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0:48

If I mention January sixth twenty

0:50

twenty one. I'm pretty sure I know

0:52

what you're picturing. A fiery

0:54

speech from Donald Trump at the ellipse,

0:57

Orion at the nation's capital. But

1:00

Emily Feng, who reports on China

1:02

for NPR, her January

1:04

six, twenty twenty one, was about

1:06

something very different the

1:09

rest of the world was paying attention to the capital

1:11

attack, obviously. And course, I was focusing

1:13

on that, but I was

1:15

also reporting on these simultaneous

1:18

early morning arrests across Hong

1:20

Kong of about forty

1:22

of the most representative, the most critical

1:25

activists, politicians, journalists,

1:28

professors who were active

1:30

in Hong Kong civil society. In

1:34

all KONG, MORE THAN fifty PEOPLE HAVE BEEN

1:36

ARRESTED IN A MASSIVE CRACKDOWN ON

1:38

THE PRO DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT. IN

1:41

CHINA, THESE ARRESTED WERE A REALLY

1:43

BIG DEAL. Dozens of people got

1:45

detained. Many still haven't been released.

1:48

Some seem to know the arrests were coming

1:51

and had prepared to be scooped up. Some

1:53

of the Hong Kong politicians live streamed

1:56

their own arrests on Facebook. This

1:58

is former lawmaker Lam Choo Ting

2:00

being taken away.

2:02

All of those rested. Were these people you

2:04

knew? Some of these people I had interviewed,

2:06

some these people I'd seen on the streets of Hong

2:09

Kong, they were the lawmakers, these were the people

2:11

on television Sometimes they were the journalists who

2:13

were reporting on television or well known

2:15

professors and

2:16

activists. So you saw them every

2:18

day in Hong Kong news. And they were

2:20

arrested basically all at once in the same day.

2:26

These people were all detained under the authority

2:29

of Hong Kong's national security law.

2:31

It had just passed six months prior.

2:34

When it did, There'd been warnings

2:36

it was overly broad that the law could

2:39

silence These

2:41

arrests seemed to prove the point.

2:43

To Emily,

2:44

it was like watching Beijing tighten

2:47

its grip in real time. In

2:49

some ways, this was the classic playbook. What

2:51

was shocking was to see something very familiar

2:54

to be honest and mainly in China

2:56

happening in Hong Kong, where

2:59

I had gone on reporting rips five,

3:01

six times a year, normally, often

3:03

to to meet with people who would say things or

3:05

publishing books or making films that would

3:07

be completely illegal in

3:09

mainland China. And so to see this kind

3:12

of sweep up of all of the major activists

3:14

all at once was really, really surprising.

3:21

Two years later, the people who

3:23

were arrested in these raids are on

3:25

trial. Is

3:27

the outcome of this trial in any doubt?

3:30

It is not, and that's also

3:32

why many of the people who were arrested January

3:35

sixth almost two years ago, but

3:37

more than two years ago, had actually

3:39

already pleaded guilty. About

3:41

one third of the people who are arrested are are

3:43

still fighting those charges, but they're the minority.

3:48

Today on the show, inside

3:51

the trial that may be about to

3:53

silence a generation of in

3:55

Hong Kong. I'm Mary Harris.

3:58

You're listening to what next, to ground.

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5:56

Try nine dot com slash what next. Let's

6:06

go back a bit and just explain the context

6:09

for these mass arrests two years back.

6:11

The people who were

6:12

detained, it was because of Hong Kong's

6:14

national security law. I wonder if you can

6:16

just start by explaining why

6:19

this law was passed in the first

6:21

place. So the roots of

6:23

this law go back more than a decade

6:26

to another political protest. Beijing

6:28

had tried to ramp through national

6:31

security education in Hong Kong.

6:33

They wanted to include a provision

6:35

that would strengthen colonial,

6:37

British colonial era laws about

6:39

sedition and about treason, to

6:41

make them more in line with Chinese law now

6:43

that Hong Kong was under Chinese governance.

6:46

And they also wanted to introduce some national

6:48

security patriotic education

6:51

that was more in line with pledging loyalty

6:53

to Beijing in the official curriculum

6:55

of Hong Kong. Did the people of Hong Kong want

6:58

that? And they didn't want that. So what they happened,

7:00

what they did was they took to the streets, they

7:02

protested because it's the only direct

7:04

way that Hong Kong people have always under

7:06

British colonial rule and under Chinese

7:08

rule to voice their opinions. They don't

7:10

have a direct vote to the

7:12

chief executive and they don't completely

7:14

directly left their legislative

7:16

members either. So the only direct

7:19

way to show your political preferences is

7:21

to march in the

7:21

streets. And that's what they did this

7:23

time and they succeeded. Those national

7:26

security proposals were shelved and they

7:28

never happened. Fast forward to two thousand

7:30

nineteen, Beijing had this massive problem

7:32

of on their

7:33

hands. Descent in Hong Kong

7:35

had been building for years by the time these

7:37

latest protests broke out. Each

7:40

time, people took the streets. They

7:42

were protesting some new rule or regulation

7:45

that stifles democratic norms. In

7:48

twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, the outrage

7:50

centered on a proposed law that would have

7:52

allowed people accused of crimes

7:54

to be extradited to mainland China.

7:57

That bill was eventually withdrawn, but

8:00

the protesters stayed in the streets

8:02

Beijings on an increasingly anti government

8:05

stance.

8:06

On Hong Kong side street, the police

8:09

were still chasing the protesters.

8:12

The officers jumping out of vans

8:15

TO TACLE WHOVER THEY COULD CATCH, BEVER.

8:18

IN

8:18

SOME CASES VIOLENTLY. Reporter:

8:21

AS THIS PROTESTS more Dissidents.

8:23

And as it started attracting international attention,

8:26

Beijing felt like they needed a kind of legal

8:28

final solution to this

8:30

issue of dissent once and for something that was

8:32

so draconian. It would take out all

8:34

of the major civil society

8:37

leaders in this movement and also

8:39

discourage people from ever fomenting

8:42

themselves, and that was the national security

8:44

law. China has passed controversial national

8:47

security legislation for Hong Kong

8:49

in response to the pro democracy protests

8:51

that started last year. The new law

8:54

criminalizes subversion and collusion

8:56

with foreign forces and has sparked

8:58

widespread concern that Beijing is trying

9:00

to cement control of the semi

9:03

autonomous

9:03

territory. China caught so they took a lot of

9:05

language from that earlier proposal, but they

9:07

made it much stronger. They

9:09

allowed people who are charged under

9:11

this new national security law to potentially

9:13

be in mainland China, not in

9:16

Hong Kong. They allowed Chinese

9:18

judges rather than Hong Kong appointed judges

9:20

to oversee these national security trials.

9:22

They denied bail for anyone who

9:24

was arrested on these charges, and

9:27

they really broadened the definition

9:29

of what could be considered a national security

9:32

violation.

9:33

And the details of this law were kept

9:35

secret until after it passed. Right?

9:37

So it

9:37

really just kind of slipped in.

9:40

My understanding. The national security

9:42

law was kept really, really quiet until about

9:44

the day before it was about to go up for

9:46

vote in

9:47

the Beijing, represent parliament.

9:49

Now that it went into effect immediately in

9:51

Hong Kong. You know, looking at the

9:53

impact of this law, it it seems

9:55

obviously ominous when it

9:58

passed, but

9:59

the United States has all kinds of like anti

10:01

terrorism laws. What made this

10:04

law particularly alarming to

10:06

you? It was how broadly the

10:08

four big buckets of national

10:10

security violations were

10:13

were left undefined, which basically

10:15

meant that very, very minor

10:17

protest activity. Simply even just for

10:19

example, printing glory

10:22

to Hong Kong on a t shirt

10:24

or a sign, a very, very common

10:26

slogan associated with the protests, but not

10:28

necessarily revolutionary or political in

10:30

and of itself, even just using that

10:32

slogan could be seen as a violation

10:35

of the national security law. And so

10:37

it was just so ambiguous that it could be

10:39

used to sweep up anyone that Beijing

10:41

didn't like at the moment that was really concerning.

10:44

The second point is the national security law was

10:46

written to be international. So

10:48

someone not from Hong Kong, writing

10:50

about the Hong Kong pro democracy movement,

10:52

for example, may be asking for

10:55

further sanctions on the Beijing government because

10:57

of its clampdown in Hong Kong. That

11:00

person Beijings outside of Hong Kong could

11:02

also theoretically be prosecuted under the

11:04

national security

11:05

law. And so the reach of it was

11:07

also quite expansive. So

11:10

how did local pro democracy activists

11:13

respond? When this law was

11:15

passed? They either left

11:18

or they stayed and knew that they were going

11:20

to face potential arrest under this law.

11:23

And you saw basically every

11:25

pro democracy civil society group

11:28

and political party voluntarily shut

11:30

down. In order to comply

11:32

with this law and not risk their

11:35

members being arrested underneath

11:36

it. The activists who were eventually

11:39

arrested on January sixth had

11:41

a different plan. Because a few

11:43

months after the new national security law passed,

11:45

Hong Kong was scheduled to have legislative

11:48

council elections. And these

11:50

activists wondered, what would happen if

11:52

they ran pro democracy candidates? So

11:55

they organized, they held their own

11:57

unofficial

11:58

primary. Gaming out who

12:00

would have popular support. And

12:02

so their idea was that they were going to

12:05

have an informal poll where people

12:07

would come out and and vote, but they weren't

12:09

voting in a formal election. They were just voting

12:11

to show what candidates they thought

12:13

were going to be best in the real

12:15

legislative elections that about to be held

12:17

later that year. The idea was all these

12:19

different coalitions wanted the same thing,

12:21

but they kept running candidates who had compete

12:24

against each

12:24

other. And so they really just need to pick the few

12:26

that would do the best, and that's what this informal

12:28

poll was going to identify for them.

12:31

And more than six hundred thousand people

12:33

voted in this nonbinding

12:35

primary. Right? So it

12:37

was something that people really

12:39

did even though it wasn't official. They

12:42

voted and they voted despite this

12:45

very vague threat that the Hong

12:47

Kong Security chief put out the Times

12:49

saying, perhaps if you vote, you

12:51

could be seen as partaking in a national

12:54

security violation, but still six hundred

12:56

thousand or so people came out and

12:57

voted. It sounds like

12:59

this primer was immediately threatening to

13:02

China's government, like before it even happened.

13:04

So after it took place,

13:07

what happened then? Well, the legislative

13:09

elections were

13:10

canceled. They were canceled twice for

13:12

the reason of COVID. So

13:15

those poll results were,

13:17

they were interesting, but they were not necessarily

13:19

useful. And it gave Beijing an

13:22

excuse to then go in. Arrest

13:24

everyone who had been involved in organizing that

13:26

poll. On some deep level, it probably

13:28

also did terrify them because this was an

13:31

organized effort to use the institutions.

13:34

Of Hong Kong's political system

13:37

to try to change some of the policies

13:39

from the inside out. This was different than

13:41

people taking to the streets and tearing up sidewalks

13:43

and smashing bank windows. But

13:45

in some ways, this was this was more scary

13:48

for China because it was institutional change

13:50

range, and they could see that it had some kind

13:52

of grassroot support as well. Yeah.

13:55

I mean, it took a few months for China to

13:57

orchestrate these arrests.

13:59

Was there ever a moment where the

14:02

democracy, protesters, the activists

14:04

thought, oh, maybe like,

14:07

we're okay. Maybe these legislative

14:09

council elections have been canceled and, you

14:12

know, folks are gonna forget about

14:14

this primary we

14:14

held. No. I think that they knew

14:16

that this was coming after them. And if it wasn't

14:19

this charge, it would be another one. And again, many

14:21

of the people who are standing trial have

14:23

been arrested on other charges, not

14:25

national security related, but protest

14:27

related already. And so it's just

14:29

been a death by it. It's been death by a awesome

14:32

cuts. I mean, what what Beijing has

14:34

done is they have just managed

14:36

to quietly remove everyone with

14:38

political influence. Through

14:41

what appears to be completely legal means,

14:43

whether it's the national security law or other

14:45

overlapping laws.

14:48

After the break, who exactly

14:50

is on trial? And how do you defend

14:53

yourself against an authoritarian government?

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17:05

This unofficial election in Hong Kong

17:07

eventually led to the arrest of forty

17:10

seven people. So I asked

17:12

Emily Fang to introduce me to a

17:14

few of them. Most of them

17:16

are facing a life sentence.

17:18

Some of the more lawmakers, so they were

17:20

part of the legislative council that

17:23

does some of the day to day operations of

17:26

the leave a backbone of of the

17:28

special autonomous region as it's called.

17:30

One of them is a journalist.

17:37

And she was extremely well known for

17:39

covering pro democracy movements

17:41

earlier in protests and

17:43

decided after witnessing and covering the

17:45

stuff herself that she was going to be an activist

17:47

herself basically crossed that line

17:50

of journalistic objectivity and

17:52

and become part of the movement herself.

17:54

And so she was extremely visible. Another

17:57

person who is arrested was Benny

17:59

Thai, you

18:00

may think that you are thinking

18:02

freely, but actually you

18:04

are not. So that's the the

18:07

the kind of tricky part about

18:09

freedom of thought. And we cannot wait

18:11

until that time that we should

18:13

now voice out this

18:15

concern or this

18:16

danger, this threat to Hong Kong

18:19

people. He, up until about

18:21

two years ago, was a very, very well known unbeloved

18:23

professor at a Hong Kong University and

18:26

was extremely active in formulating the

18:28

political principles that formed the umbrella

18:30

movement. In two thousand fourteen, that was protest

18:33

where people wanted to be able to directly

18:35

a left the chief executive, you know, the top leader

18:37

of Hong Kong, something that they

18:39

thought they were promised when Hong Kong was given

18:41

back to Chinese rule in nineteen ninety seven

18:44

and that just has never happened since. And

18:46

then a figure who was also arrested and had been

18:48

arrested multiple times before, by the way, as

18:50

he was party in jail at this point was Joshua

18:52

Wong. I think this powerhouse law

18:54

is a stepping stone for the

18:57

future interference of eroding

18:59

the political and economic freedom

19:01

in Hong

19:01

Kong, and it is even more evil

19:04

than the extradition bill on last

19:06

summer. This is I think one of the most recognizable

19:08

faces of Hong Kong democracy and

19:11

political reform. This super super

19:13

young student activist turns

19:15

leader of basically any kind of descent

19:17

in Hong

19:18

Kong, and and he was also napped in the sweep.

19:20

All three of these prominent activists, eventually,

19:24

plead guilty. Their representatives

19:26

are barred from speaking with the press, but

19:29

observers say the pressure on the accused

19:31

is enormous. Very few of

19:33

them are out on bail. And they've got a very

19:35

slim chance of exoneration. In

19:38

fact, only handful of defendants have

19:40

decided to actually go through with a

19:42

trial. Only sixteen people

19:44

are contesting their charges. So that's

19:46

about a third of the forty seven who

19:48

were arrested that day. That means

19:50

more than thirty people gave

19:52

up. They they realized what

19:54

they were up against and they have pleaded guilty.

19:57

Yeah. I was reading about how, like, one of the Dissidents,

20:00

who was a former district official, he

20:03

took the stand and he said, circastically, like,

20:06

I tried to commit subversion against the totalitarian

20:08

regime, but I

20:09

failed. I plead guilty, which

20:11

is like, poof. I mean, I don't even know if you're

20:14

if it's a good idea for him to say that, but

20:16

I mean, said something that he did. You

20:18

see people using what opportunity

20:21

they have to make a pull legal statement. And

20:23

I think the first big example of

20:25

this was social offspring ceremonies

20:28

for certain lawmakers So you

20:30

first saw this with a couple of young pro democracy

20:33

lawmakers in two thousand sixteen. They had

20:35

been I asked to elected surprisingly.

20:38

In Hong Kong, introduced me to to the legislative

20:40

council, and so they took the oath

20:42

taking ceremony where they had to pledge allegiance

20:45

to the Beijing government as part of

20:47

taking office. Eventually, they use that opportunity

20:50

to to criticize to speak

20:52

out against Beijing. They either

20:54

pronounce People's Republic of China differently

20:57

or they used. Square

20:59

words before the word

21:01

China, just to make a statement that

21:03

they wanted to be lawmakers. They've been

21:06

elected, but they didn't pledge loyalty China,

21:08

they were pledging loyalty to certain Hong Kong.

21:10

Unfortunately, these people were

21:12

invalidated. They were never able to take their seats.

21:15

But again, that use of whatever

21:17

small opportunity

21:18

you have these days to make a statement. You

21:20

see people doing this trial and that led to the arrest

21:22

of Have you been able to cover

21:24

this trial in a normal way? Like, is it,

21:26

like, going to an American courthouse and

21:28

covering a trial or is it different thing? No.

21:31

It's it's been a closed trial.

21:33

So you have Hong Kong media or

21:35

what's left of Hong Kong media, swarming the

21:37

courthouse before the proceedings start trying

21:40

to catch up and see if the defendant says they're

21:42

driven in. On the social elect but

21:44

reporters are not allowed in the U. S.

21:46

And against close trials, so there's no jury

21:48

either. And so the proceedings are are being

21:50

accused of committing to a few of the people. Yeah. Or standing

21:52

trial now. It's interesting to me that this trial is taking

21:54

place just a few months after protesters in

21:56

mainland China. This really

21:58

brought their government to Tesla. FOR THE WAY THAT

22:00

THE COUNTRY SEER O COVID POLICY HAS LED TO

22:02

BE

22:03

RESTAIVES. Reporter: JONIGHT WEAR SCENDS

22:05

OF OPEN DISCANT TO INTRUCE

22:07

video showing protesters in Xinjiang

22:10

fed up with China's zero COVID

22:12

rules, chanting and the lockdown. Authorities

22:16

wearing hazmat to use promise.

22:18

Why no covers this region of these pretty

22:20

deeply based. I wonder what the difference

22:23

is. They're representing for bad activism

22:25

around COVID. But it was really in China.

22:28

The pressure on the -- And the

22:29

activism. -- by There's a

22:31

slippage in Hong Kong. We're

22:33

now on trial. So in China,

22:36

these protests against Governor's COVID

22:38

controls in November were explicitly

22:41

not anti government. And they were explicitly

22:44

anti revolutionary. Protesters

22:46

who were there made it very clear, they were

22:48

not against the communist party with some

22:51

observers, either exceptions. People

22:53

who did shout down and shooting ping down the

22:55

Communist

22:55

Party, but they were a

22:56

minority. Very serious. The vast majority of people

22:58

who showed up to national protests

23:01

across basically every major city in the country

23:03

in November. We're very clear that they didn't

23:05

want to thorough government. They

23:07

didn't need to see major reforms even.

23:10

They just wanted COVID controls to

23:12

go away. They wanted people to have more

23:14

say in these COVID controls for them to be more

23:16

humane. And for the government to acknowledge,

23:19

the suffering and, in some cases, deaths,

23:21

that the zero COVID policies had caused

23:23

our membership program. But again, was never a

23:25

about overthrowing the government. You can find

23:27

In Hong Kong, activists were still some

23:30

of them wanted to work within the system, others,

23:32

particularly by two thousand and were talking

23:34

about a major, in some ways, revolutionary,

23:37

independent sentiment, to establish

23:39

a real democracy in Hong Kong that was some

23:43

from that of China Now, this was minority

23:45

of people. For the most part, the kinds of

23:47

political reforms, even in your moderate active

23:50

environment, or America's desk. Thanks

23:52

for were quite significant. They wanted to

23:54

directly vote for the chief executive.

23:57

They wanted more power in the legislative council.

23:59

They wanted an independent police inquiry

24:02

and to police brutality allegedly against

24:04

protesters in two thousand and eight. He weren't really

24:06

torturous. And these are,

24:08

like, substantial political discourse

24:10

and changes.

24:11

In contrast to the very limited demands that

24:13

people in mainland China

24:14

-- What next is cruise bailing -- yeah, it sounds like

24:16

you're saying the fight in Hong Kong is more existential.

24:19

We are getting a ton of social right now from Jared

24:21

Dallas.

24:21

It was existential for Hong

24:23

Kong. And it it would have set

24:25

a very very strange precedent for Beijing

24:27

Podcasts. I wouldn't necessarily say it was existential.

24:30

But I'm married here. But it might have created the political

24:32

very slowly, where if the homegrown people

24:35

had succeeded, you're carving out more

24:37

autonomy for themselves that you

24:39

might see other

24:40

communities, for example, in Xinjiang

24:42

or to bet saying we want the

24:44

same thing.

24:46

It seems to me like the protest movement in

24:48

Hong Kong has been remarkably resilient.

24:52

I

24:52

wonder what that resilience looks like now

24:54

with so many of the people who

24:57

led the protests over the last few

24:59

years

25:00

facing trial, pleading guilty. How

25:03

are people moving forward if they're interested

25:05

in some kind of democratic change? They're

25:08

moving abroad. So it's the Hong Kong diaspora

25:11

who is carrying on this dialogue,

25:14

this political

25:15

consciousness, this identity. They

25:18

have mostly gone to the US

25:20

and also the UK, but a lot of people

25:22

have just simply moved abroad if they have the means

25:24

to do so. And you

25:26

see this in Taiwan as well, which at first

25:28

welcomed a lot of Hong Kong

25:30

political refugees, but unfortunately, has

25:33

made it really, really difficult for them stay,

25:35

particularly younger Hong Kongers who don't have

25:37

significant financial resources. And so many

25:40

of them have been here for the last couple of years, but

25:42

have just left because they don't see a future for

25:44

themselves here. But in general,

25:46

you do see people being very, very active

25:48

about the Hong Kong pro democracy movement now.

25:51

And basically, every place across

25:53

North America and Europe just

25:55

not in Hong

25:56

Kong. One of

25:58

the important things it feels like to

26:00

me that this trial is doing

26:03

is putting muscle behind the

26:05

Hong Kong national security law because of

26:07

national security law.

26:09

It doesn't it doesn't make a

26:11

difference unless you enforce it. And like

26:13

this trial is a way to prove

26:15

how powerful it is. Know, the number

26:17

of people arrested in the national security law has

26:19

actually not been as high as many people feared.

26:22

People feared that tens of thousands of people

26:24

would get upped up for minor offenses. In

26:26

reality, it's been only a couple hundred

26:28

have been arrested under the National Security Law.

26:31

And the reason for this

26:33

is the punishments under the law are

26:35

so draconian that you'd only have to arrest

26:37

a few, some of the most prominent influential

26:39

people in Hong Kong society to send a message the

26:41

rest to show that it's not worth continuing

26:43

your

26:44

descent, at least not in Hong Kong, and

26:46

it's worth. I

26:52

believe Fang, I'm really grateful for your time. Thanks

26:54

for coming on the show. Thank you for such

26:56

great questions. Emily

27:00

Fang is NPR's Beijing correspondent.

27:04

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27:35

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27:37

I'm at Mary's desk. Thanks for listening. Catch

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