Navigating the future for Hong Kong’s democracy

Ben Bland

Good evening, everyone. My name is Ben Bland. I’m the Director of the AsiaPacific Programme here at Chatham House. Thanks for joining us for this discussion about Hong Kong’s democracy movement. This is quite a personal discussion for me. I lived in Hong Kong for four years between 2015 and 2019, which was a period of quite significant change, but presaged even more, kind of, radical change in the years afterwards. I wrote my first book about Hong Kong, about young people and identity, which did feature Nathan Law, who’s one of our panellists.

Obviously, since I left, in the aftermath of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, the Chinese Government has cracked down hard on the city’s once vibrant democracy movement. More than 1,000 Hong Kongers have been prosecuted or jailed for their activism or their role in the protests. Almost every single prominent pro-democracy politician is in jail, on trial, or in exile, including Nathan and Carmen, who I’ll introduce shortly. Nearly 150,000 Hong Kongers have moved out to the UK alone in the last two years. I think it’s fair to say that the Chinese government, the party, Communist Party and the government have eradicated any semblance of democratic choice in Hong Kong’s elections. They’ve introduced a sweeping national security law and established big outposts for China’s Secret Police in Hong Kong. So, Hong Kong may still have two systems on the surface, but it has little freedom or autonomy these days.

I’m joined tonight by three insightful speakers to discuss the troubling outlook for Hong Kong’s democracy movement and hopefully, to talk about some ways forward. So, to my left we have Carmen Lau, who’s a former District Councillor in exile in London with various charges against her, but not as many charges as Nathan Law, sitting next to Carmen, who was a member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council briefly before he was disqualified, also in exile in the UK. And at the end, we have Jeff Wasserstrom who’s a Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of California, Irvine, not in exile in London, but doing a visiting professorship I think at Birkbeck University, which is probably a cushier gig, I think it’s fair to say.

This discussion is going to be on the record. It’s being livestreamed I think on Zoom. If you are watching on Zoom, we’re happy to take your questions, so please ask them using the Q&A function. We’ll get your questions in the room as well later on. For now, we will crack on. The first question I have is quite a big one, but an important one, which is what’s the biggest challenge facing the democracy movement right now in Hong Kong? And I might come to you first, Carmen.

Carmen Lau

Yeah. Well, thank you for Ben’s introduction. The, like, the biggest challenge in Hong Kong for now is that – for obvious reason, national security law, because after national security law is literally, like, no protestors, or even no dissident voice, are allowed in Hong Kong, or even overseas. And that’s for the reason why so many Hong Kongers fleed Hong Kong, not only those who had actively involve in the political sphere in Hong Kong, but also just ordinary citizens. And education system and legal system are cracked down. There are, like – more and more political prisoner are now in – jailed in Hong Kong, not only under national security law but many of the other charges. And, yeah, like, for now, like – as of yesterday we have a statistic that there’s 1,491 political prisoners in Hong Kong, after – which was charged after the movement, and obviously, 85 civil society organisation were disband after the national security law.

Ben Bland

So, it’s not just about the individual, it’s the organisations…

Carmen Lau

Yeah.

Ben Bland

…organisations as well, and Nathan, what’s – I mean, what’s the state of play? So, are there new trials and new charges still coming out? Is this all, sort of, historic cases related to the 2019 protests, or are there new charges that activists are facing these days?

Nathan Law

Well, yeah, thanks so much, Ben, and very lovely to meet you again, Jeff and Carmen. So, obviously, like, Chatham House Rule does not apply, right, this is open discussion.

Ben Bland

It’s – yeah.

Nathan Law

This is always my favourite joke, right. It – going into entities that a specific rule that’s is named by – after it, it’s so interesting. But anyway, at Chatham House we’ve crossed paths many, many times and very lovely to be here again.

Definitely, I think Carmen lay out lots of challenges that we face in Hong Kong, including there are just new prosecutions coming out in recent days that they press charges on protestors after four years, and those charges disrupt their lives, and they could face years of imprisonment. We’re talking about more than a dozen of them, just freshly pressed charge a few days ago, and we’ve got more than 1,000 political prisoners, all these prominent figures like Jimmy Lai, Benny Tai, Joshua Wong, they’re all in jails. Many of them they’ve been in jail for more than two years without knowing a verdict, and people like Jimmy Lai, who is aged 70 could be in prison for life. Those are the future that they’re facing.

So, the situation’s really, really difficult and depressing, and of course, challenges does not on – do not only come from inside city. We’ve also seen, kind of like, warming relations with China, the international pressure putting on them dropping. We’ve heard that really staggering comment from President Macron and we’ve seen Investment Minister of the UK sending to Hong Kong, saying that, “Oh, I’m so happy to be in Hong Kong,” pretending everything is normal. I think those are bad signals for us as democratic activists trying to put pressure to that regime, and also raising awareness for Hong Kong.

So, I think that there are lots of layers and different votes in the challenges that we face, and as an activist – exile activist in the UK, of course there’s another aspect, which is how we can establish a new civil society in the UK, as we’ve got more than 160,000 Hong Kong people coming in these few years. And how we interact with the local civil society and how we continue to campaign for Hong Kong, I think these are also challenges that we are facing.

Ben Bland

And I’m sure for both of you, you’ve got quite a few friends and colleagues who’ve been jailed. I mean, how are – at a personal level, how are people doing in these kinds of conditions?

Nathan Law

Well, it really depends. We’ve seen – mean, some of them being really strong. Like, they are just standing in a courtroom saying that, “I will not bend my knees to you. I will say what I want, and I will defend it.” Like, you’ve got Gwyneth Ho, you’ve got Chow Hang-tung, they’re also really, really strong in facing those trials. They don’t really care about how many years that they’re being sent. They want – they just want to make the case. And we’ve got some, also, other defendants who take a more pragmatic approach, pleading guilty not because they believe that they’ve done something wrong. They clearly understand that the court has been tilted towards the government, it has become part of the pos – persecution, so pleading guilty could be a strategy for them to reduce their sentencing and to get out of jail as early as possible.

And then, for some, they are mentally depressed, they’re separated from loved one for years. For me, it’s already tough, like, I cannot see my family because they are in Hong Kong, but for them, they couldn’t even have, like, regular conversation with them, or some of them, they cannot, like, kind of, touch their kids and, kind of, have intimate interactions. So, I think that that’s also what made them – some of them, like, in a terrible mental state.

Carmen Lau

Yeah. It’s – as an exiled activist, it’s been really hard for, like, us to get – to settle – resettle in a new country and to try to familiarise with a new community, but for those who are in jail or in prison, it’s, you know, it’s just – you can’t imagine how hard they’ve been, not only mentally, but physically. You know how the weather in Hong Kong is like, so, like, for today for example, for today it’s been 30 – 34 degrees Celsius in Hong Kong, so there’s no air conditioning and the condition of the jail in Hong Kong is really worse. So, you – it’s been, like, a mental torture for them too, being kept for so long.

Ben Bland

And, Nathan, I think as you’re alluding to, people face a very invidious choice, in a way, because if they, kind of, plead not guilty, they have to fight out a long case, and then there’s a sense that they’re not going to get a fair hearing anyway. I mean Jeff, what would your view be? Do you think people can expect, sort of, a fair trial and fair legal process these days in Hong Kong, anymore?

Jeff Wasserstrom

I don’t think they can expect a fair trial and I think it’s one of the things that can’t be stressed enough, that the – Hong Kong never had democracy. It didn’t have democracy under the British – under British control, it didn’t have democracy under PRC control. But it did have some division of powers, which I think was something that was very important, a sense that courts were operating differently than they did on the mainland and that the courts could operate differently than the police wanted them to operate, or than the government wanted them to operate.

And so, I think, you know, we have a tendency to talk about democracy and we think of elections, but certainly as an American, I’ve become painfully aware of how important separation of powers is to any, kind of, part of democracy. And I think this is something just crucial to keep in mind, that there was a time when you would have people arrested – I remember during Umbrella Movement, as somebody who is more used to watching – tracking protests on the mainland, people would be arrested and then they’d be out on bail right afterwards talking to the press. And you’d say, like, okay, the arrest might not have been that different, but what happened right after it would be.

But I’m so glad you’re putting attention on this, to have this event and to be able to share a stage with these people and hear these powerful stories, ‘cause I do think there’s been something insidious about the way in which Hong Kong has been attacked by Beijing, which has been by a process of, kind of, slow strangulation, rather than one simple moment that the world was, kind of, bracing for, in which you’d have violence and bodies on the street. And this is very invidious, but I think that you’ve got a sense of how, you know, we just shouldn’t look away.

It’s also important to know that it’s both the national security law, but they’re also using other laws, including leftover British sedition laws. So, it’s using these different things to make the story a harder one to follow, to allow, kind of, room for people to say, “Well, wasn’t it just as bad in other times?” So, it’s a very complicated story, but that’s all the more reason why I think you’d be commended for having this kind of event.

Ben Bland

Yeah, I don’t know if it’s polite to ask you about the criminal charges during an event, but I’ll do it anyway, ‘cause I think it…

Jeff Wasserstrom

Oh, that’s only at the bar, but…

Ben Bland

I know. Not in my view yet, Jeff, but I think it goes to this point ‘cause I think, Carmen, you’re facing a charge for, sort of, persuading people not to vote, is that right?

Carmen Lau

Yeah, yeah, during last year Legislative Council elections, yes. It happens after I arrived in the UK, yeah, and it’s – I think it’s also a tactics for the Hong Kong government to use non-national security charges to charge over people. Because talking about China’s national repression or the extradition, like, relationship is easier to convince other countries to extradite, maybe, some of the Hong Kong citizens, other than, like, national secur – un – not under national security law charges. So, it’s a tactics for them to do so, and it’s – it get less focus on those charges, as well.

Ben Bland

And does that make it difficult for you when you’re thinking about your travel plans for your work or in your personal life? Do these kinds of charges mean you have to worry about where you go?

Nathan Law

Well, for me, definitely. I’m a refugee in the UK, so I’m holding refugee travel documents and there are a lot of restrictions on these documents, and all of the visa process. You have to – been through a lot of vetting, so definitely inconvenient. But yeah, following what Carmen has just said, I think we’ve seen all these tactics of, like, prosecuting dissidents with tax evasion, that – or some of the non-political charges, so to stigmatise them and possibly to extradite them, but we also have been seeing a lot of these charges being put on, like, some activists in Hong Kong, which is using some of the decades-old colonial law that have never been used after 1960/1970s, like those conspiracy law.

We’ve got a very new case about those child book publishers that are being charged by conspiracy to publish seditious publications, which as long as the government’s considering the things that you publish or you say, can intreat hatred to the governments, which is a vaguely defined term, then you could be submitted to years of imprisonment. Like, just imagine, if you are a child book writer, you want to write something, just look like 1984, anything like this, you could definitely face years of imprisonment, and that’s the, like, reality of Hong Kong. So, for me, I face charges on attending illegal assembly on June 4th vigil, same charges as Carmen, some of the national security law charges. I served jail sentencing because my involvement in 2014 Umbrella Movement, because of peaceful protesting, and from my, also, personal experience, you could really see the decline of Hong Kong’s judicial system and the rights of people.

Like, at my time, when I served jail sentencing, it was 2016/2017, and when people talk about, like, being charged with attending or organising or inciting unlawful assemblies, we were talking about if you – if it is, like, prison sentencing, it would be a – big news. Like, it would be a big blow to the civil society, because we used to think that, like, attending a peaceful assembly without government’s permits is our right, and even though it break the rules, the punishment would be, as I served also, community service, which is much lighter than jail term.

But if we’re talking about the charges that we’ve seen for the past two to three years, just attending, like, illegal assembly, it could be up to a year and then riot, it could be three to five years, and then for now national security law, we don’t know how long it would be. There are some speculations about some of the masterminds of protesters, as Beijing described, like Jimmy Lai, Benny Tai, they could be there up to a decade. So, it – that is also a reflection of how the system has lost its division of power, been manipulated, and those weaponization of legal system is just getting worse and worse.

Ben Bland

And Jeff, I mean, are you surprised by how quickly this has happened?

Jeff Wasserstrom

I’m surprised by how quickly some things have happened and how slowly some other things have happened, and I think getting back to that, yeah, it’s part of, I think, a strategy to not have the world’s focus stay on Hong Kong the way it might have. I mean, just the slowness was that right after the national security law came in, they didn’t take all the statues down related to Tiananmen. That was one of the things that was different about Hong Kong. They waited ‘til that was a totally different news cycle than a set of arrests. They went after different groups of civil society in different news cycles, different months, different multiple months.

So, I think it’s important to think about how radically different Hong Kong is now than it was a mere five years ago, when, for example, in the middle of the big protests of 2019, they let Joshua Wong out of prison early for good behaviour, I think it was. But simply, that would be the kind of thing where on the mainland, if there was somebody who you thought might be a troublemaker during a difficult time, you would keep them in jail for an added time, they let them – and they let him out, and now that’s just unthinkable.

But on the other hand, it’s interesting how, kind of, syncopated and delayed some of the moves were in parts that you would allow the attention to shift to other things, and I guess it was confidence that the world would have other crises that would pull people’s attention away. If you were talking about repression in Hong Kong and then the coup in Burma happens and you have things that are so horrific on your screens right away, and then a year later, the invasion of Ukraine. So, it has been both a slow story and a fast story.

Ben Bland

And if I could ask Carmen and then Nathan, I mean how are you both adjusting to life in the UK?

Carmen Lau

It’s a really challenging notion, yeah. I’ve been here since July 2021 and at first, because I came here alone, like many of the other Hong Kongers, at first it was quite a hard time for me because I did – I made the decision within a really short period of time. And I’ve never been to the UK and I later – I just know some people here, two or three people here in the UK. And it’s – it took me some time to get familiarised with the whole environment and the community here, but I think as – when time goes and more and more Hong Kongers came here through the BNO visa scheme, and it’s been really great to see that we could see a vibrant Hong Kong or civil society rebuild, reconstruct here in the UK. And many of them are actually – they may not be – they may have never been involved in a civil society in Hong Kong, but they started to try to do something here in the UK, and it’s really happy and glad to see that.

Nathan Law

Yeah, I think my experience has been, in general, quite positive. I think I’m really fortunate to be able to leave Hong Kong, as many of my fellows were unable to do so, and I’m a person who is not easily affected by weather, so – otherwise, I would be more grumpy than I am now, definitely. But yeah, I think it gives a very good opportunity for us to continue our international advocacy work, just like what I have been doing before I came to the UK. And we’ve got a growing community, and even though there are a lot more civil society groups in Hong Kong – from Hong Kong in the UK, has been born and has been active, there are also a lot of works that we have to do to overcome all those challenges, and I am really glad that I still have that position to be able to speak up for Hong Kong people and to work for them and to, kind of, raise awareness on the human rights abuses.

So, I think that’s mostly what gives people motivation to live, right? Like, you have a sense of purpose, you have a purpose of life, and for me, being transitioned from – as a Hong Kong Politician/activist, to be here as an exile activist, international advocate for Hong Kong, that transition was quite smooth and I still could, kind of, perform my vocation, even though I’m not in my homeland. So, I’m really grateful and fortunate, but on the other hand we’ve also got a lot of challenges faced, especially trying to deepen the understanding of Hong Kong and the dynamics of Hong Kong-China and the transnational aggression and persecution of the Chinese regime.

So, freshly – we just had a incidence that a church in Guildford just cancelled an event organised by Hong Kong community, and that was an event about the children book that I mentioned. Basically, the church is saying that – and I interpret as they received complaints about the book and they thought that it was sensitive. They thought that it could be, kind of, doing a rep – a bad reputation to PRC, and then they cancelled the event, refusing to lend those community groups to use the church as a way to read the book and to interact. And I think that there is clear evidence of how much we still need to do to address those issues, because, like, Beijing spread their propaganda overseas and they are not only using the media outlet, but they also use the, kind of, hyper-nationalistic nationals overseas to do things like this.

I’m sure that there were calls made by, like, Chinese Embassy or even these Chinese nationals to tell the church not to, like, rep – not to give the site out for those really community-based events, and maybe the church doesn’t understand the dynamics. Maybe they didn’t understand these, like, transnational oppression could happen – could take place in those forms, and that is where we come in and we start a dialogue, saying that, like, we’re not intreating hatred by reading this children’s book. We’re trying to preserve our identity, we’re trying to teach our next generations, especially those who were born and raised in this country, about our history, and the diversity of identity and diversity of culture is what we value and what we treasure. And if you give in to these intimidation and aggression from the Chinese regime, you’re, basically, damaging one of the core values that our community share and our society share, which is you respect people’s differences and you respect diversity.

And I think, like – I don’t mean to say that the church made a bad decision. I think it’s a bad decision but I think it’s also because there’s no discussion about it, like, they just don’t have the awareness. So, I think this is definitely a good time to start that discussion, to, basically, to send out and defend the rights of us to preserve our history, and to preserve all those things that we – that define us.

Ben Bland

Well, I didn’t think we’d get to Guildford in the discussion, but good to know. I mean obviously beyond the 150,000-odd Hong Kongers who’ve moved to the UK, there’s been probably thousands who’ve moved to other places, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, the US, other places in Europe. Jeff, I’m going to ask you, do you think from the Communist Party’s perspective, this is, sort of, a good thing, that, you know, the troublemakers in their eyes, or the people who are not patriots, who are not loyal, have left Hong Kong, and that’s a positive thing? And are there lessons we can learn from, kind of, earlier periods of, sort of, exile and expatriation when – you know, maybe around – following the Tiananmen Square massacres, or even in, sort of, the early 20th Century, you know, when we’ve seen, you know, the things that can happen? Is this, kind – a worrying sign for the Chinese government? Is it good?

Jeff Wasserstrom

That’s a really interesting way to put it. I think, you know, there’s always been a mixed feeling about whether it’s just good to get people out, and in China, there have been troublemakers who, in the views of the Communist Party, are troublemakers who have been allowed to leave, and then they’ve seen them become much less relevant once gone. But there are other times when they try to hold people very tightly, so it can go in two different directions.

Thinking about parallels from the past, I was thinking – listening to a lot of this, and it’s not the first time, I’ve been thinking about Tibet a lot as – because I do think that the – Beijing’s playbook towards some of the things, even the church event that Nathan was just talking about, is part of a Tibet playbook, in different ways of trying to marginalise and to put pressure on things. And the pressure can be in quite subtle kinds of symbolic ways.

There was an American university that shall remain nameless that was going to have the Dalai Lama come and speak, and a request was put that they not have him speak, and the university said, “Of course he will.” They said, “Well, can you not have him have a photograph taken with the Head of the university? Just have the Deputy Head,” and the university said okay, and there are these sort of testings of the water back and forth that go on that way.

Certainly, the idea of keeping alive a culture when you’re outside of the physical place where it flourished, that’s something that is a, kind of – something that has come from Tibet, and there is a whole history of thinking of Tibet and Hong Kong. Tibet was offered something somewhat like the one country, two systems deal in 1950 and it seemed to go okay for a time, and then pressure came up. The centre got more grasping, resistance got stronger, and you can read about this in many books, including Isabel Hilton’s, in which you had this, kind of, parallel. And that’s – there was even a time when the Dalai Lama thought this could work, and then there was a time when it clearly couldn’t work.

And there were some people in Hong Kong who thought in the 80s that this was something that really should be paid attention to, there were others who didn’t think about it, who thought Hong Kong would be different, that Hong Kongers were not ethnically different and that this wouldn’t be the same. But I think we’ve seen something with differences of a, kind of, related parallel, and so, I have noticed among Hong Kongers and exiled I’ve talked to, there’s a lot of interest now in the Tibetan case, and sometimes even some self-reflection about not having paid more attention to that, kind of, situation earlier.

And a good way of, sort of, crystallising this was there were protests, largely involving Tibetans, before the 2008 Olympics, and there was a skilful playing of things by Beijing in the 2008 Olympics with some events even being able to – equestrian events being held in Hong Kong, and some sense of this being China’s Olympics. By 2022 one of the most dramatic protests was Joey Siu, a Hong Konger exile, worked together with a Tibetan to hang a banner on the scaffolding outside of the Acropolis, and they joined together to think about that. So, that was a interesting moment and also showing some of the potential for solidar – new kinds of solidarities emerging among exiles who start to feel things in common, and that’s something we’ve seen in the past, both with people from the same place and also, from people from different places involved in anti-colonial movements who see something of a kindred effort in what’s going on.

Ben Bland

So, given all the restrictions, Carmen, given, kind of, the national security law in its – in the fact that it applies globally, I mean, what can you do, you know, from the UK? What’s the space? How do you stay relevant to people back in Hong Kong? How much do you try to influence, kind of, the political environment and the debate in the UK? What sorts of things are you working on?

Carmen Lau

I think there are at least two direction of work that we can do, not only for activists, but also, like, Hong Kongers here in the UK can do. Is – I’ll just echo what Jeff has said, I think there are more and more collaborations and connections between not only, like, groups that are suppressed by the Chinese regime, but also from all around the world who are being oppressed by authoritarian regimes.

I think people are starting to get together, not just to show sholi – solidarity, but to learn from each other and to campaign together, like, campaign for political prisoners around the world and to, like, to protest for the countries that still have relat – economic relationship with those authoritarian regimes. And this is – I think this is on the level of international communities, but for people in the UK, because I think we found that the Hong Kong Government’s trying to isolate people in Hong Kong from other parts of the world, and not only to, like, constrain what they can receive from the media, but also to make them silence, and also to cut the connections between friends and family from Hong Kong.

So, I think one thing that people, especially in the UK, for Hong Kongers in the UK to do, is that – to get – to keep really close and to stay really – no – you know, updated for news in Hong Kong, because we still have small rooms for, like, online media to survive in Hong Kong and we can still have independent book stores. We can still have some concerned groups that focuses on specific policies in Hong Kong, and I think people in the UK, Hong Kongers in the UK here, can still, like – getting really updated with these issues and to try to spread the words for the Hong Ko – for the people in Hong Kong, and to not let them to be too separated from the rest of the world. And, you know, this is what the Hong Kong Government’s trying to do, the Chinese regime is trying to do, and we should break through their barriers and – to keep connected with those people who are still in Hong Kong.

Ben Bland

And Nathan, just expanding on that, I mean, do you think there can really be a Hong Kong democracy movement anymore? In a way, isn’t your fate just completely bound up with what happens in China?

Nathan Law

Well, definitely, it’s a really dynamic situation, right? We can also say that, like, politics don’t change, in mainland China politics don’t change, in Chinese Communist Party, as they face so many difficulties. So, I would rather say it’s a dynamic situation and we’re in the low point of the history, but we’ll bounce back. For people who are living overseas that’s part of our duty, is to try to think about how we can vitalise and how we can support that when the opportunity comes. Other than those international political advocacy work, I will also think that cultural work is really important. We’ve seen a systematic cultural cleansing work they have been doing for decades in Tibet, in Xinjiang, and things like this started to popping up in Hong Kong, as the government have been actively trying to rewrite history. They’ve banned all the movies that are about the protest, they’ve censored all the songs, all the artisets [means artists] and singers who are, kind of, sympathetic to the movement, they were banned to have any concerts.

So, we’re also seeing a cultural cleansing in Hong Kong, just at a very initial stage, and that’s the reason why I found an NGO called Hong Kong Umbrella Community, is a non-profit NGO that we have already hosted two film festival in the UK, that we bring all those movies that are banned from Hong Kong and we can, like, demonstrate the history of the 2019 protest movement, and other rather sensitive films to the government. And we’ve also organised a cultural festival called Hong Kong March. In this march we’ve got more than 50 local Hong Konger stores working – partnering with more than 20 community groups across the UK and we throw more than 50 cultural activities in the whole month of March. And that’s a really good way to introduce who we are, our identity, our culture, and to preserve that, as the regime is definitely afraid of our identity uniqueness and the culture that we represent.

And I think that’s really important work that we’ve been doing and every time I saw Notting Hill festival, all those festivals that represent, a generation, represent a specific group of people, I would love to see something like this from the Hong Kong community to be popping out in the UK. And whenever those festivals come out they will appear on BBC headlines, they will appear on every news outline, that, like, we are here and we want to contribute and we are sharing our culture with you.

So, that’s the ultimate goal, but also, one of the challenges that we face is also about Chinese influence in this country, in this atmosphere, that for NGOs like this, it is almost impossible to get any collaboration with business groups. Even though they are British companies, they also worry about those malign Chinese influence. Even though we’ve done malic – magnificent work when we reach out to private foundations, we reach out to business groups, the answers are quite clear. So, that’s also a challenge that we face, how we can also get the resources to do what we can do, under this kind of economic coercion, or even to a certain extent, the blackmailing of the Chinese influence.

Ben Bland

And is there anything that the British and other allied and friendly governments can do? I mean, if you look at the outcome of the G7 meeting in Japan, there seemed to be this, kind of, cohesion between the G7 countries about China policy, but do you think that they have any influence over what happens in Hong Kong anymore? I mean, it seemed to me maybe they once did, at a time when they didn’t really care, but now it seems hard to imagine what the British Government, the US Government can do, but do you still see opportunity in lobbying Western governments that can impact what happens in Hong Kong?

Nathan Law

Well, I think for now it – there are lots of disconnection and it’s not quite consistent. It’s almost like a disarray of attitude when some of the European countries, they wanted to move closer to China, while some of the others still maintain a really strong rhetoric. And I think that is definitely not healthy, but we can also understand that some of these global leaders, they think that they have to prioritise resources on Russia so that they must have to warm the relations with China in that way. Of course, we, kind of, understand the logic behind it, but the reality is situation in Hong Kong is definitely not getting any better. It stagnated, it’s, kind of like, a calm surface, but the undercurrent has been going worse and worse.

You don’t see many news in Western media, and in the media in the UK, because there are no big scenes of protesting, there are no big scenes of people marching down through the street, but there are more and more political persecution when the day goes by, and sentencings are getting more and more serious. And under that circumstance, like, we have a government that are sending their delegation to the cities. Like, that was literally the first delegation, ministerial visit, since 2018, when things got worse, and because there are no news, so that they think that they can re-establish those connection, and I think that is just saying that, “We don’t care anymore, like, we don’t care about your political persecution. We want to do business with you,” and I think that is a absolutely troubling attitude that we have.

So, I think at least we should keep our attention on it, we should be more understanding of the human rights situation there and craft our, like, foreign policy more tilted towards preserving those values and human rights, rather than just pretending no-one cares and they just do, like, normal business with them.

Ben Bland

Obviously, in Asia overall, it’s – on the surface, it’s been a pretty, sort of, bad decade for democracy and people talk about this global, sort of, democratic recession or democratic backsliding, but I guess one thing I’ve seen in a number of countries is a lot of young people in particular, in Hong Kong, in Myanmar, in Thailand, in Malaysia, in Indonesia, willing to make a lot of personal sacrifices for democracy, for their freedoms. And I know, Jeff, you’ve been doing some work on this and the, sort of, so-called Milk Tea Alliance, some of these, kind of, nascent connections between groups, but is there something there beyond, kind of, emojis on social media? ‘Cause it seems to me, you know, if you’re a democracy activist in Hong Kong, or Myanmar, Thailand, you’ve got enough to worry about on your own patch, without worrying about other people’s struggles. So, yeah, beyond the, kind of, the social media memes and the, kind of, media stories, have you found that there is something thicker there in these relationships between young people struggling for democracy across Asia?

Jeff Wasserstrom

So, I think there’s not something there in the way that I think we’re used to looking for, sort of formal, institutional things, and even the term ‘alliance’ suggests something more solid. It’s – but I do think that the expressions of solidarity among different groups, things that keep hope alive in different ways, can be really important, and it’s important and there’s almost like a sense of a baton being passed to different places where the struggle gets particularly intense.

There were moments – in 2014 there was a very dark moment in Thailand with the coup, and one thing that kept some hope alive for some Thai youths who were involved in that, was to look at Hong Kong with the Umbrella Movement and to think about what was being done there, and then the forming of new political – a new political party, Demosisto. And now you could imagine in a similar way thinking about the results in the Thai election, even though it’s unclear what will happen, there seems to be a broad consensus of one thing, that the election went the direction it did in part, because of what young people did in taking a sort of, seemingly impossible, kind of, set of actions in 2020.

And so, this is something where I think – I expected working on the Milk Tea Alliance and working on youth activists and talking to exiles to be a much more depressing, kind of, project, but it’s actually been quite inspiring to talk to them, and it’s not an issue just for Asia, by the way. These are often young people who are saying, in a sense, “An older generation have messed up our chances for the world we’re going to live in,” so there is a kind of, echoing of climate strike activism too when there, too, I think neutral solidarity is not something that should be taken too lightly, even if it isn’t thick and substantial and institutional.

Ben Bland

And on that point, Carmen, I mean, what gives you hope in terms of the struggle for democracy? As you look at, sort of, around the world are there other places or people that give you, kind of, hope to carry on the cause?

Carmen Lau

Yeah, I would say we – I – recently, like, I’ve attend some of the, kind of like, international activists’ gathering and it’s – it really sho – not only to show solidarity for an alliance or maybe some kind of association between, I mean, among activists, but it’s – we’re, kind of like, learning from each other. We, like, we learn from Taiwan student movement, and for now – after 2019, and not only people from the Asia region learn from the Hong Kong movements, but also, like, from the South America, they just brought maybe some kind of stra – sha – strategy that we got from the Hong Kong movements to their places. And I think we are getting closer and closer, as we know that the authoritarian regime or the autocracies, they actually help each other and learn from each other, as well.

So, it’s always essential for us to know what each of us are doing, and at the moment, maybe we don’t have too many substantial campaigns or projects working together, but I think from time to time, we will go to their path and to show regimes around the world, to show the international community that we do need attention, all the countries who are suppressed by authoritarian regimes need attention and need some substantial, assertive actions to help us, yeah.

Ben Bland

I’m going to come to questions in the room in a sec, but just one question online first from Michael Mo, who I think he’s another former District Councillor in exile in the UK. There’s probably – you could probably form a full parliament once you all group together. But he wants to ask about the Hong Kong diaspora community in the UK and maybe, Nathan, you might want to take this one first, but, “How can you make the Hong Kong diaspora more united, because it’s apparent that the community has fragmented and a lack of synergy could make Hong Kongers miss the political opportunity in future, particularly with elections coming up in the UK and BNO and passport holders who are resident here can vote in UK elections?”

Nathan Law

Well, yeah, the election’s a big issue and for us, our communities have been paying attention to the China policy that – we’re waiting for it to be rolled out, so there’s definitely a big issue. I think – well, we’re relatively new-born in this country and many of us are still never getting our ways in these very complicated show show and governmental system, how we can register as a community interest group, how we can register as a charity, how we can get funding, how we can work together.

So, I think there are a lot of things, definitely, we have to learn, but one thing that I think that can definitely unite us is that we agree we should form networks, that we should support each other and we should definitely preserve our identity and our values. We’ve seen a lot of organisation working together now, no matter it’s hosting rallies, hosting community events, cultural events. I think by understanding each other a bit more in collaboration, and also forming these network – a network way of connecting, those are a really good thing for us to start with.

Ben Bland

Right, if you have any questions in the room just raise your hand and I’ll come to you. We’ll start over there at the back, yeah, and please tell us who you are and if you have any affiliation.

Dr Nadaud

Yeah, I’m Dr Nadaud, member of Chatham House by way of Los Angeles, California girl. You mentioned traditional diplomatic approaches to Hong Kong in terms of world leaders coming and visiting and things that we need to think about. I wonder what the panel thinks about soft power diplomacy and how we can leverage using trade, education, cultural exchange. How do we leverage soft power diplomacy to encourage reg – you know, a more open society in Hong Kong?

Nathan Law

Well, maybe I can come into the question and then, supplement it by the other guestes [means guests]. I think – well, the problem that concerns me is not about how we can utilise our soft power, it’s how we can blunt China’s ones, ‘cause we’ve seen a lot of incidents that China, they repackage their propaganda into beautiful terms and into soft power and export it to Western countries, and then people fall into their lies. Like for example, there was a time when I had a advocacy visit to one of Eastern – one of the European country, and when I turn on the television, it was CCTV.

They bought – they basically, pay a bunch of hotels to ask them to set CCTV as the default television, and we’ve got, like, Confucius interviews, like, really doing a lot of these soft power propaganda work for Beijing. And our community has been really concerned about it, and we’ve been raising a lot of questions about how we can blunt these propaganda and these extended arm of the CCP to try to neutralise our criticism to them. So, I think that’s what I think, for our community, we’re more concerned with.

Ben Bland

Okay, at the front.

Mr Hakim

I’m Mr Hakim from Politics with Hakim. My question is, to what extent Hong King – Hong Kong people rely on the West and the US to stand by them, uplifting democratic values, because in Afghanistan, the Afghan stand shoulderto-shoulder with the West but were left alone, and the girls are now – do not have access to basic education? The fact now that many refugees are not even welcome, their life are still in limbo in the US and the – in the West, as well. So, my concern is, about navigating the future of democracy, is that is the West actively or – supporting the democratic values, or are they just doing it cosmetically to show that we are very much loyal to the democracy? So, that’s my question, that is it – are they uplifting the democratic values in real terms, or is it the same case maybe we see Hong Kong after 20 years the same as that Afghanistan is left with Talibans? Thank you.

Nathan Law

Yeah, I can also come into a story. So, in 2014, when I was a student leader in the Umbrella Movement, we got so little international support and attention, just because the Obama administration had been really close to China, the other parts of the world had been seeing China as a – close partners, even though the UK – there was a term called Golden Era coined. Well, as a young student leader at that moment, we were quite frustrated about how the world reacted to the situation of Hong Kong, but that is the reality. Like, sometimes countries, they take the foreign policy aligning with their interest. We’re, of course, frustrated about it, but as a movement that is fully supported by Hong Kong people, there are so many, so many pooled data and election results showing that the majority of Hong Kong people supporting the movement. We get as much support as we can get.

We criticise the government if they are trying to please China just for commercial values, interests, and take no consideration on human rights and the attacks to our values, but at the end of the day, it is our movement and we get support as much as we can. And I think that is the way that we can unite people, not only in the UK, in the US, but unite people in Myanmar, in Thai, in Afghanistan, in Iran, that we can form a global movement that we can really counter the international global backsliding of democracy, and that’s the best that we can do.

Carmen Lau

If I may. Yeah, I do really understand the feeling that you get annoyed when you see those Western democratic powers support democratic failures, on the other hand shaking hands with the autocracies for financial and economic interests, and this is also a question or a challenge that the Hong Kong diaspora groups are facing at the moment, because we understand that to sustain our movements or our beliefs is – we cannot rely on any powers or any other – any countries, any Western country, forever.

So, that’s why I think that it’s important for oppressed groups to work together and to try to figure out a way that – how we could – how it could be – like, to keep the sustainability of our movements to move on. And it’s easily to be forgotten as there’s lots happening in the globe day-by-day, and while I do really understand that feeling and – yeah, but what we can do is we have to try and to keep on – to keep, you know, to keep the issue on the table. And yeah, that’s what – another thing that the Western countries should be aware of, as well, is that it’s not – it doesn’t really make sense for them to, you know, to protect those people who strive for democratic failures. But on the other hand, they keep some, kind of, economical interest with those countries, that are actually, in fact, suppressing the people there.

Jeff Wasserstrom

I would just add one thing, is that it’s important to not completely separate out the stories of what the West is doing and what China’s doing, or other authoritarian regimes. And here we haven’t brought up Xinjiang, but I think the most recent writing on Xinjiang, some of the most important work, Darren Byler’s work is one, talks very much about the complicity of Western providers of surveillance technology in the story of what’s been happening in Xinjiang and the suppression of the Uyghurs. There’s been talk about how the discourse of the War on Terror helped to make some of the moves there more palatable.

In the Hong Kong case, it wasn’t, you know, accidental that a new national security law was going to come in in 2003, right after the Patriot Act had come in in the United States. So, these are intertwined stories. It was actually very inspiring in 2003 to see Hong Kong people push back against that proposed law more than there was in the United States against the Patriot Act. But I think these are entwined stories, so it’s not just separate things, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t be particularly critical of particular grotesque human rights abuses.

Ben Bland

Here, question at the back, the gentleman.

Douglas Wong

Thanks, Ben. I’m Douglas Wong, I had the privilege of living in Hong Kong for 18 years and you’ve been there. If I could ask Nathan and Carmen, as activists, as Jeff said earlier, Hong Kong’s a radically different place than it was five years ago, and for – it has lost many of the freedoms that most of us here would recognise and seen a redefinition of democracy and judicial independence. As activists, as Pol – as young Politicians who were obviously fighting for a Hong Kong that actually had the opposite and achieved democratic values and – rather than the loss of the democratic values, in retrospect, is there anything different that either of you would’ve done?

Nathan Law

Well, it’s definitely a question I got asked quite often, and thank you for your question. For me, I think as a student leader in 2014, there was definitely a lot of – more connec – communication and connection with the people protesting that could take place. But in 2019, I think one thing that we have to understand is protest has all – like, in Hong Kong it was a really spontaneous event, and it was difficult to plan ahead. I really remember in June, early June 2019, it was just a few days before the big protest, we were talking about a figure of how many people would come out, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000, some optimistic ones were saying 500,00. But turns out we got a million, and turns out there were scuffles, there were people escalating the actions, which were really out of our expectation. As a small particle in such a big event, what we can do is just to be our part and to explain what is happening in that sphere of the world, and to the rest of the world.

So, my part there was quite clear, I was almost like a megaphone of Hong Kong. I’m a translator of what is happening, and my duty is to talk to international media, talk to policy makers, and have them a better understanding what is happening in Hong Kong. So, I pretty much feel like there are a lot more that we can do, there are a lot more parties that we can find, but at the end of the day, if we want to have a retrospect understanding or, kind of, thinking out an alternative way of how protests spawn, I think it’s really difficult because it’s so organic and it’s so spontaneous.

But I would rather agree on one point, which is the movement, the power balance was really, really not there. Like, Beijing had so much power that Hong Kong people were unable to have effective resistance. Some would argue that if we waited five years/ten years, would it be better, because China would be in a worse stage in terms of economic power, global influence. That could be philosophical questions, but that is definitely not a realistic one for us to consider.

Ben Bland

Carmen, anything to add?

Carmen Lau

Well, I think lots of us share the same feeling, that it’s a spontaneous movement, and there’s one really specific character of the movement in 2019, was – is decentralisation. Well, during – because during that time, I work for a Legislator, and no-one could ever imagine that these kind of protests would have happened. And even the Legislator, what they was doing, or what they reacted, was actually driven by the ground, by the – every – by every participant of the movement.

So, yeah, it’s – well, the whole things was actually like a – it’s interesting to talk about it, because it’s – to talk about it now, because it’s like talking about someone else stories, but yeah, for me it’s – it was like a dream. Well, there was those trigger points and when you saw so many Hong Kongers, rallies or protests on the streets and, yeah, we – every one of us could, like, easily find a position for each of us. Some may drive together – the protesters together, or, like, our Legislator, they do their own thing in the Legislative Council, obviously. And, yeah, I think we couldn’t, like, say how could it be to have a different ending and – or if we do something else, maybe we can go to the path that we wanted to be. And actually some may say that what happened now in Hong Kong is actually what we for – some of the protest events of the movements have foreseen. This is a transition period for – to making China accountable to their human rights repression. So, it’s – but we couldn’t tell because it’s a really decentralised movement.

Ben Bland

The next question I’ll take from online, from Chow Yuliang, “What’s the prospect of this – Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to indoctrinate the next generation of Hong Kongers?” Jeff, maybe you might have a view, ‘cause I…

Jeff Wasserstrom

So…

Ben Bland

…think after Tiananmen there was a movement in the mainland to…

Jeff Wasserstrom

Sure. Patriotic education and the first – well, one of the big movements was a pushback against patriotic education in 2012, that then, ironically, exactly a decade later, there’s patriotic education brought in. But here I think it’s really useful to think about what happened on the mainland in November last year. The White Paper Protest, by a generation that was really widely thought of to be brainwashed and to be hyper-nationalistic, and certainly, there are people within that generation who are, but there was something quite striking about that, and the support for what was going on there among some students abroad.

I think we’ve had a ongoing tendency to overestimate the way in which, you know, youth will be anti-regime. But we’ve also had a tendency to underestimate the way in which some degree of critical thinking can stay there under the surface, in ways, as well. Ben Bland Okay, I’ll just take one more in the room, as well.

Member

Thank you. Need the mic.

Ben Bland

Yeah, it’s coming.

Member

Thank you so much. I – given how jealously the legal establishment in Hong Kong fought or guarded its judicial independence, at the, you know, the beginnings of the suggestions of the extradition law and so on, they were conspicuously joining the protest in the marches, do you find it surprising how easily it seems the regime has managed to subvert that? And now we’re seeing – I mean, this is a legal system which involves British Judges, British Barristers, and yet, it’s become an instrument of state coercion, apparently, relatively easily.

Nathan Law

I think this is a great question. There are a few incidents that I can correlate to your question. First of all, one of the most senior democratic parties in Hong Kong was just disband, the name is Civil Party. It was found by a few very esteem – well-esteemed legal professionals, like Lawyers, QC, KCs, and it’s disband, because of – they just don’t see a way out in Hong Kong’s politics. So, that was seen as, kind of, a cornerstone of the, kind of, understanding that rule of law could defend Hong Kong faded and died in the middle of that. And we can also see one case about Jimmy Lai, the request of Jimmy Lai hiring a British Barrister was refused, and the Courts did not stop the government from doing that.

There are just so many these cases showing that the Courts has been in – compromised when they foresee that if they’ve done something wrong, then they would receive repercussion, because Beijing – let’s not forget, Beijing has the right to interpret Hong Kong’s constitution, which is so different from what we have here or in the US, or in some more advanced countries, where courts explain constitutions. That’s not the case in Hong Kong. We – our constitution is being explained by a bunch of Chinese Communist Party member in NPCSC and they judge it through their political interest.

So, on the one hand we could say that, yes, there could be a lot of infiltration in Hong Kong’s, like, legal judicial system, but on the other hand, we’ve also got that pressure from these Judges. They would automatically think that, oh, if I gave a wrong judgement in Beijing’s [inaudible – 64:05], will they just interpret, at the end of the day I still have to give a harsher sentence? There is a self-censorship, there’s a self – like, kind of, a recalibration in the whole legal system just because Beijing utilise and abuse the tool of interpretation.

So, I would guess, like, there are many different thoughts of how Hong Kong’s judicial system gets to be less and less independent, and there are many causes of it, but I think there’s one thing that we cannot argue, which is we’re definitely seeing the judicial system of Hong Kong becoming the tool of the government and to become weaponised in suppressing the protest.

Carmen Lau

And, yeah, talking about the Civic Party, I was honoured to be served – within – as a Civic Party District Councillor back in Hong Kong, and – but I mean, in my observation, I think that it’s not an incident that happens really quickly after the national security law, to crack down the legal system in Hong Kong, or the rule of law in Hong Kong, because you can see that’s in – like, ten years ago/20 years ago, the Hong Kong Government and also the Chinese Government, they started to dilute the circle of the legal system in Hong Kong. And from time to time there, more – there were more and more Chinese Lawyers that could – they could practice in Hong Kong, and of – obviously, Hong Kong Lawyers and Barristers, many of them, actually, they have business with some of the Chinese business or investor companies.

And I think it’s a gradual pathway to – lead to this kind of crackdown, and I’ve heard sometimes, in the UK that even the UK Barristers and Lawyers, they have connections or they have business with China or Chinese company, they would keep silence on the issue of Hong Kong and also, of – obviously, of course China. And once, I’ve heard there were multiple cases that Lawyers from a – Barristers from a chamber that’s really outspoken for Hong Kong or for national security law issues, they find out that – well, they – the cham – other members of the chambers, they spoke out for Hong Kong rule of law issues, they just quit the chamber. So, it’s not – I think it’s not a one-day issue to make this happens, but it’s, like – I think the Chinese Government and the Hong Kong Government has – have been, like, planning this for so long, yeah.

Ben Bland

Well, I think we’re out of time for tonight, but thanks so much to, everyone, for coming, and thanks to everyone who joined us online, and please join me in giving a round of applause to our panellists [applause].