The forced closure of Hong Kong’s last pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, back in June was a massive blow against free society in the former British colony, a year after China imposed an authoritarian national-security law on the city. In the months since, police have continued to arrest pro-democracy activists and civil-society groups have continued to disband. How is life changing in Hong Kong, as Beijing continues to press its policies there, and what’s left of the fight for democracy?

Glacier Kwong is a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong, who was a columnist for Apple Daily—now living in exile in Germany, where she’s studying for a Ph.D. in law at the University of Hamburg—speaking at next week’s Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami. According to Kwong, most Hong Kongers mourn the death of Apple Daily, and the paper’s closure intensified a climate of fear in their city. Visible political actions like protests are essentially nonexistent now, Kwong says, but people are still trying to express themselves politically through art and organizing community gatherings. Many activists, meanwhile, are attempting to figure out ways to campaign while incarcerated or outside the country. “I basically grew up in activist circles,” she says, “so most my friends are activists, and 80 percent of them are either behind bars or in exile in different places around the world.”


Graham Vyse: In the West, a lot of people saw the closure of Apple Daily as a big moment in Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong. What ripple effects did it have in Hong Kong?

Glacier Kwong: The closing of the paper means a lot to civil society in Hong Kong and to me personally. For civil society, it’s a huge shock, Apple Daily being the only newspaper that was pro-democracy instead of pro-Beijing. It had been one of the most prominent voices, though quite moderate in my eyes and never radical. I grew up reading Apple Daily, getting it out of my dad’s suitcase or his bag. It was really crazy seeing it shut down over the course of a week. It’s something I never imagined. I always thought Apple Daily would be there no matter how bad things were, because it had always been that one very stable factor in Hong Kong’s civil society.

As for ripple effects, it’s the fear it brought for all of us. Recently, 49 civil-society groups were disbanded. For example, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements, a group that organized June 4th vigils [marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre], disbanded. A lot of groups formed after the 2014 Umbrella Movement disbanded.

Aleksandar Pasaric

Vyse: Understanding why a pro-democracy activist would feel invested in a pro-democracy newspaper, how did everyday people in Hong Kong react to the end of Apple Daily?

Kwong: Everybody is sad, basically. They might not feel the impact that I feel as an activist, but you can tell how upset and desperate Hong Kongers are. After Apple Daily announced it would print its last edition, people went out at midnight and 4 a.m. to line up in front of convenience stores and bought it in bulk. They were sold out everywhere. Of course, there were pro-Beijing people celebrating, saying the paper should have gone down ages ago, but most people thought this shouldn’t happen. They went out to buy those last copies to remember what happened and honor the spirit of journalists fighting until the last minute, doing their jobs.

Vyse: They understood the significance of this.

Kwong: Yes. Apple Daily, for normal Hong Kongers, wasn’t the best journalism you could find in Hong Kong. They did some really problematic reporting back in the day, reporting too dramatically and so on. But Hong Kongers generally felt, Yeah, they might be bad sometimes, but it’s not up to the government to decide if they stay in the market. It should be up to us. We’re still buying Apple Daily, so you shouldn’t take that away from us.

When I talked to my colleagues, I said, I feel so guilty for leaving you guys behind, because I know for sure you guys are going to jail. There will be a long time when we won’t see each other. One colleague simply gave me a hug and said, I do my part, and you do yours. My part is to stay and go to jail, and your part is to live in exile and do international lobbying.

Vyse: What do you see as the most significant developments in Beijing’s crackdown on civil society in Hong Kong since the paper closed?

Kwong: The Hong Kong Alliance was targeted, and all of their core members are being arrested and put behind bars right now. They’re accused of being foreign agents—of receiving foreign money or being connected to foreign politicians. They’re being told to turn in records, data, and everything they have to the government, but the group refused. It’s sad that they’re being cracked down on, but it’s so empowering to see someone saying no. The government confiscated everything it could from their offices and households.

[The group voted to disband this past Saturday, according to the Associated Press.]

Another significant development is the national-security law cases in court. The court has been refusing to lift a media reporting ban. In most of the bail applications for national-security law cases, you can’t report everything about the case. Some activists have been challenging the decision, saying, If you don’t lift the ban, I’m going to withdraw my bail application and then apply over and over again.

Artur Korsakov

This isn’t being discussed enough, even in Hong Kong, but it’s very important, because it shows how the government wants to put all these cases in a black box so they can’t gain attention and build political momentum and trigger further resistance in Hong Kong. It’s blocking the free flow of information, so nobody outside of Hong Kong knows what’s happening in the cases. It reveals that the Hong Kong judicial system is no longer playing its role as a judiciary but rather becoming part of government oppression—like puppets being controlled by Beijing.

Vyse: To understand the context of all this a little better, can you remind us what the national-security law was intended to do, how the Chinese government justified it, and what it actually does?

Kwong: It criminalized secession, which is breaking away from the country; subversion, which is undermining the power or authority of the central government in Beijing; terrorism, which is using violence or intimidation against people; and collusion with foreign forces. The national-security law effectively dismantled every possible means of resistance in Hong Kong. If you’re demanding democracy and freedom, you’re either committing secession or subversion of the state. If you’re protesting on the ground, you’re committing terrorism, using force to intimidate people. If you’re urging for international support—calling for sanctions or global attention—you’re colluding with foreign forces. The authorities can now put people under surveillance without receiving a court order. They can require that information be removed online. They can require internet service providers to block certain websites that they deem illegal. The government and the police now enjoy impunity. They can do a lot without legal consequences.

Stop seeing China as a strategic partner. See it as a threat to global democracy, especially when we’re all aware that democracy is deteriorating even in the most advanced states like the U.S. Look at what happened on Capitol Hill.

Vyse: With all of this, what’s happening with the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong now?

Kwong: A lot of things kind of died—visible protests and political actions—but there’s still a lot happening. Under a police state or an authoritarian regime, non-political acts often become political. Organizing community gatherings, hosting screenings, doing art, being a journalist—these normal things turn extremely political. There are still a lot of people trying to do them—writing theater, writing music. Of course, when something becomes very visible, it gets cracked down on very easily, but resistance in Hong Kong is like the grass that always grows through the cracks. We’re in this phase of trial and error, trying to figure out how we’re going to preserve ourselves in really difficult times.

There are also things happening that are less political. For example, groups are offering counseling services for people, because a lot of us are traumatized after the protests and all of the events we went through. We need mental-health services that are reliable and safe to let things out and process all the emotions. A lot of activists, even those behind bars, are still trying to figure out ways to continue to campaign.

Tam Wai

Vyse: What about you? I understand you left Hong Kong as a result of the national-security law. When did you leave, and why?

Kwong: I left Hong Kong on the 26th of July in 2020. Since the beginning of the year, I’d been planning to do a petition in the German parliament urging sanctions from the German government against Hong Kong officials and Chinese officials for violating human rights. Then I heard that this law was going to be implemented. I was told that my petition might be made public in August, so I had to get out of Hong Kong before August. It ended up being made public in October, so I shouldn’t have left so early.

Vyse: What did you worry might happen to you if you stayed in Hong Kong?

Kwong: I’m afraid of arrests, and—this sounds super Asian—I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to complete my Ph.D. This is my biggest fear. [Laughs.] Going to jail sounds bearable, but because I’d already been working on advocacy for Hong Kong in Germany—building networks, meeting journalists—it didn’t make sense for me to be completely hands-off. When I talked to my colleagues, I said, I feel so guilty for leaving you guys behind, because I know for sure you guys are going to jail. There will be a long time when we won’t see each other. One colleague simply gave me a hug and said, I do my part, and you do yours. My part is to stay and go to jail, and your part is to live in exile and do international lobbying.

Is China ever cooperative? No. No matter how many international treaties it’s in, or how many international bodies it’s joined, it’s never cooperative. Look at the World Trade Organization. Since the last decade, did China ever open its market? It didn’t. Look at the Paris Agreement. Did China reduce CO2 emissions? No. Look at Hong Kong. They signed a treaty with the Brits, and look at what happened. They don’t care.

Vyse: You talk about your friends being in jail or in exile. Is that true of a lot of your friends?

Kwong: I started as an activist at the age of 15. I basically grew up in activist circles, so most of my friends are activists, and 80 percent of them are either behind bars or in exile in different places around the world.

Vyse: Thinking about your lobbying in Germany, what kind of approach to China would you like to see from the foreign policies of other advanced democracies around the world? In the U.S., for example, you see a desire to balance cooperation with China on certain issues, like climate change, and standing up for freedom and democracy. How should democracies strike that balance?

Kwong: I expect a lot, including individual sanctions. I’d love to see stronger foreign policies. Stop giving up human rights and values we should uphold for the sake of economic benefits. I’d love to stop hearing EU countries saying they won’t take a side, because eventually, they’ll have to—and not only because of human rights. Simply the issue of semiconductors is strong enough to force them to take a side, because most of the best semiconductors are being made either in the U.S. or in Taiwan.

Far Far

China isn’t just a foreign-policy topic either. It’s about interior affairs, because of how China is infiltrating every other country with its economic power—investments, TikTok, surveillance systems. They’re doing a lot to try to gain leverage in democratic countries and mobilize elites and the business sector to lobby against things that will be unfavorable for China. I don’t think a lot of countries have enough awareness of these things. They’re not reacting fast enough.

Vyse: What else can democracies do differently where it comes to their foreign policies toward China?

Kwong: Stop seeing China as a strategic partner. See it as a threat to global democracy, especially when we’re all aware that democracy is deteriorating even in the most advanced states like the U.S. Look at what happened on Capitol Hill.

Vyse: I hear you, but on an issue like climate change, the argument for cooperation is that we’re only going to solve the problem if the world comes together, and that has to include China.

Kwong: Is China ever cooperative? No. No matter how many international treaties it’s in, or how many international bodies it’s joined, it’s never cooperative. Look at the World Trade Organization. Since the last decade, did China ever open its market? It didn’t. Look at the Paris Agreement. Did China reduce CO2 emissions? No. Look at Hong Kong. They signed a treaty with the Brits, and look at what happened. They don’t care. They only joined international treaties and bodies because it was beneficial for them at the time to gain leverage in the world. They’re never rule-based players. They’re the bullies of the world, essentially, and the world should have awakened and acknowledged that these approaches never worked.

Replicate the China playbook. China would say, If you want to talk about economics, we’re not talking about human rights. Western democratic countries should say, No, if we’re not talking about human rights, we’re not talking about economics. Trade goes both ways. It’s not like only the Western countries need China. China also needs products and services. Toughen up when it comes to negotiations. I understand it sounds crazy, but stop acting like a gentleman.

For climate change, I understand how it feels like we should cooperate. I’m not saying we should cut China off or ignore it. This is a global issue that requires a global solution. But it doesn’t make any sense just to think naively that if we talk to China, it’ll work. China will just use climate change as leverage for things like turning a blind eye to its human-rights policy—and they might not reduce emissions anyway. I don’t have a solution, but repeating past mistakes and expecting different results won’t help.

Replicate the China playbook. China would say, If you want to talk about economics, we’re not talking about human rights. Western democratic countries should say, No, if we’re not talking about human rights, we’re not talking about economics. Trade goes both ways. It’s not like only the Western countries need China. China also needs products and services. Toughen up when it comes to negotiations. I understand it sounds crazy, but stop acting like a gentleman.

Vyse: What can everyday people in other countries do to help Hong Kong and promote democracy there?

Kwong: First of all, don’t take your freedom for granted. Please, please, please remain vigilant about threats to freedom, because it can be taken away very easily. Show solidarity for people—not only in Hong Kong but in Burma and Thailand and other places fighting for freedom.

Pixabay

Take small actions like following activists on Twitter and sharing news when things happen and writing to your representatives to express concern about Hong Kong. When you vote, think about how the candidates and parties react to authoritarian regimes in the world. Are they saying, We don’t care about human rights and we only care about money …?

Vyse: Don’t vote for those people.

Kwong: Don’t vote for those people!

Vyse: Looking to the future, I imagine that the past year makes the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong a much a longer-term project, if there’s still hope for it at all.

Kwong: My colleagues and I don’t rely on hope to motivate our activism. It’s not that we persist because we see hope. We see hope after we persist. We anticipated all these things would happen. We never thought it would be so fast, but we knew this moment was coming. There’s going to be a very hard time for Hong Kongers on the path to democracy, but we know Hong Kong will eventually change for the better, and that’s why we’re here—to enable meaningful changes as far as we can, to make sure we have what we want in the future. We knew from the very beginning that we were fighting the word’s biggest dictatorship—and of course it’s going to crack down as hard as it can when you’re not obedient. The only way to be able to fight is to acknowledge reality. We don’t have the luxury of wearing rose-colored glasses. We can only stay very tough and resilient.