After three months of exile in the United Kingdom and Europe, former Hong Kong legislator Raymond Hui Chi-fung announced on March 8 that he would continue his lobbying work in Australia.
He mentioned that now there is Law Kwun Chung in the UK and the two are doing similar work, so “there should be a better division of labor, so that the international lobbying and assistance to separated Hong Kong people can be spread to all continents and different corners of the world as much as possible.”
Deutsche Welle interviewed several experts about the future of democratic resistance in Hong Kong and analyzed the key positions of lobbying and social movements in the future.
- Britain
After many Hong Kong people entered the UK through the overseas passport BNO, the country that once colonized Hong Kong and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with Beijing has become a major stronghold of democratic resistance in Hong Kong.
Ao Cheuk-hin, a founding member of HKZ, who is currently based in the United States, told Deutsche Welle that a large number of people can be expected to go to the UK and that these people could be “an important voting bloc.
He said, “I can envision a voting bloc of Hong Kong people in the UK, so the Hong Kong issue becomes an important topic that British politicians have to talk about.”
Johnnie Hui also mentioned that there are other “Hong Kong brothers and sisters” in the UK and Europe besides Law Kwun Chung, saying, “With them in the UK and Europe, I am also more confident to go further.”
- Other five-eyed alliance countries
Another possibility is the British allies, especially Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, which are also members of the Five Eyes Alliance.
Jeff Wasserstrom, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle, “When repression within a country intensifies, overseas activities by exiles or expatriates are important.”
Francis Hui mentioned that “although there are a lot of Hong Kong people who have settled and studied in Australia, there are relatively few Hong Kong political leaders in exile in Australia who devote themselves full-Time to lobbying, which is one of the factors that led to my decision to switch to Australia.”
He also said that New Zealand and Australia “have a lot of contradictions and tug-of-war with Beijing on universal values such as democracy and freedom and trade”.
Johnnie Hui said he has plans to visit other countries in the future, “to implement the spirit of Hong Kong people in the anti-China campaign, ‘where you want people, go'”.
In addition, Raymond Hui said he had contacted Hong Kong people’s groups in North America during his stay in the United Kingdom, saying “they have mature and close organizations in the United States and Canada, and many of them are well-known Hong Kong people and political figures, so there is a lot of potential for international work”.
Whether it is the UK or its allies, or even other countries, Ao believes that after the Epidemic is over, the scale of solidarity rallies around the world will become larger as Hong Kong’s emigrant population increases.
He stressed that in the current situation, it is not easy to cooperate with the protesters in Hong Kong from inside and outside, and that the overseas protests have another purpose.
When Hong Kong people can’t take to the streets, these demonstrations will develop into some kind of pressure on local governments, wherever those communities are, to send the message to local governments that ‘this issue is important,'” he said.
He believes that “the audience will be these governments, not the Hong Kong people in Hong Kong.”
- Hong Kong
In the wake of the big pro-democracy arrests and changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system, experts believe that Beijing and the Hong Kong government have set the tone and will actively suppress any form of opposition.
Nan Le, an American political scientist currently visiting Taiwan University, told Deutsche Welle, “The best thing for the opposition at the moment is to try to stay out of jail.”
He believes that actively passing a motion in the Legislative Council would allow the government to prevent anyone from leaving Hong Kong, and that “opposition members should find a way to seek asylum for themselves and their families.”
He called on “the international community to do what it can to create a way out for Hong Kong people, especially those at immediate risk of persecution.”
For his part, Jeff Wasserstrom, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, mentioned that it is not impossible to do anything in Hong Kong, even if the environment has changed so much.
What we’ve learned from various authoritarian environments is that it’s possible to find issues that are relevant to everyday Life to organize, to mock those in power through jokes and wordplay or symbolism,” he said. That’s important to keep hope alive.”
He believes that Hong Kong people, who “showed great skill” in the mass street actions prior to the implementation of the National Security Law, will be able to find their own path of resistance in the future.
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