Front Burner - The end of Hong Kong?

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

From the arrest of pro-democracy legislators, to election law changes — Hong Kong has undergone extraordinary change after the implementation of Beijing’s national security law. Two pro-democracy activists, who recently fled to Canada, reflect on China’s tightening grip on the city-state.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. That is the sound of thousands of people singing Glory to Hong Kong, a pro-democracy anthem in 2019, at a time when protesters felt like they could be outspoken. Hong Kong has gone through this astronomical change since then. Pro-democracy supporters claiming Hong Kong's very survival is at stake over China's new security law.

Banning activities deemed to be subversive or promoting independence. Chinese security forces, including secret police, will now be able to roam Hong Kong at will. I think very obviously the purpose of law is to change Hong Kong from rule of law to rule of fear. to rule of fear. 47 legislators have been charged with subversion under the Chinese government's national security law. Those convicted face the possibility of life in prison. And just last week, Beijing made changes to Hong Kong's election laws,

cutting the number of directly elected officials by almost half. Mainland Chinese officials only want people loyal to Beijing to run for leadership in Hong Kong. For many, this is the bell that tolls the death of democratic values in the territory. And because freedoms have been so dismantled in recent years, many pro-democracy activists have had to flee their home. Some left for Taiwan, others the UK, others to Canada. I'm Jamie Poisson, and today on FrontBurner, we bring you the stories of two pro-democracy activists who have now made their home in Vancouver. I'm here with Elaine Chao, one of our producers on the show. Hey, Elaine.

Hey, Jamie. So I know you have been following these changes in Hong Kong really closely the last few years. You brought them up at meetings, you produced several episodes about them. And talk to me a little bit about why that is. Yeah, I mean, Hong Kong is where I was born. It's one of my homes, I like to think, and along with Canada, of course. And, you know, the push for greater democratic freedoms, this fight to keep the limited democratic freedoms that were available to Hong Kongers, that really has a lot to do with just why my family came to Canada in the first place. You know, we came in 1992. And that was because my parents were really worried about the handover

to China in 1997. And what that would mean for life in Hong Kong, you know, they worried that it would change drastically, that even though there was this promise, you know, made in the Sino-British Declaration of one country, two systems, you know, we hear that phrase all the time, right? There was a lot of worry about political interference from China. And, you know, you think about that particular time. And, you know, for my parents, it had just been a few years since what we saw happen at Tiananmen Square and the massacre there. And I think that in itself, and the crackdown on protests there really casts a long shadow. And for them, you know, there was this continuing worry that Hong Kong would not be the

same. And so, you know, I have been following these issues very closely, because it is part of my own story. It's my life. And who did you talk to for this? Yeah, so I got to know two young members of the pro-democracy movement who are living in Vancouver now. And they're both in their 20s. So quite young. I should say it was really hard to get people to talk to me for this story. A lot of people were worried about the safety, their own safety, first of all, and also the safety of their own families. They were worried about retribution from the Chinese government. Many people also just didn't want to share their real name with me because of all those fears. But I did speak to two people on the record.

There's Philip, and I should say, that's not his real name. And we're also disguising his voice. And that's because he still fears repercussions from the Chinese government about his own involvement in the 2019 extradition bill protests. So he sought asylum here in Canada. Literally, Jamie, he packed a bag with like five days worth of clothes and came. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. And we'll also hear from Davin Wong. He was a student protest leader in Hong Kong. And he came here around the same time as Philip. And right now, he's going to law school at UBC and doing a lot of advocacy work here to raise the profile of

what's happening in Hong Kong. You know, in this episode, we're really reflecting with these two people about the tremendous change that's happened in Hong Kong and how it connects with their own journey. And I think through them, we can get a real sense, I hope, like of the toll that these changes have taken on many Hong Kongers. I think that's something that often goes a bit missing in our coverage of these stories. You know, we watch these images and videos of these mass protests that have been happening there in the last few years, but it's perhaps a bit tough to understand people's motivations. And I hope that in this episode, by listening to Davin and listening to Philip, that hopefully our listeners will get a sense of those motivations, you know, why they felt the need to protect Hong Kong,

and really what it's like to reflect on these, you know, as you said, like astronomical changes now. Okay. Well, Yi, I'm really looking forward to listening to these interviews. So I'm going to let you take it from here. I think the moment when I decided that I can no longer stay in Hong Kong was on August 30th in 2019. So that night after I finished my dance performance in Wan Chai, I was waiting for the bus to get home. At that time, when I was waiting at the bus stop, a masked man in a white t-shirt

showed up out of nowhere and just beat me up with ratting cane. My first impression was so shocked. I didn't know what to do. I was not alone at the bus stop like um there were three men including me waiting for for the bus I was standing in the middle of the line and that person managed to recognize me by the back by my back like like I was not facing him but though he was attacking me from my back and i knew at that point that it was not a random attack like it is not some random terrorist attack

attacking normal um pedestrians but they were targeting me and what made you so sure that you were being targeted well there were three people waiting um at the bus stop and he was kind of coming from the direction of the back and from the left hand side so i i was not the person that is closest to him when he's reaching to me so i'm in the middle of the line but he managed to pick me out of the people that are wait we're waiting for the bus and just attack me. It was a hit and run. He hit me several times and then he just ran away. At the time of the attack, David Wong was a law student and leader of the Hong Kong University Students' Union.

The group was really active in the push for greater democratic freedoms in Hong Kong. This was during the summer of 2019, a really heated time in the city-state. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest.

Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. Protest. did violently, protesters pushing through barricades, trying to storm Hong Kong's legislature. In June, the government proposed an extradition bill

that would allow Hong Kongers facing serious crimes to be extradited to mainland China. Critics said this would expose Hong Kong people to China's deeply flawed justice system, and it would chip away at the region's own independent courts. There is concern that the law will be used to clamp down on political dissidents. I think the most important thing is to oppose this evil law,

this woman says. Now there are multiple demands, including full universal voting rights. To convey to the government our firm and reasoned commitment to safeguard our freedom. Watching what was happening in 2019, I was immediately taken back to the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. That was when, for 79 days, thousands of protesters set up colourful tents in Hong Kong's boulevards. They were fighting for free, democratic elections. The protesters have been stockpiling supplies and putting up makeshift barriers,

worried police may move in to try to clear the roads. I can say Hong Kong people are quite indifferent to politics. But why they come out to occupy the main role here? Simply because the Hong Kong government never hear us, never listen to politics. But why they come out to occupy the main role here? Simply because the Hong Kong government never hear us, never listen to us. As the days went on, we saw the police use tear gas and pepper spray to handle the largely peaceful protests. Activists used umbrellas to protect themselves. That's where the name the Umbrella Movement comes from.

Flash forward four years to 2019. Those tactics grew more violent. After hours of struggling to get control of the situation, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Riot police chasing protesters down every major street. Police suddenly stormed the airport terminal armed with batons and pepper spray. A Washington Post investigation revealed that the police, using water cannons, chemical agents, rubber bullets and pepper pellets, had actually repeatedly breached their own use-of-force guidelines.

Davin still has visceral memories of one protest in particular. It was June 9, 2019, when a million people swarmed the streets. That night really stuck in my head because i remember after getting into midnight um after chief executive carrie laham announced that she would not withdraw the she would not withdraw the bill everyone went nuts like they were so mad about that statement but the craziest thing were was not that protesters were mad like we met for a reason but um the police were being extra hostile that night and and honestly like that night was the first night that i felt like um there is a sense of or a smell of death in a protest. On June 15th, less than a week later, Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended the extradition

bill. But it wouldn't be until September, after 13 weeks of unrest, that she would retract it. My team and I hope that the four actions just announced can help our society to move forward. Let's replace conflicts with conversations. And let's look for solutions. Thousands of people were arrested during the extradition bill protests. Davin was lucky to never be apprehended. But Philip, another pro-democracy organizer I met,

wasn't so lucky. We're protecting Philip's identity, so you'll hear his voice disguised here. We talk about what happened in 2019. We were just, like, beaten up by the police. Like, about what happened in 2019. We were just like beating up by the police. Like we were just defending defense and we lost a lot. Like people losing life, losing eyes, losing like whatever, like losing a kidney. We got gunshots. I just saw something bad happen on somebody else and they're just trying to make our world better

and they suffer. The Hong Kong police was beating us just like a wall. They just rush and crash you, step on you and everyone falls down. Everyone tries to escape. I don't want to step on anyone. I slow down. I try to protect someone.

And I get arrested, easily. Philip was arrested in the middle of that chaos. Police say he took part in a riot. The maximum charge was 10 years in prison. And it felt incredibly unfair to him. I have a lot of anger about this situation and my situation. And when I was like, I was a good person, like I didn't commit any crime. I put every garbage to the rubbish bin.

I don't like, literally, I'm a very good citizen in Hong Kong. good citizen in Hong Kong, but I was taken to the courts, have some chain in my waist and my hands. And there's a police officer watching me 24 hours a day. Philip had to follow a curfew. His bail conditions actually allowed him to travel because that was something he often did for work. It was uncertain when there'd be a trial. Often they don't even happen for years. And I was detained and I was, I need to go to the police station or every single week and I don't think I deserve it and I went to the courts for my trial like they talking about the condition of the barrel I was kind of like like in movies I'm standing in this the position of the bad guys like I'm a

criminal and then I was thinking I don't deserve this. Like, this place kind of failed me. Like, all the culture, all the system, like the justice, the independency of the judicial system, they failed me. We ended up tracing that sense of failure all the way back to 2014, to the Umbrella Revolution. Do you hear the people sing from Les Miserables became one of the movement's theme songs. There was a lot of optimism at the time. You could see it on the linen walls of post-its all around the city. The movement started as a reaction to rules set out by Beijing on how the 2017 Hong Kong elections would work.

Essentially, that voters will elect their leader from two to three candidates chosen by a 1,200-person nomination committee. And those candidates must also, quote, love the country and love Hong Kong. But what demonstrators wanted was a free and direct election of the chief executive. They went to the streets to show it. It's a historic moment for Hong Kong, I think. It's a paradigm shift for Hong Kong society.

We don't know when China government's going to suppress its freedom to protest. How is this going to end? Well, I'm not sure, but this is what we can do only. Yeah, we have to come out and speak to the world. only. Yeah, we have to come out and speak to the world. But it was more than just about that too. It was an assertion of Hong Kong identity, a culture separate from mainland China, where there was an independent judicial system, freedom of speech and the press. It's a Cantonese speaking culture with its own distinct styles of art and cuisine. It's the cafes or cha-chan-tangs that began as a way of appealing to British palates but have stayed, serving dishes like milk tea and pineapple buns. But for Philip, as much as the Umbrella Movement rallied incredible support

and really bound people together in a singular Hong Kong identity, the demands made by protesters for more democratic elections were unmet. And that was incredibly painful to deal with. I was suffering from the failure of 2014 as well because we tried every single way of peaceful protests. Literally every single way of peaceful protests literally every single way like steelbird way like sitting on there on the streets camping talking to the government in the meeting room like this five leader student leader at a time one of them is Lester someang, which is in those 47 people arrested under National Security Law.

There's five student leaders trying to negotiate with government. At that time, Carrie Lam is one of the representatives. They tried to talk with them in a meeting room, and four out of five got into the jail after the umbrella movement. And at that time, I was depressed. And I think, oh, there's no peaceful way to deal with this. Philip wasn't alone in feeling that sadness. Public support of the Umbrella Movement petered out, and many protesters felt like they had lost. But what became really clear from that time is that this was a movement that was largely being led by young people.

And that continued throughout the years, as they tried to fight different attempts by the Chinese government to strip away freedoms. But it also meant a lot weighed on this generation, who were devoting huge chunks of their lives to the cause. Think about Joshua Wong, for example, arguably the face of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. We just have to send a clear signal to the world. Even if they try to arrest us, prosecute us, and even lock us up in prison, there's no reason for us to surrender.

He started fighting against pro-Beijing education programs in 2012, when he was just 15 years old. And right now, at 24, he's in prison after pleading guilty to charges relating to protests last June. Philip says it's stories like Joshua's that pushed him to act. They easily become activists because they didn't get into the reality. They have dreams. They believe in some we call fantasy right now. But what they're doing is right.

And I think more adult, relatively adult, we should stand with the student. That's what I'm thinking in 2019, in the very early stage. I saw younger people like 16, 17, 18, trying to help each other under tear gas. And I think as an adult, I should stand with them. That desire to stand by the youth made Philip realize that there was, in his view,

too much weight on this demographic to keep the pro-democracy cause alive. As much as the extradition bill protests had a lot of support from a wide variety of people, Philip didn't necessarily see that at home. They care about what you did, but they don't want it. They don't want you to be involved. They want to have a free ride in life. Oh, let them fight and you get the advantage. Let some other children fight for you and you enjoy your life you get your money you get a better life and they

will die for you and i really hate that uh kind of idea because you know it's not correct you know you should do something to change it but you expect somebody to do it for you This really hit me hard when I heard it. Even after the handover to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong remained a global financial center. It has all the comforts of a Western economy, world-renowned hotels and restaurants, the latest technological gadgets, access to international markets.

And I have friends and family who are comfortable with just that, who don't necessarily see the need for greater democratic freedoms in the region. They just want stability. Those generations of my parents or some older people, they're trying to push the responsibility

to the next generation. So when Tiananmen incident happened, they know what can Chinese government do to their people. And they're trying to escape. Oh, they move to Canada, they move to Australia, I don't know of my business I just get the money and go. And some of them didn't leave Hong Kong, they stay. They believe the promise the Communist Party made, like Hong Kong people can root their own government etc.

They are literally trying to like, we have a slang like you just give the football to the next player and they give the football to me. So I don't want to pass it to my next generation intentionally, at least I try. I can keep a very good relationship with my family and those older people who stay in Hong Kong but I will never forgive them because they bring this, kind of bring this to go. Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is

confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for much for bringing us those interviews. That was really interesting. I learned a lot. One question for you. How are Philip and Davin doing now? How are they doing in Canada? They're doing well, generally. And, you know, for Davin, it seems very much to me that he's still processing all of this. That attack that we heard him talk about at the beginning, he pretty much left shortly after that. And he was so scared at the time, even just waiting at the airport, that security wouldn't let him on the plane.

Every second I was thinking, like, when should I leave the lounge to head to the gate? Like, would there be police showing up at the gate? And after the flight departed and just like, I would say left Hong Kong. I couldn't stop myself but cry. Like I was crying so ugly. You know, like he told me that he pretty much cried that whole flight. And I think the emotion that you hear there speaks to just how much he still has to process like around what's happened to him. much he still has to process like around what's happened to him. And for Philip, like he really sees kind of this time now in Canada, like it's an opportunity for him. He has a platform that his friends in Hong Kong don't have, and that he feels like he's able

now and has the security to really speak up for the injustices that he sees in Hong Kong. My friends in Hong Kong cannot even say Free Hong Kong in their Facebook, in their Instagram, wherever. They need to erase all the record. So I think, oh, I'm picking up my place again because I'm in a country of freedom, and I can still make people aware what happened in Hong Kong. Okay. And as we talked about earlier, you know, you've been covering this story on Hong Kong's fight for democracy for us over the last few years. And given what we're seeing now, the sweeping changes to the election laws, the arrests, the convictions of so many pro-democracy leaders, is this fight over now? Do you think it's over? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I'm not sure I have a great answer for it, to be honest. But, you know, I was listening to Nathan Law, who's, you know, really one of the leaders of this pro-democracy movement. He's in exile right now

in the UK, and actually has just been granted asylum there. And he was being interviewed about these election law changes that we've been talking about, that essentially, they eliminate dissent in the legislature, right? And he said that, and I'm paraphrasing here, you know, all our freedoms have faded away at a speed that no one expected. And to me, that really rings true. You know, the last few years, we've seen the pro-democracy movement push up against China's grip on power in Hong Kong. And for a while, that happened at a slower rate. It felt more progressive.

But now at this point, it really feels just unabashed. And there is this incredible silencing effect that happens. And we've already seen the national security law being used to crack down on pro-democracy legislators, you know, simply for taking part in unofficial election primaries, right? So that has obviously been a very disparaging development for many people. At the same time, like I also think of how much the movement has grown. You know, one of the 2019 slogans was revolution for our times. And it has really revolutionized people. And as discouraging as these latest events have been, like I can't help but think that the movement won't likely go away quietly. But at the same time, like I'm also worried about what that means for people who choose not to keep quiet. Elaine, thanks for this. Really appreciate it.

You're so welcome, Jamie. The Canadian government says they have been watching the situation in Hong Kong really closely, and in February announced several initiatives to help more Hong Kong residents come to this country. So, for example, recently graduated post-secondary students can now apply to open work permits that allow them to stay here for three years, helping them gain work experience. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson, and we're going to give the last word to Philip, who is, according to groups supporting Hong Kong refugee claimants, one of over a dozen dissidents who have been granted asylum here so far. I don't want people to understand Hong Kong from me. I want people to understand people who are in the jail, who are suffering.

Like my friends, I got friends, the 47 people in the jail. Right now I got friends, they are my friends. And they helped me. One of them, I think they literally saved my life. Don't forget people who fight for us, fight for everyone. The thousands of people in jail because of the protests and the 47 people arrested by the National Security Law because they tried to make a fair election to protect our human rights in Hong Kong.

So don't forget them and keep talking about those people. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.