5 years after China's crackdown on democracy, "the Hong Kong we used to know is gone"
Five years ago, white plumes of tear gas arced through Hong Kong's humid air. Hundreds of thousands of angry protesters were on the streets, demanding their Beijing-appointed leader resign and calling for universal voting rights to decide their own political future. The city, historically hailed as a gateway between China and the proverbial West, felt on the verge of being torn apart.
But if the summer of 2019 was Hong Kong's summer of discontent, then five years later, 2024 is Hong Kong's summer of disaffection.
I first set foot in Hong Kong exactly 27 years ago, in 1997. It was the historic last days of Hong Kong's era as a British colony. Returned to Beijing's rule after more than a century and a half, it became a newly established Chinese "special administrative region," or SAR.
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I reported from Hong Kong for many years from that point, witnessing initial waves of public anxiety, followed by hope. When I returned on July 1 to observe the 27th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, the city felt hollowed of its people and its soul.
Multi-lane highways and narrow back alleys were devoid of traffic and footfall. Many official celebrations the government had advertised felt barely celebratory, with just a sprinkling of attendees.
The annual protest march through the city, which for many years drew tens if not hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers calling for a stronger democratic voice against Beijing, has been extinguished. Many Hong Kongers have crossed the dissolving border between the southern region and mainland China, to save money in cheaper restaurants, bars, hotels and spas.
How Hong Kong has changed since 2019
For Hong Kong, which has historically prized itself as an Asian magnet for business and finance, it feels like a complete reversal of fortunes.
"This is a Hong Kong that's fundamentally changed," said U.S. Consul General Gregory May, Washington's top diplomat for Hong Kong and Macau, a former Portuguese colony that reverted to Chinese rule in 1999, two years after Hong Kong.
May invited CBS News to his official residence on The Peak, Hong Kong's historic hilltop district with panoramic views over much of the territory. The skyscrapers of Central, Hong Kong's downtown business district, nearly touched the undersides of the puffy white summer clouds as the hills below sloped down to Victoria Harbor, Asia's biggest port. Tiny commuter ferries trundled back and forth. Mainland China could be seen in the hazy distance to the north.
"People in Hong Kong are not free to criticize the government like they used to be able to," said May of the region's seven million-plus people. "It's so disconcerting to see their rights and freedoms being so steadily taken away from them."
He was alluding to the actions of China's rubber-stamp legislature. In response to the wave of pro-democracy protests in 2019, China's lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a new National Security Law in 2020 aimed directly at the region. The law, known as the NSL for short, criminalized a vaguely defined set of actions as succession, subversion, treason and collusion with foreign forces, with a possible life sentence in prison for violators.
Beijing called it a crucial measure to quell the protests that, in effect, threatened the power of China's ruling Communist Party. Critics and human rights advocates blasted the NSL as draconian, saying it shifted red lines to effectively give Beijing the power to criminalize any words or actions the leadership did not like.
In March, Hong Hong's legislature, which has been purged of all pro-democracy legislators over the past few years, bolstered the NSL with its own domestic version, Article 23, which adds new measures aimed at the theft of state secrets, treason and insurrection.
"It's created a chilling effect, a massive chilling effect over Hong Kong," said May. "It is important, I think, that Americans who come here realize that you need to be careful what you say."
When the U.K. ceded control of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Beijing agreed that the city would enjoy "a high degree of autonomy" for half a century, through 2047, under a principle known as "One Country, Two systems." Many argue that principle has frayed dramatically, if not failed completely, in about half the time stated in the agreement.
"When you look at the economic space — that Hong Kong still has its own currency, its own customs — the business environment here is significantly different than it is in mainland China. So in the economic realm, One Country, Two Systems is still there," said May. "But the more important realm, for our purposes, is in the broader political and way-of-life realm, and that is clearly no longer the case here. The freedom to speak out against the government, the freedom to demonstrate, the freer press that used to exist here, that has certainly gone, at least for now. And we hope it comes back."
"Stability, safety have returned to Hong Kong"
"It's very safe, you know," counters long-time pro-Beijing legislator Regina Ip.
Stanford educated, Ip is one of the very few Hong Kong lawmakers who've been willing to speak with Western media. "We have 85,000 American citizens in Hong Kong. We still have 1,300 American enterprises."
The last time we had met in person was in 2019. Protesters, just weeks before, had violently broken into Hong Kong's legislature on an unprecedented day in the city's history.
"All the stability, safety have returned to Hong Kong," Ip said as we sat in her office in that same building.
"We are dealing with new challenges," she admitted. "Weak retail sales, catering (restaurant) businesses facing tough competition from mainland cities, and the weak property market. And the stock market is somewhat sluggish."
It was a generous description of the problems facing the Chinese territory.
Over the past few years, Hong Kong's stock market has shed half of its value. Tumbling real estate prices have hit the public budget, translating into the highest deficits the city has ever faced. Socially and politically, rankings in rule of law, freedom of expression, assembly and press, have all nosedived, and hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers have left for Western countries.
"Our government is working very hard. You know, we are in transition," reasoned Ip. "I think most of us are happy. The numbers of people affected are actually very limited. The national security laws are irrelevant to most people in Hong Kong."
"I'm scared"
In a remote warehouse building, the location of which we were asked not to reveal, Chan Po-ying is one of the last members of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement willing to speak with Western media. She's determined to keep fighting for her husband, who is imprisoned on subversion charges.
We met as Chan and a former pro-democracy legislator prepared packages with books and toiletries for fellow leaders of the movement now imprisoned for actions deemed to have violated the National Security Law.
"I'm scared," said Chan. "The law is so vague. There's quite a lot of so-called red lines, and also they change quite a lot. So we don't know when we will, you know, fall into the trap. Maybe today what I say is okay, but tomorrow, we don't know."
Her husband Leung Kwok-hung, known widely as Long Hair because of his tell-tale hairstyle, was one of Hong Kong's loudest pro-democracy voices for decades. Every Sunday, Chan stages a one-woman protest in Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kong's busiest shopping districts. She believes most Hong Kongers are still angry and frustrated, but scared to show their feelings because of the NSL.
"I still believe all of them still maintain this value," she said. "But yeah, they face a lot of obstacles. They might face imprisonment, maybe lose their job.
Long Hair is one of about 300 people who have been charged under the National Security Law. In May, a court found him guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion, for which he's still awaiting sentencing.
"I don't want my father to die in prison"
Jimmy Lai, an enduring critic of the Communist Party's rule for decades, is another famous pro-democracy leader in prison. At 76, the billionaire founder of Hong Kong's most popular — and now defunct — liberal paper, Apple Daily, has been in solitary confinement for more than 1,200 days inside the city's maximum security Stanley Prison.
Lai pleaded not guilty to two charges under the National Security Law — conspiring to collude with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious material — which both carry life sentences. His trial is ongoing.
"It's a very blatant case of political persecution," his son Sebastien Lai told CBS News from Australia, where he had just met government leaders to press them to call for his father's unconditional release.
Since his father's arrest, Sebastian has met leaders from around the world, including the U.S., Canada, Britain and France, to plead for support for his father, who is a Hong Kong-British dual national.
"My father is being persecuted because he ran a newspaper that spoke truth to power. That, and he campaigned for democracy and criticized the government."
In 2019, Jimmy Lai welcomed CBS News to his home in Hong Kong for an extensive interview. He acknowledged that Beijing hated him and even called it "a badge of honor." He also called on the U.S. to help Hong Kong. Just days later, Hong Kong police arrested him.
"I think, to Beijing [he is] probably public enemy number one," legislator Regina Ip told CBS News. "His Apple Daily, a very popular tabloid, had played a key role in spreading a lot of fake news."
"I don't want my father to die in prison," his son said this summer. "Hong Kong can't tell the rest of the world that they have the rule of law, free press, and all the freedoms that make you a financial center, and keep my father in jail. Hong Kong is no longer this free city. It's now essentially a police state."
"The Hong Kong we used to know is gone"
Since the National Security Law came into effect in Hong Kong four years ago, hundreds of thousands of people have simply left — many will say fled. Some have moved to the U.S. under an asylum program extended by President Biden in December of 2023.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated that at least 3,800 people were eligible for the program in 2021, when it was first introduced. But more Hong Kongers have left for British Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada, with the majority having moved to the U.K.
About 184,700 Hong Kongers migrated to Britain between 2021 and September of 2023, according to data from the U.K. government, under a special migration mechanism established in response to China's National Security Law. It allows them to work or study in the U.K. for five years, and offers a path to citizenship.
"Definitely the Hong Kong we used to know is gone," said pro-democracy leader Nathan Law, who lives in self-exile in London. "Now is a new Hong Kong — arguably a much worse one."
While Jimmy Lai might be China's public enemy number one in Hong Kong, Law could hold the overseas title. In college, he was one of the main leaders of the city's 2014 Umbrella Movement protests, demanding electoral reform. He was later jailed for several months for that leadership.
In 2016, at the age of 23, he became the territory's youngest elected legislator, but a court disqualified him from office less than a year later because of the way he had spoken his oath of office, accusing him of questioning allegiance to Beijing.
In July 2020, as the NSL came into effect, Law popped up in London and announced his British asylum status and his new life in exile. Hong Kong authorities have a HK$1 million bounty (about $125,000) out for his arrest.
"I have to be extra careful and cautious about my whereabouts, about the people that I meet, about whether there is anyone who is potentially betraying me," said Law. But he said he didn't feel the U.K. was "particularly dangerous" for him, and ongoing intimidation has not deterred him.
"My mission today is to continue to be a voice of Hong Kong — speak up for Hong Kong — and also continue the flame of the democratic movement," he said.
Hong Kong expatriate communities in London and more affordable cities outside the British capital, including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, have sprouted up as new bases for the diaspora.
"We've had a very powerful diaspora community in the U.K.," said Law. "As it grows, its influence over politics and culture grows as well. So, you know, long term, I do really hope that our community can be impactful in terms of shaping China policy and the Chinese discussion in the U.K. or around the world."
Five years after the mass pro-democracy protests of Hong Kong's final summer of discontent, Law said the lesson to be learned about rights and freedom, is that they're not always enduring.
"A seemingly free society can collapse in just a matter of months if you allow an unchecked power to destroy it," he said. "And the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Editor: Remington Korper.
