The Hong Kong exodus is coming

The erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy by China is forcing its citizens to decide between escaping or taking a stand, writes Brian McGleenon

Pro-Beijing activists gather outside the British Consulate-General on Tuesday to protest against the use of BNO visas in Hong Kong  (AFP/Getty)

Ted Hui recalls the moment he announced he would flee Hong Kong for the UK. “I burst into tears when I told my loved ones I was going into exile,” he says. In the closing months of 2020, the Democratic Party politician was issued with nine charges based on “totally fake stories” for his involvement in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. One charge was for “perverting the course of justice” and carried a maximum life sentence; another offence was ludicrously labelled “administering drugs and harmful substances” for dropping a stink bomb during a meeting of the city’s Legislative Council, and carried a four-year term. He also faced the prospect of a private trial with no jury. 

The Kafkaesque manner of the judiciary made him realise “there was no way to rely on this legal system for justice”. After months of sleepless nights, fearing dawn raids by armed police officers and being “stalked by intelligence agents”, he decided to leave Hong Kong, sparking the exodus of many others to the pandemic-stricken shores of Britain. Hui tells me: “There will definitely be a massive number of people arriving, and cities like London and Manchester could end up with the largest Hong Kong diasporas in the world.”

On 30 June 2020 Beijing imposed its “national security law” on embattled Hong Kong to silence the pro-democracy demonstrations. State media outlet China Daily heralded it as the only way to stop “the overreactions of those rioters and their foreign backers”. The ranks of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement have varied aims, from those who want more autonomy to those who espouse full independence from China. The national security law prohibits freedom of expression and can be crookedly manipulated to silence dissent. What exactly infringes the new law is purposely vague so that it can be widely applied. Secession from China, subverting state authority and collusion with foreign powers are its main elements, all aimed at crushing democratic sentiment in the financial hub.

The UK responded to the new law by accusing Beijing of reneging on 1984’s Sino-British Joint Declaration, which promised to protect civil liberties and autonomy for 50 years. Boris Johnson then announced he would give UK residency rights to those eligible for the British National Overseas (BNO) visa. Thus, from 31 January an estimated 5.2 million people from Hong Kong could potentially relocate to Britain, comprising 2.9 million eligible citizens and their 2.3 million dependents. Johnson’s government, which had campaigned on an anti-immigration Brexit stance, justified the move “because of the unprecedented circumstances in Hong Kong and the UK’s historic and moral commitment to its citizens”.

However, the UK’s scheme neglects one particular group that was most active in the massive pro-democracy rallies that brought Hong Kong to a standstill: the 18- to 23-year-old demographic who are too old to come to the UK as a dependent of a BNO visa holder, but born after the 1997’s cutoff date for eligibility to become a holder in their own right. A student who falls into this category asked to remain anonymous when I contacted her, fearing her family would suffer retribution from Chinese authorities. 

She told me about the case of fellow university student Tony Chung, who is now detained and awaiting trial for “trying to overthrow the Chinese state”. Secession is a crime with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment under the national security law. His crime? Throwing a Chinese flag to the ground outside the US embassy in Hong Kong. 

Chung was denied bail, an increasingly common practice with pro-democracy activists. As the detentions without bail escalated and police promoted a 24-hour hotline for “loyal citizens” to inform on activists, the student I spoke to felt the tightening of a security net around her. The plight of 19-year-old Chung became the final catalyst that drove her to make the decision that would become “the major turning point of my whole life”. In November 2020 she entered Hong Kong International Airport alone and boarded a flight to London without saying goodbye to her family. She says: “I cried the whole way, I thought the security agents at immigration would be suspicious, but I couldn't control my emotions.”

China will simply not allow millions of its citizens to leave for political reasons. The loss of authority and power would be unacceptable to the regime

The reality of life in lockdown London did not align with her expectations. Her voice suddenly floods with a deep melancholy. “The longer I stay here the distance and time will loosen the ties between myself and Hong Kong.” Because of her age, she cannot access the BNO visa scheme, so must remain in limbo waiting for a Home Office decision on her asylum status. If she is denied asylum and has to return to Hong Kong there is a high chance of her being arrested due to her involvement in the pro-democracy movement. Her trial would likely be held in a closed court on the Chinese mainland, like Chung’s, “where the authorities would handpick the lawyers to represent me”. She is willing to accept this eventuality if it arrives, saying: “In a revolution someone needs to be sacrificed and I will protect my city until the day I die.” She is 18 years old.

The UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong’s virtual meeting on 26 January saw input from Chinese artist and activist Ai Wei Wei, who forecasted that the “national security law would spell the end for Hong Kong”. This was a common feeling among those I spoke with. A middle-class family from Hong Kong who recently arrived in Bristol described how they didn’t leave for political reasons, but “because Hong Kong’s educational values had gone”. They spoke of a troubling blend of CCP loyalty, patriotism and Han-centrism seeping into school curricula. I was told that since the local district elections, when democratically aligned representatives saw a landslide victory, “the government wanted to scrap liberal studies as they feel it was teaching the students ‘the wrong things’”. The parents’ main fear is that “if we leave our kids here, they will not be free”.

Johnson’s talk of defending “Hong Kong’s shared values with Britain and standing up for freedom and autonomy” prompted Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, to play down the threat of a sudden mass evacuation. Speaking to Bloomberg on Thursday she refused to concede “that people would love to go to the United Kingdom”, adding that the “important thing is for us to tell the people that Hong Kong’s future is bright”. She then listed the feared national security law as one of the main reasons to stay. “Now we have the national security law, Hong Kong is safe from intimidation and violence,” she said, thus sowing the seeds of a revisionist narrative, that the real impetus driving those into exile is the “intimidation” caused by the pro-democracy movement.

If the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pragmatic they might see Johnson’s visa scheme as an opportunity to free itself of “disloyal people”. Another plus would be the ability to offer the leftover job positions to the teeming numbers of jobless graduates from the mainland, as China faces a huge problem of graduate unemployment. But many China observers predict that the politburo in Beijing will instead strike to stop the scheme because of the loss of face that would result if millions of Hong Kong citizens reject China in favour of Britain. 

Professor Steve Tsang of SOAS University of London’s China Institute tells me that the ruling party in Beijing is conditioned to fear the loss of control and will be compelled to “not let these disloyal people get away with it”. He describes how the CCP “since its conception in the 1920s has always been harsher to its own people than its enemies”, and how this insular vindictiveness reverberates from the leadership of Xi Jinping and “runs systematically” through the party. Chris Whitehouse of the Whitehouse Consultancy supports this view, saying “China will simply not allow millions of its citizens to leave for political reasons. The loss of authority and power would be unacceptable to the regime.”

To prevent a mass exodus from the city, Beijing announced it would no longer recognise BNO visas as a travel document. This immediately caused anxiety for the many people in Hong Kong with no passport other than their BNO. Last Friday, Beijing's firebrand foreign affairs minister Zhao Lijian told reporters that “from January 31, China will no longer recognise the so-called BNO passport as a travel document and ID document, and reserves the right to take further action”. But, what ”further action” means is open to speculation. One option could be to force people to give up their BNO status or lose their Chinese citizenship and Hong Kong residency. 

We must keep hope alive and maybe one day, that magical day, we will go home to a free Hong Kong

A representative for HKARC (Hong Kong Assistance and Resettlement Community), a charity helping arrivals coming to the UK, said Beijing could use China’s Nationality Law to deny BNO holders “the right of abode in Hong Kong and the attendant right to vote in Hong Kong elections”. This possibility was corroborated on Sunday when Tian Feilong, associate professor at Beihang University in Beijing, said China could “remove the right of abode, of welfare and casting votes which would help to ensure only Hong Kong patriots are governing Hong Kong”. The HKARC representative told me Beijing will amplify the psychological hurdle that moving to the UK “is a one-way ticket and Hong Kong will not be a backup if things don’t work well”. The rhetoric has already begun with foreign affairs minister Zhao warning those who wish to leave will be treated like “second-class citizens” in the UK.

Last week China’s ministry of foreign affairs suggested Britain had ulterior motives for setting up the scheme, stating “the move by the British side will bring huge economic interests to a country” that is in “dire need of talent and capital”. This view is partly supported by the Home Office’s own estimate that found the scheme could bring a net fiscal benefit to the UK economy of as much as £2.94bn over five years. The extra revenue would come from tax and visa fees. The scheme gives working rights and residency but offers no financial support for relocation or integration. This would filter out the working classes and attract property-owning professionals the UK could surely use. Selling even a small apartment in Hong Kong could buy a three-bedroom semi-detached house in London, with cash to spare.

Hong Kong medics, lawyers and financial workers all have transferable skills and are trained under the same professional standards as those in the UK. A stream of eager healthcare professionals could plug the holes in the NHS that Brexit is breaching. However, Hong Kong surgeon Darren Mann tells me the city’s medical professionals still feel a duty to serve the city, and to leave would be to abandon that obligation. He said the medical community in Hong Kong, many of whom risked their careers by caring for injured protestors, would stay and “contest the space”. He added that they have a “determination to try and wrest something better for the city”.

The Home Office published an impact assessment in October 2020 that revealed an inability to accurately forecast the scale of the coming immigration. The assessment suggested the number of arrivals could be anywhere between 9,000 and over 1 million people. The government is relying on local authorities to deal with integrating the newcomers and there seems to be an incorrect assumption that new arrivals will be able to financially support themselves. Because of this uncertainty, there has been a lack of planning at the local and central government level. One of the trustees of the new UKARC charity, Luke de Pulford, tells me: “This is the largest non-EU migration in UK history, and it could go badly wrong if the government doesn’t get its act together.” De Pulford described the urgent need for a whole government approach to aid integration and cohesion with local communities. He added that “many in government seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Hong Kongers are all rich and speak great English, but this is complete nonsense. Many don’t have the language and many have had to disown their families to leave and are penniless.”

About 7,000 Hong Kong BNO holders have already settled in the UK since July. Many of the first arrivals were at risk of arrest so the Home Office granted them Leave Outside the Immigration Rules, on compassionate grounds. One high-profile pro-democracy campaigner who came to London in early July was Nathan Law. After he escaped, Hong Kong authorities used the national security law to issue a warrant for his arrest, inciting secession and collusion with foreign powers. Now uprooted from the city where he led demonstrations he hopes to keep campaigning from afar. However, Ted Hui said of the difficulties of carrying on the democracy struggle from exile: “I constantly feel heavy, my comrades are in jail and I am here, but it is my responsibility to keep fighting, this is what keeps me going.”

The memories of those left behind haunt those in exile, such as Agnes Chow and Joshua Wong, who knew they would be arrested, but refused to leave Hong Kong. Both are 24-years-old and now in jail. Chow was sent to a category A prison and Wong was placed in isolation. Professor Tsang describes Wong as “an extraordinary young man who knew the fate that awaited him but chose to stay”. If they are convicted of “colluding with foreign powers” they could face life imprisonment, he explains, but if they leave they risk fading away in exile. Describing this tendency, he says: “The normal course of events for exiles is they become irrelevant after a few years.”

Every exile I spoke to had one characteristic in common: the belief that one day they would return home. A newly arrived activist tells me: “We must keep hope alive and maybe one day, that magical day, we will go home to a free Hong Kong.” As the ancient Greek writer Aeschylus said: “I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.”