revisions suggested by the publisher.”
An undated image of Hong Kong author Leung Lee Chi. (Yang Tz-lei)
When the reply came that her editor wasn’t even sure about where the political “red lines” lay, Leung took a plane to Taiwan and carried on writing in the coastal county of Hualien.
Her Taiwanese editor Ho has worked with a few emerging Hong Kong authors in recent years, and is considered part of a new generation of Taiwanese publishers who care about Hong Kong.
“When I started working on these books, I didn’t have a preconceived idea that I would focus on literature from Hong Kong,” he said. “My approach was that of an author who is working on a good novel, which I hoped readers in Taiwan would enjoy reading.”
For Carpier Leung, it’s about a unique voice that is still coming out of Hong Kong, despite the censorship back home.
Writing in the postscript of his book on public housing estates, Leung comments: “After visiting all the big housing estates in Hong Kong, my strongest impression was probably that … speaking is hard, but we still have to find a way to do it.”
“Finding out how to do that, and how to let more people speak too, is part of our task as human beings.”
As for all the books about everything from siu mai and egg waffles to hiking trails and architecture, Chinese-character fonts and local crafts, he’s pretty sure where it’s all coming from.
“I would say that everyone is looking for a safe way to express their love for Hong Kong,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Yee-ching for The Reporter/RFA Mandarin.
Writer Carpier Leung can remember when his Q&A format book “Hong Kong 101” was given a whole table to itself at the Eslite chain of bookstores when it came out in Hong Kong a few years ago.
Published in 2020, the book offered a handy introduction to questions of changing identity, institutional challenges and social issues in the former British colony over the past century. So much so that it was adopted as a textbook by many schools.
“Nowadays, that is completely unthinkable,” Leung said. “It can’t even go on public sale now.”
Hong Kong’s bookstores once drew Chinese-language bibliophiles from far and wide in pursuit of some of the city’s most off-beat, salacious and politically radical writings, coupled with cute or alternative takes on art and culture — like Leung’s photo essay on the city’s iconic housing estates titled “The Call of the Grid.”
And as the political crackdown gathered momentum, libraries made lists of books likely to run afoul of the new law, and pulled them from the shelves.
‘War on libraries’
In what some dubbed a “war on libraries,” titles addressing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as books written by jailed protest leader Joshua Wong and Occupy Central movement founder Benny Tai, started disappearing from public view.
And as people were actively encouraged by police to inform on any words or deeds that could be deemed subversive under the law, bookshores and publishing houses were also engaging in self-censorship.
An undated image shows Carpier Leung viewing part of his extensive collection of Hong Kong memorabilia at his home in Taiwan. (Chen Hsiao-wei)
Many writers and booksellers left the city for fear of arrest, or to seek a freer environment in which to work. Democratic Taiwan, with its educated readership and use of traditional Chinese characters, was a natural home for many Hong Kong literary folk.
“Hong Kongers are dispersing, and so are their books,” according to Chuang Jui-lin, Leung’s editor at Taiwan’s SpringHill Publishing. “Local Hong Kong publications have managed to survive in the political wilderness.”
Hong Kongers were a highly visible minority at this year’s Taipei International Book Fair, with many of their latest offerings happily published by the Hong Kong departments of major Taiwanese publishing houses.
Nostalgia and memory are a constant theme for this segment of the market, Chuang said.
“I have the very strong impression that, regardless of their political stance, many of my Hong Kong friends are working to preserve [memories and a connection to Hong Kong],” Chuang said. “This is being done very meticulously.”
Chuang said even a Hong Kong Cantonese dictionary has been selling well.
“Everyone seems to feel that buying a book like that, even if they just keep it at home, is a form of support,” she said, citing non-fiction works about Hong Kong’s bird-keeping tradition, including birdcage craftsmanship.
“Even the tiniest thing can be turned into a book, because it’s like a magnification of memories. Readers are keen to just look at such detail,” she said, adding that Leung’s book on public housing is a good example, because it captures “many details of Hong Kong.”
Sea change
One of the reasons Leung’s book can’t be sold in Hong Kong any more is the way he folds in the city’s social and political history with beautiful photography of its housing estates.
Once considered a safe seat for pro-establishment candidates in District Council elections, the housing estates were often cut off from the concerns of Hong Kong’s educated middle classes, who typically took to the streets in downtown Hong Kong Island, more than an hour’s trip away from the housing projects of Tuen Mun or Wong Tai Sin.
But in 2019, everything changed, Leung said, and local people turned out to resist plans to extradite alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, and later to demand fully democratic elections.
An undated image of Taiwan-based based author Carpier Leung. (Chen Hsiao-wei)
“The young people in particular felt that they wanted to protect the place where they grew up, and those feelings and sense of identity just came pouring out,” he said. “But how could a Hong Kong reviewer talk about such things? I found that this book could only be published in Taiwan.”
It hasn’t always been this way. Hong Kong publishers once rushed to publish books about the 2014 Occupy Central movement.
But by 2019, the Chinese authorities had decided that the lack of “patriotic education” in the city’s schools was the reason for recent waves of mass popular protest, and imposed the National Security Law on the city, while abolishing the Liberal Studies curriculum and replacing it with classes on patriotic feeling and “national security” from kindergarten to university.
For Huang Hsiu-ju, editor-in-chief of Taiwan’s Rive Gauche Publishing House, publishing works by Hong Kongers about Hong Kong is a way to resist totalitarianism.
“The Hong Kong experience has been there all along, but we have just been too focused on ourselves and didn’t realize how important it was,” said Huang, who has published 13 books on Hong Kong issues so far.
Blank boxes
One book, a memoir of Occupy Central founder Chu Yiu-ming, bears the scars of the Hong Kong crackdown openly, offering up 16,000 blank boxes in lieu of Chinese characters in a chapter that the pastor feared could turn into evidence against him at his trial.
But Huang persuaded Chu to persevere with the rest of the book.
She remembers telling him: “If you don’t write it, then it’s gone, and the things that should be remembered will disappear.”
Eventually, she and the art director assuaged Chu’s concerns by “censoring” parts with blank boxes, a choice that echoes the blank sheets of the 2022 “white paper” protests, Huang said.
An undated image shows large portions of Occupy Central founder Chu Yiu-ming’s memoir replaced by blank boxes to indicate censorship, amid concerns the chapter could be used against him by Hong Kong prosecutors. (Yang Tz-lei)
Rive Gauche’s best-selling books are both about the 2019 protests. Published in 2020, they have sold around 9,000 copies each, and while sales have slowed in recent months, they have not dried up entirely.
What Rive Gauche is doing in non-fiction, author Leung Lee Chi and Ho Kwun-lung, editor-in-chief at Taiwan’s ECUS Publishing House, are doing for literary works by Hong Kongers.
Leung Lee Chi’s next novel “Everyday Movement” will soon be translated into English, offering up 10 short stories depicting Hong Kong in 2019 for an international audience.
“Winning literary awards or publishing books in Taiwan seems to be where the future of Hong Kong writing lies,” she said, adding that she has long wanted to be published in the island, which is home to many of her literary heroes.
‘Red lines’
Leung, 29, fled Hong Kong in 2021 after Everyday Movement ran into censorship issues with the original publisher.
“There were a lot of sensitive passages in my manuscript,” she said. “I wanted to know if it was OK to refuse revisions suggested by the publisher.”
An undated image of Hong Kong author Leung Lee Chi. (Yang Tz-lei)
When the reply came that her editor wasn’t even sure about where the political “red lines” lay, Leung took a plane to Taiwan and carried on writing in the coastal county of Hualien.
Her Taiwanese editor Ho has worked with a few emerging Hong Kong authors in recent years, and is considered part of a new generation of Taiwanese publishers who care about Hong Kong.
“When I started working on these books, I didn’t have a preconceived idea that I would focus on literature from Hong Kong,” he said. “My approach was that of an author who is working on a good novel, which I hoped readers in Taiwan would enjoy reading.”
For Carpier Leung, it’s about a unique voice that is still coming out of Hong Kong, despite the censorship back home.
Writing in the postscript of his book on public housing estates, Leung comments: “After visiting all the big housing estates in Hong Kong, my strongest impression was probably that … speaking is hard, but we still have to find a way to do it.”
“Finding out how to do that, and how to let more people speak too, is part of our task as human beings.”
As for all the books about everything from siu mai and egg waffles to hiking trails and architecture, Chinese-character fonts and local crafts, he’s pretty sure where it’s all coming from.
“I would say that everyone is looking for a safe way to express their love for Hong Kong,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Yee-ching for The Reporter/RFA Mandarin.
Hong Kong’s Education Bureau has criticized the city’s schoolchildren for their “weak” singing of China’s national anthem, the “March of the Volunteers,” at flag-raising ceremonies that are now compulsory as part of patriotic “national security” education from kindergarten through to universities.
In an annual report published last month, the Bureau commented on schools’ staging of the ceremonies, which it said were part of “enhancing national identity.”
“When participating in flag-raising ceremonies, flag-bearers were skilled and energetic,” the assessment said. “Most of the students behaved solemnly and showed appropriate etiquette.”
But the scene was apparently lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, according to the inspection team.
“Teachers and students sang the national anthem together, but the singing was slightly weak,” the report found. “Schools must strengthen students’ confidence and habit of singing the national anthem and continue to make progress through multiple means.”
Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.
Being able to sing the national anthem with more enthusiasm would “deepen students’ understanding of and identification with their country,” the Education Bureau inspectors said.
Schools for learning disabilities
While criticizing the overall program of patriotic “national security education” in schools could land people in trouble in today’s Hong Kong, the inspectors did spark a backlash over their complaint that there was insufficient national security education at schools for children with learning disabilities.
The inspectors had singled out the Po Leung Kuk Laws Foundation School, which provides special education for children with severe intellectual disabilities.
“While the school has set up a flag-raising team … they were only able to connect a small number of subjects with national security education,” the school’s evaluation said of the school.
Another special school, Caritas Lok Kwan School in Shatin for children with moderate intellectual disabilities, was criticized for failing to fully cover the Chinese constitution and Hong Kong’s Basic Law in general knowledge classes. The report requested a “full review of national security education” at the school, which provides education, therapy, boarding facilities and family support service for children aged 6 to 18 with severe intellectual disability, according to its listing on the Education Bureau website.
“Some citizens believe that the Education Bureau has gone too far, saying that requiring students with special educational needs to learn the Constitution, the Basic Law and national security education is not reasonable,” the blog post said.
“The Bureau deeply regrets those comments.”
“Special schools will develop a school-based, adapted curriculum based on students’ needs and abilities,” it said.
Education blogger Yeung Wing Yu said it was “unbelievable” that students in special education were expected to understand concepts like “national security.”
“They don’t even know what a country is, let alone talking about national security,” Yeung, who runs the @edulancet Instagram account, told RFA Cantonese. “It’s pretty fanciful and unrealistic.”
“It’s really unbelievable what’s happening in Hong Kong now.”
Earlier this month, Secretary for Education Christine Choi said the strength of singing reflects students “emotional engagement” with the anthem, and that teachers will be asking kids to “sing louder” in music class from now on.
“This is a normal suggestion,” Choi told a local radio station, in defense of the report’s findings.
‘Glory to Hong Kong’
The report came as it emerged that versions of the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” has been reposted to YouTube and Spotify in the wake of a court injunction banning the dissemination of the tune in Hong Kong.
Song producers Dgxmusic reposted the song on streaming platforms Spotify and KKBox on their social media on Monday, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported on June 25.
“We are very sorry for the recent confusion, which has caused inconvenience to everyone,” the paper quoted the team as saying. “Despite our best efforts, we still cannot promise such incidents will not happen again for now. We will continue to work to reinstate other albums and ask for your understanding and tolerance.”
Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address the song’s continued availability online, calling it a “weapon” that could be used to bring down the government, and an “insult” to China’s national anthem.
Hong Kong supporters turn around as the Chinese national anthem plays ahead of the men’s football match between Hong Kong and China at the East Asian Football Federation E-1 Football Championship in Busan on Dec. 18, 2019. (Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
The song’s labeling as “Hong Kong’s national anthem” on YouTube has been “highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests,” the Court of Appeal judges found.
“Glory to Hong Kong,” which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sporting fixtures, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police.
Call for reinstatement
On June 5, U.S. Representative Chris Smith and Senator Jeff Merkley, who chair the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote to Google asking the company to reinstate the song on YouTube for users in Hong Kong.
The letter said that because the injunction didn’t impose a blanket ban, and allows for the use of the protest anthem for activities including academic and journalistic work, Google and YouTube blocking access to 32 videos listed in the Hong Kong court’s injunction appeared excessive.
Smith and Merkley called on Google to “limit the negative impact” on the free flow of news and information in Hong Kong.
The injunction bans anyone in Hong Kong from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing” the song with seditious intent, including online.
The move came after the Hong Kong government asked Google to alter its search results, to no avail.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Matthew Leung and Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese.
Hong Kong’s Education Bureau has criticized the city’s schoolchildren for their “weak” singing of China’s national anthem, the “March of the Volunteers,” at flag-raising ceremonies that are now compulsory as part of patriotic “national security” education from kindergarten through to universities.
In an annual report published last month, the Bureau commented on schools’ staging of the ceremonies, which it said were part of “enhancing national identity.”
“When participating in flag-raising ceremonies, flag-bearers were skilled and energetic,” the assessment said. “Most of the students behaved solemnly and showed appropriate etiquette.”
But the scene was apparently lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, according to the inspection team.
“Teachers and students sang the national anthem together, but the singing was slightly weak,” the report found. “Schools must strengthen students’ confidence and habit of singing the national anthem and continue to make progress through multiple means.”
Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China’s national anthem on pain of up to three years’ imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.
Being able to sing the national anthem with more enthusiasm would “deepen students’ understanding of and identification with their country,” the Education Bureau inspectors said.
Schools for learning disabilities
While criticizing the overall program of patriotic “national security education” in schools could land people in trouble in today’s Hong Kong, the inspectors did spark a backlash over their complaint that there was insufficient national security education at schools for children with learning disabilities.
The inspectors had singled out the Po Leung Kuk Laws Foundation School, which provides special education for children with severe intellectual disabilities.
“While the school has set up a flag-raising team … they were only able to connect a small number of subjects with national security education,” the school’s evaluation said of the school.
Another special school, Caritas Lok Kwan School in Shatin for children with moderate intellectual disabilities, was criticized for failing to fully cover the Chinese constitution and Hong Kong’s Basic Law in general knowledge classes. The report requested a “full review of national security education” at the school, which provides education, therapy, boarding facilities and family support service for children aged 6 to 18 with severe intellectual disability, according to its listing on the Education Bureau website.
“Some citizens believe that the Education Bureau has gone too far, saying that requiring students with special educational needs to learn the Constitution, the Basic Law and national security education is not reasonable,” the blog post said.
“The Bureau deeply regrets those comments.”
“Special schools will develop a school-based, adapted curriculum based on students’ needs and abilities,” it said.
Education blogger Yeung Wing Yu said it was “unbelievable” that students in special education were expected to understand concepts like “national security.”
“They don’t even know what a country is, let alone talking about national security,” Yeung, who runs the @edulancet Instagram account, told RFA Cantonese. “It’s pretty fanciful and unrealistic.”
“It’s really unbelievable what’s happening in Hong Kong now.”
Earlier this month, Secretary for Education Christine Choi said the strength of singing reflects students “emotional engagement” with the anthem, and that teachers will be asking kids to “sing louder” in music class from now on.
“This is a normal suggestion,” Choi told a local radio station, in defense of the report’s findings.
‘Glory to Hong Kong’
The report came as it emerged that versions of the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” has been reposted to YouTube and Spotify in the wake of a court injunction banning the dissemination of the tune in Hong Kong.
Song producers Dgxmusic reposted the song on streaming platforms Spotify and KKBox on their social media on Monday, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported on June 25.
“We are very sorry for the recent confusion, which has caused inconvenience to everyone,” the paper quoted the team as saying. “Despite our best efforts, we still cannot promise such incidents will not happen again for now. We will continue to work to reinstate other albums and ask for your understanding and tolerance.”
Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address the song’s continued availability online, calling it a “weapon” that could be used to bring down the government, and an “insult” to China’s national anthem.
Hong Kong supporters turn around as the Chinese national anthem plays ahead of the men’s football match between Hong Kong and China at the East Asian Football Federation E-1 Football Championship in Busan on Dec. 18, 2019. (Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
The song’s labeling as “Hong Kong’s national anthem” on YouTube has been “highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests,” the Court of Appeal judges found.
“Glory to Hong Kong,” which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sporting fixtures, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police.
Call for reinstatement
On June 5, U.S. Representative Chris Smith and Senator Jeff Merkley, who chair the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote to Google asking the company to reinstate the song on YouTube for users in Hong Kong.
The letter said that because the injunction didn’t impose a blanket ban, and allows for the use of the protest anthem for activities including academic and journalistic work, Google and YouTube blocking access to 32 videos listed in the Hong Kong court’s injunction appeared excessive.
Smith and Merkley called on Google to “limit the negative impact” on the free flow of news and information in Hong Kong.
The injunction bans anyone in Hong Kong from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing” the song with seditious intent, including online.
The move came after the Hong Kong government asked Google to alter its search results, to no avail.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Matthew Leung and Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese.
