The ongoing crackdown on political dissent in Hong Kong has turned the city, where millions once took refuge from Chinese Communist Party rule, into an “exporter of refugees,” according to exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law.
Law, who had his passport revoked in June along with other " wanted" overseas activists, said his father was a refugee who settled in Hong Kong after fleeing Communist Party rule in mainland China.
Now, the former British colony that once acted as a safe haven for Law Sr. and millions like him is seeing its own residents flee in the hundreds of thousands amid an ongoing crackdown on all forms of political opposition, Law told a book launch event in democratic Taiwan on Monday.
"Under Chinese Communist Party rule, somewhere that was once a place of hope for all those who wanted to escape from China has become an exporter of its own refugees," Law, the youngest person to ever be elected to Hong Kong's Legislative Council, told guests attending the launch of his book, When the Wind Blows: The Struggle for Freedom in Hong Kong.
"This has seen a lot of people deprived of hope, sent to prison, and has forced many young people and people with ideals to leave," Law said. "It really shows how totalitarian rule can ruin somewhere that used to be free."
Law said he is launching his book in Taiwan because it's no longer possible to have it published in Hong Kong.
“It shows how the entire political situation has collapsed in Hong Kong, where we have lost even the right to publish along with our freedom of expression,” he said.
‘Violence and lies’
Security was tight at the event, with at least seven private security guards on patrol amid growing concerns over " long-arm" law enforcement by agents and supporters of the Chinese state.
Law's book hopes to focus attention in the Chinese-speaking world on the experience of Hong Kongers in exile, as well as reminding them of the plight of its political prisoners, who have been jailed in their thousands under public order charges in the wake of the 2019 protests, with hundreds of arrests under two draconian security laws criminalizing public criticism of the authorities.
Chip magnate Robert Tsao, who in 2022 announced his return to Taiwan to help fight the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, said Hong Kong had been a wake-up call to the rest of the world, and Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing but has never formed part of the People’s Republic of China, in particular.
"The whole world knows that the Chinese Communist Party is an authoritarian regime built on violence and lies," Tsao told the book launch, citing the July 21, 2019, attacks on passengers and passers-by in Yuen Long MTR station by unidentified, stick-wielding thugs in white T-shirts.
“The Chinese Communist Party actually instigated these hooligans ... to beat up Hong Kong citizens indiscriminately,” he said, adding that the attacks triggered his decision to return to Taiwan.
"Taiwan is the last refuge for Chinese-speaking people, and we mustn't allow it to fall," said Tsao, who told RFA Cantonese in a 2022 interview ( in Chinese) that a Chinese official from Beijing's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong had told him they planned to "get some gangsters and police to beat [the protesters] up, then they'll behave themselves."
Political commentator Lai I-Chung said Hong Kong’s freedoms and way of life were destroyed when Beijing imposed the 2020 National Security Law on the city, taking many by surprise.
“Every investor whose opinion we respect was telling us that nothing would happen in 2019, and that the Chinese government wouldn't dare do anything to Hong Kong, because they need it too much, and they would lose their own money if they strangled it,” Lai said. “Today, we know that all of these people were wrong.”
"A lot of assumptions are wrong when you are dealing with a newly totalitarian regime," he said, in an apparent reference to the leadership of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping since 2012.
“The normal rules of logic and common sense may not apply,” Lai warned.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.