Former Hong Kong lawmaker Kwok Wing-kong has moved to Canada with his family, The Globe and Mail reported on Thursday.
According to a number of Hong Kong media reports over the past two days, Kwok left Hong Kong for the United Kingdom in November last year and then moved to Canada, where his family also left afterwards.
Kwok was elected to the Legislative Council’s Legal Functional Constituency in 2012 and was re-elected in 2016. In October 2019, while serving as temporary chairman of the Legislative Council’s House Committee, Kwok presided over the election of a full chairman by allowing pan-democratic lawmakers to use the proceedings to raise questions at the meeting in an attempt to delay the election of the chairman, causing the House Committee to fail to elect a chairman within six months, prompting the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the Chinese State Council to issue a rare statement condemning Kwok Wing-kong for “attempting to paralyze the Legislative Council and impact the constitution,” alleging that he was “guilty of misconduct in public office.
Before the Hong Kong government announced the postponement of the 2020 Legislative Council election, Kwok had announced his candidacy for re-election in the Legislative Council’s Legal Functional Constituency, but his candidacy was declared invalid and disqualified by the Returning Officer. Although the Legislative Council election was postponed in 2020, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) also announced that the term of office of all legislators would be extended by at least one year. However, in November of the same year, the NPC Standing Committee made a decision on the eligibility of some incumbent legislators, disqualifying four pan-democratic legislators, including Kwok Wing-kong. The incident triggered all pan-democratic legislators to announce their resignation, and Kwok Wing-kong also announced his retirement from politics after being stripped of his membership.
After the news about Kwok’s move to Canada circulated, some Hong Kong media asked the chairman of the Hong Kong Civic Party, Mr. Alan Leong, to confirm the news, who replied at the time that he was not sure of Kwok’s whereabouts, and that the Civic Party had not received any notice of Kwok’s request to resign from the party. Kwok’s social media sites have been updated over the past months, with his last update on March 31 commenting on the conviction of seven pan-democrats for the 2019 “8-18 Victoria Park rally”. Before our deadline, Kwok had not yet published any news about his latest situation on any channel.
Born in Canada, Kwok followed his family to Hong Kong when he was young. He then studied in England and was admitted to practice law in Hong Kong. During his tenure as a lawyer, he joined the Hong Kong Civic Party to pursue a political career. Prior to the 2019 anti-China movement in Hong Kong, Kwok visited Washington, D.C., in March of that year with former Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan and another pan-democratic legislator, Charles Mok, to discuss the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act with American politicians.
After the passage of the “Hong Kong version of the National Security Act,” former legislator Xu Zhifeng left Hong Kong in December last year and is now in exile in Australia. Another former lawmaker, Law Kwun Chung, was officially granted political asylum in the United Kingdom on Wednesday.
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