Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, Radio news Now.
Speaker 2: Earlier this month, in a townhouse on the outskirts of London,
Speaker 2: Jarita Wan was teaching a group from Hong Kong to
Speaker 2: sing a song in Cantonese. The song is called Unfinished Ending.
Speaker 2: The windows behind her were covered with paper decorations from
Speaker 2: the Lunar New Year, including the Chinese character for fortune.
Speaker 2: For years, she was a successful musical theater actress in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong. She moved to the London suburbs with her husband,
Speaker 2: her father, and two dogs in twenty twenty two. That
Speaker 2: was three years after pro democracy protests rocked Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: Teen demonstrations were the biggest political turmoil Hong Kong had
Speaker 2: seen in decades, and in response, Beijing cracked down, imposing
Speaker 2: a national security law for the city without public consultation.
Speaker 2: Wen says she no longer felt comfortable in the city
Speaker 2: that she grew up in.
Speaker 3: What happened in Hong Kong in twenty nineteen was really
Speaker 3: really upsetting to a lot of us, especially as an
Speaker 3: artist's freedom of speech or freedom of writing, or freedom
Speaker 3: of creation is a part of our nature, and I
Speaker 3: start feeling suffocated.
Speaker 2: When was among at least two hundred thousand local residents
Speaker 2: who chose to leave Hong Kong after the National Security
Speaker 2: Law came into effect. Many moved to places like the UK, Australia,
Speaker 2: Taiwan and Canada.
Speaker 3: It was quite hard because I lived basically my whole
Speaker 3: life in Hong Kong and we've planned to start a
Speaker 3: new life here in UK, away from fear and away
Speaker 3: from this disheartening news.
Speaker 2: Next week marks the twenty seventh anniversary of Great Britain
Speaker 2: handing the city of Hong Kong back to China. In
Speaker 2: many ways, the city still continues to serve as an
Speaker 2: important financial hub in the region, but Bloomberg China editor
Speaker 2: Alan Wong says we're seeing far reaching consequences from the
Speaker 2: national security crackdown still playing out to this day.
Speaker 4: So the National Security Law silenced China's loudest critics in
Speaker 4: Hong Kong, and some people thought that would be it. Also,
Speaker 4: they hoped both businesses and the government said they wanted
Speaker 4: to move on from all this talk about security and
Speaker 4: to focus on the urgent task of growing the economy.
Speaker 4: But what happened in the last few months tell us
Speaker 4: that Hong Kong's national security crusee doesn't end here, and
Speaker 4: the city is unlikely to go back to what it was.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Big Tech Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
Speaker 2: Every week we take you inside some of the world's
Speaker 2: biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
Speaker 2: businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show,
Speaker 2: twenty seven years after Hong Kong was returned to China,
Speaker 2: we look at how Beijing is reshaping the city's identity
Speaker 2: and what that means for Hong Kong and its seven
Speaker 2: million residents. Hong Kong was cedd to British control in
Speaker 2: eighteen forty one after the First Opium War. This tiny
Speaker 2: rocky island sitting at the southern tip of China became
Speaker 2: a global center for trade and commerce between the East
Speaker 2: and the West. In nineteen ninety seven, after more than
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years of British rule, Hong Kong
Speaker 2: was returned to China as part of an agreement. But
Speaker 2: before the hand of the city back over, they agreed
Speaker 2: on one important condition.
Speaker 4: They agreed on a framework they call one entry to
Speaker 4: systems to keep this city alive. Because people knew then
Speaker 4: and China knew then that if they were just going
Speaker 4: to turn Hong Kong into just like another mainland Chinese
Speaker 4: city overnight, then all the things that made Hong Kong
Speaker 4: special and useful to China would disappear overnight.
Speaker 2: China agreed and made one country, two systems a constitutional principle.
Speaker 2: It promised that Hong Kong would enjoy a high degree
Speaker 2: of autonomy in its economic and political systems for fifty years,
Speaker 2: freedoms of self rule, speech and press that aren't allowed
Speaker 2: just across the border in mainland China. And despite the promise,
Speaker 2: many worried that the handover would change Hong Kong, and
Speaker 2: not for the better.
Speaker 4: There was great anxiety in Hong Kong around the handover
Speaker 4: because of what happened in Beijing in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 4: when the Tenement Square massacre happened. That's when China's People's
Speaker 4: Liberation Army killed civilian protesters in the crackdown on program
Speaker 4: because they protest in Beijing, and that was the event
Speaker 4: that loomed in people's mind. People feared what the new
Speaker 4: government in China in Beijing would do to the city.
Speaker 4: They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
Speaker 4: It not that they had to say.
Speaker 2: Alan was born and raised in British Hong Kong. In
Speaker 2: the years running up to the handover, he was just
Speaker 2: a young boy in elementary school, and even though he
Speaker 2: didn't understand it at the time, he remembers things out
Speaker 2: of the ordinary were happening around him.
Speaker 4: I remember distinctly that some classmates would mysteriously drop out
Speaker 4: of school and I didn't know at the time, but
Speaker 4: they left because their families were moving to places like
Speaker 4: Canada and Australia. There were lots of people who did that,
Speaker 4: and some of that fear was captured in newspaper coverage
Speaker 4: of Hong Kong.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: There was literally a magazine that put the words the
Speaker 4: death of Hong Kong on its cover, and obviously Hong
Speaker 4: Kong didn't die. In the first few years after the handover,
Speaker 4: Hong Kong was actually business as usual.
Speaker 2: At the time of the handover, Hong Kong accounted for
Speaker 2: nearly one fifth of China's GDP, and in the decades
Speaker 2: since nineteen ninety seven, Hong Kong has continued to thrive
Speaker 2: as a financial hub, and politically it also remained vibrant.
Speaker 2: People protested freely on the street, which wasn't allowed on
Speaker 2: the mainland. In two thousand and three, Hong Kong's government
Speaker 2: first attempted to pass a national security law that prompted
Speaker 2: half a million residents to take to the streets in
Speaker 2: the largest demonstration Hong Kong had seen since the handover.
Speaker 2: That protest became an annual tradition on July first, the
Speaker 2: anniversary of the handover. Hong Kong was also the only
Speaker 2: place on Chinese soil where people could commemorate the anniversary
Speaker 2: of the Teneman crackdown.
Speaker 4: Every year since nineteen eighty nine, rain or shine, at
Speaker 4: least thousands of people they would gather in Victoria Park
Speaker 4: in downtown Hong Kong to commemorate those who died in
Speaker 4: the crackdown. For journalists, it was an event that they
Speaker 4: would just cover every year. They would take for granted
Speaker 4: that this event could take place year after year, even
Speaker 4: though it was completely impossible just across the border in
Speaker 4: mainland China.
Speaker 2: But this vibrant, free environment would soon come under attack
Speaker 2: and the response would set the stage for Hong Kong's future.
Speaker 2: That's after the break in twenty nineteen, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of people took to the streets in Hong Kong to
Speaker 2: protest against the proposal of an extradition law.
Speaker 4: The law would allow the transfer of fugitives in Hong
Speaker 4: Kong to mainland China to face trial there, and the
Speaker 4: government insisted it would only apply to a very few
Speaker 4: people and it would have no bearing on political freedoms
Speaker 4: in Hong Kong. People feared it could be used against
Speaker 4: dissidents China's critics.
Speaker 2: When the UK handed Hong Kong back to China, there
Speaker 2: were no agreements put in place for extraditing individuals from
Speaker 2: the city to the mainland. That was part of the
Speaker 2: infrastructure that kept Hong Kong different from China. The protests
Speaker 2: soon morphed into a broader anti China movement that went
Speaker 2: on for months. Protesters regularly blocked highways, vandalized subway stations,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it escalated into violence, with full on confrontations
Speaker 2: against Hong Kong riot police. The protests started to tail
Speaker 2: off after the COVID nineteen outbreak limited public activities, and
Speaker 2: on top of.
Speaker 4: That, Beijing thought enough is enough. Beijing being imposed a
Speaker 4: new national security law in Hong Kong that made a
Speaker 4: lot of the protests that were lawful illegal that made
Speaker 4: a lot of expressions of dissent previously accept tolerated maybe
Speaker 4: no longer acceptable, and it allowed the authorities to almost
Speaker 4: completely wipe out the political opposition in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: This National Security Law, or the NSL, criminalized promoting Hong
Speaker 2: Kong secession from China, along with subverting the Communist Party,
Speaker 2: acts of terrorism, and collusion with foreigners. Violators could face
Speaker 2: life imprisonment. Beijing said the law was needed for national security,
Speaker 2: while critics said it was intended to shut down dissent
Speaker 2: and silence activist groups. The law has since been used
Speaker 2: to try and imprison dozens of pro democracy activists. Police
Speaker 2: arrested a group called the Hong Kong forty seven, which
Speaker 2: included high profile activists such as Joshua Wong, seasoned politicians,
Speaker 2: elected lawmakers, social workers, as well as an academic, a
Speaker 2: union leader and a journalist. Last month, fourteen of the
Speaker 2: forty seven activists were found guilty of subversion charges, and
Speaker 2: the Hong Kong government didn't stop there. In a surprise move,
Speaker 2: the police put bounties on those accused of violating the
Speaker 2: NSL and had left Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai, a
Speaker 2: tycoon and the founder of a pro democracy newspaper that
Speaker 2: were shut down by the government now faces trial on
Speaker 2: his role in the twenty nineteen pro democracy protests. He
Speaker 2: also faces a separate trial with more severe charges of
Speaker 2: collusion with foreign forces. All that puts the future of
Speaker 2: a free press in Hong Kong in the crosshairs.
Speaker 4: The biggest, most vocal leaders of Hong Kong's pro democracy
Speaker 4: movements having either jailed or exiled those main voices calling
Speaker 4: for greater democracy freedoms in Hong Kong, they have been
Speaker 4: effectively silenced.
Speaker 2: In March, the Hong Kong government passed a new security
Speaker 2: law known as Article twenty three. It cracks down even
Speaker 2: further with new offenses covering civil disturbances and foreign interference.
Speaker 4: This new law is expected to coexist and work in
Speaker 4: tendem with the two thousand and twenty National Security Law.
Speaker 4: It is still fresh out of the oven, but we
Speaker 4: started to get a sentence of how the government wants
Speaker 4: to use this law.
Speaker 2: Last month, Hong Kong made its first arrest under the
Speaker 2: new Article twenty three, arresting an activist who was already
Speaker 2: behind bars.
Speaker 4: This activist, whose name is Chowhantung, a barrister and an
Speaker 4: organizer of the Tenement Square vigil. She was accused of
Speaker 4: making seditious posts on Facebook with the help of others.
Speaker 4: The government didn't say what worth the offense posts, but
Speaker 4: they said those posts were in connection with a quote
Speaker 4: unquote sensitive date, and the government was referring to June fourth,
Speaker 4: the anniversary of the Tenement Square crackdown, and the the
Speaker 4: fact that the government refused to name the event and
Speaker 4: refer to it as a sensitive date says a lot
Speaker 4: about how sensitive it has become and how the government
Speaker 4: is trying to make it a taboo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can't even say June fourth.
Speaker 4: He's like Votimore.
Speaker 2: It was clear that Hong Kong's autonomy, the basic political
Speaker 2: freedoms it enjoyed after nineteen ninety seven, are now all
Speaker 2: but gone. The notion of one country, two systems now
Speaker 2: applies primarily to the economy, and Allen says that has
Speaker 2: created a sense of hopelessness for many of the people
Speaker 2: of Hong Kong.
Speaker 4: They don't think what they say could change the system anymore.
Speaker 4: They fear getting caught up by the NSL. Some of
Speaker 4: those people chose to leave Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: In response to the crackdown, Countries like the UK, Australia
Speaker 2: and Canada have offered pathways for Hong Kong residents to
Speaker 2: obtain citizenship, and for their part, Hong Kongers have been
Speaker 2: leaving in droves.
Speaker 4: So the Hong Kong government doesn't publish official data on
Speaker 4: how many people left Hong Kong for good or how
Speaker 4: many people left for political reasons. We looked at immigration
Speaker 4: data from the UK, Australia and Taiwan and came to
Speaker 4: a rough estimate that at least two hundred thousand Hong
Speaker 4: Kongers had moved to those places after the NSL was
Speaker 4: implemented in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: But despite some people's disillusionment with Hong Kong and China's
Speaker 2: efforts to control the city, there are residents who are
Speaker 2: now taking advantage of Hong Kong's closer ties to China
Speaker 2: with much cheaper prices on the mainland. Some have even
Speaker 2: embraced a new cross border lifestyle.
Speaker 4: After Hong Kong emerged from its pandemic isolation, and when
Speaker 4: people restarted their travels, they realized that so much has
Speaker 4: changed about Shuzen or other Chinese cities, and now they
Speaker 4: have so many more public transport options to go into China.
Speaker 4: The more seamless traffic experience has encouraged people to spend
Speaker 4: their weekends in China to shop, to eat, because they're
Speaker 4: just getting a lot more banned for the buck.
Speaker 2: Just a few weeks ago, during the Dragon Boat Festival,
Speaker 2: Hong Kong residents made more than a million trips across
Speaker 2: the border to China for the long holiday weekend. That's
Speaker 2: an increase from twenty nineteen before the pandemic hit, and
Speaker 2: it's also more than three times the number of visitors
Speaker 2: who came from mainland China into Hong Kong. Bloomberg also
Speaker 2: recently interviewed young Hong Kong residents who used to protest China.
Speaker 2: These days, they're now making regular trips to Shenzhen for
Speaker 2: cheap food, massages and even grocery runs.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't say that they now love the Chinese Comments Party.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't say they endorsed China's political system, and they
Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't want those systems adopted in Hong Kong, but
Speaker 4: they become more agnostic about going to mainland China for leisure.
Speaker 4: I think they feel hopeless when it comes to changing
Speaker 4: the political system here, so they just see the shopping
Speaker 4: as a purely economic activity.
Speaker 2: Alan, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers have left the city,
Speaker 2: but you have those who've stayed here. You have people
Speaker 2: who are now getting comfortable with the closer connections with China.
Speaker 2: Is that surprising in a way?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not surprised because they're always immigrants coming
Speaker 4: and going before or after ninety ninety seven. That's just
Speaker 4: the nature of Hong Kong as a very international city,
Speaker 4: which is why, you know, the question of what makes
Speaker 4: someone in Hong Kong, or the question of identity in
Speaker 4: Hong Kong is so tricky. What China's leader before the
Speaker 4: handover said it wanted was for Hong Kongers to return
Speaker 4: to China in their hearts and difference. That's a big
Speaker 4: difference here, and it's it's not easy to tell when
Speaker 4: or whether people will fully see themselves as part of
Speaker 4: this country. Like when they identify themselves, do they call
Speaker 4: themselves Hong Kongers or do they call themselves Chinese? And
Speaker 4: you know what do those words mean anyway? Ya don't so?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Mad.
Speaker 2: As for Jerita, when the music teacher in London, she
Speaker 2: doesn't see herself back home anytime soon.
Speaker 3: Since I left Hong Kong, I witnessed my friends from
Speaker 3: my industry, including theater actors, they got arrested or they
Speaker 3: got charged. I felt really scared, and I felt this
Speaker 3: place is trying to expel its own people. In order
Speaker 3: to survive in that city, I will transform into someone
Speaker 3: that I hate. I have to feel safe in the
Speaker 3: place that would let me to create or say anything
Speaker 3: that I want to say, or even sing anything that
Speaker 3: I want to sing. Maybe there will be a future
Speaker 3: for me in Hong Kong, but I don't see a
Speaker 3: future that I like for me in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Big Take Asia podcast from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. I'm wan Ha. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Naomi Um, Young Young, Jessica Beck, and Alexander Suguiera. It
Speaker 2: was mixed by alex and fact checked by Jessica and
Speaker 2: alex And. It was edited by Aaron Edwards, Stacy Smith,
Speaker 2: Daniel ten Kate, and John Leu. Additional reporting by Aria
Speaker 2: Chen Dayu Jung and Rebecca Chung. Wilkins, Name Wushaven and
Speaker 2: Kim Gettelson are our senior producers. Elizabeth Ponso Is our
Speaker 2: senior editor. Nicole Beamster Bower is our executive producer. Sage
Speaker 2: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and review
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