The tourism board invited over 2,000 trade and media stakeholders, bloggers, celebrities, and key opinion leaders (KOLs) from mainland China, Southeast Asia and Europe in 2023 to visit and help “tell the good story of Hong Kong.”

Chinese bloggers with large followings on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Weibo and Bilibili were among those targeted, alongside Hollywood movie stars, Acting Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Raistlin Lau said in a legislative reply to lawmaker Chan Chun-ying on Wednesday.

Each were invited to “come to Hong Kong to experience [its] diverse tourism features and share their experience on social media to create positive word of mouth and tell the good story of Hong Kong,” Lau’s response said.

See also: Mainland Chinese tourists use social media to search for memorable Hong Kong locations

He added that the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s (HKTB) social media platforms had accumulated 11 million followers, with posts reaching over two billion impressions.

It is unclear if the visitors were paid, or had editorial independence. HKFP has approached the HKTB for clarification.

Tourism reboot efforts

Hong Kong has struggled to revive its tourism industry since years-long Covid restrictions were lifted. Visitor figures have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, while tourism-related sectors have said recovery has been stalled by a manpower shortage.

The government launched a series of initiatives aimed at boosting the economic outlook, among them a “night vibes” campaign in September involving movie screenings and night markets along the harbourfront. In 2023, the government worked with airlines to give away 500,000 plane tickets for visitors to come to the city as part of its “Hello Hong Kong” drive.

According to the 2024 budget figures, overnight visitors stayed an average of 3.6 nights last year but are expected to stay just 3.2 nights this year. Inbound tourism expenditure is expected to increase by 16.5 per cent this year, from HK$177.9 billion to HK$207.3 billion.

The Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau has said it will give “special attention” in the 2024-25 fiscal year to spreading “positive word-of-mouth” messages through media partnerships, organising familiarisation trips with influencers, staging mega events, and promoting the Greater Bay Area tourism brand.

Finance minister Paul Chan announced a HK$1.1 billion drive last month to promote “mega events” and “soft sell” the city, including monthly fireworks displays that would each cost HK$1 million.

However, one of the “mega events” – an Inter-Miami football match – was overshadowed in February after a no-show by injured superstar Lionel Messi prompted a backlash in China and an “apology video” by the athlete.

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Two companies linked to Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai helped an activist group get a global advertising campaign off the ground during the pro-democracy protests and unrest in 2019, a court has heard during Lai’s national security trial.

Andy Li, one of the 12 Hongkongers caught by Chinese coastguard in a foiled attempt to flee to Taiwan by speedboat in August 2020, took the witness stand on Wednesday to testify for the prosecution. He previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces with Lai over his role in an international campaign to invite “hostile activities” against the city.

While Li did not mention Lai during Wednesday’s hearing, he said two companies – LAIS Hotel Properties Limited (LAIS Hotel) and Dico Consultant Limited (Dico) – were involved in making advance payments for the advertising campaign, also known as “Stand with Hong Kong” (SWHK). Both firms are alleged by prosecutors as controlled by Lai.

The witness, who appeared thin and wore a thick navy jacket, was escorted by three correctional officers into the courtroom at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building.

Li told the court that he was responsible for organising a crowdfunding effort to place ads in leading newspapers around the world ahead of the G20 summit in Japan in June 2019, when city-wide protests broke out against a controversial extradition bill.

He said a group of residents communicated via messaging app Telegram to develop the advertising campaign, adding that they wanted to “ride on the G20 occasion… to raise international awareness” for the movement.

“The group were very supportive of the idea, and – at that time – we were thinking about how to bring those very eye-catching protest scenes and the momentum to the world stage,” he said in Cantonese on the 44th day of the trial.

Lai – the 76-year-old Apple Daily founder – has pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the security law and one count of conspiring to publish “seditious” materials under colonial-era legislation.

‘Uncles’ assisted ad campaign

Prosecutors said the campaign involved newspapers in 13 countries, including the US, the UK, France, Australia, and South Korea, as they presented scanned copies of the advertisements and payment records.

They also showed an account Li said he retained for record-keeping, which showed that the campaign sourced around HK$6.7 million through a crowdfunding website and paid about HK$6 million to newspapers, as well as Facebook and Google, to place the ads.

But Li said the money raised through crowdfunding was not readily available, and that he had to use his HK$3 million savings to make advanced payments so that the ads could be published ahead of the international summit in late-June that year.

He said a person named “T”, who he later knew was paralegal Chan Tsz-wah, offered help with “money issues” after he raised the issue in the Telegram group. Chan is another defendant turned prosecution witness in the present trial.

The witness said Chan told him that HK$5 million was reserved for the campaign by some “uncles,” whose identities were not known to Li.

Li said he came to know about LAIS Hotel and Dico when he saw the firms were printed on several payment records that Chan passed to him.

That included remittance advice sent to The Guardian in the UK and The Washington Post in the US, in which LAIS Hotel made a payment of £18,000 (HK$180,240) and US$85,050 (HK$665,344) respectively via a Canada-based credit union, according to copies shown to the court.

In another record, Dico made a payment of €20,000 (HK$171,174) to RCS Media Group, the parent company of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Li added that Chan did not tell him anything about Dico.

The witness added that he was not involved in the design of the ads and did not draft the text, as he was solely focused on crowdfunding.

‘Mastermind’ and sponsor of campaign

Prosecutors, in their opening statement, alleged that Lai was the “mastermind and financial sponsor” of the SWHK campaign to lobby for foreign sanctions on the city and on China. He was said to have instructed his personal aide, US-based Mark Simon, to finance Li, Chan, and others in the SWHK campaign to request hostile activities from foreign countries.

See also: Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai was ‘mastermind and sponsor’ of foreign lobbying efforts, court hears

Li is the fourth defendant turned prosecution witness to testify against Lai, after three ex-Apple Daily senior executives completed their testimonies.

After he and 11 other Hongkongers were intercepted by the Chinese coastguard in August 2020, Li served seven months in a mainland Chinese prison, where he was reportedly “tortured,” before he was transferred back to the city.

An international legal team for Lai in January took their case to the UN Human Rights Council, saying there were “grave concerns… as to whether [Li’s] testimony was procured through torture and coercion.”

The trial continues on Thursday.

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By Matthew Walsh

A huge suspected gas explosion at a restaurant in northern China killed two people and injured 26 more on Wednesday, state media reported, causing severe damage to buildings.

The blast occurred just before 8:00 am (0000 GMT), state broadcaster CCTV said, in a residential area in the city of Sanhe, Hebei province, less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the centre of Beijing.

Footage online circulated by state media showed a huge explosion that sent plumes of smoke and fire across a busy road.

CCTV reported Wednesday afternoon that two people had since died, 26 were injured and the fire had been extinguished.

The explosion was suspected to have been caused by a gas leak at a fried chicken shop, state media reported.

Two large buildings were completely destroyed in the blast, footage shared by the broadcaster showed, with rescue teams seen hauling away a car hit by the explosion.

Rescue workers can also be seen carrying away a large gas canister.

Residents told AFP journalists they had heard a loud explosion before rushing outside to see a plume of smoke rising into the morning air.

“I heard a great big bang… which scared me stiff,” a seller at a local market told AFP.

“Outside, I saw clouds of black smoke,” they added.

Another seller said they also heard a “huge bang” from the blast site, in a bustling area of squat apartment blocks about six or seven floors high.

“The noise was too loud,” a vendor surnamed Wang told AFP, adding she had heard a “second explosion”.

A local man said he did not see the explosion, but when he reached the scene, there was still thick smoke.

Near the scene of the blast, an AFP team observed police waving oncoming traffic away from an entrance to the neighbourhood where the explosion occurred.

From a police cordon of the blast zone, journalists could see a tower of grey smoke a few hundred metres (yards) away.

‘Destroyed’

The blast blew out shop facades, footage shared on video-sharing site Douyin showed. The uploader told AFP the explosion took place 200 metres from her home.

Another social media video verified by AFP showed what appeared to be a building that had completely collapsed as well as several destroyed cars and debris strewn across the street.

The local Langfang fire department said 36 emergency vehicles and 154 personnel were dispatched to the scene.

A merchant working at a nearby store told state-run Jimu News she had been in her shop when she heard a bang.

She ran out of her store and saw a fire, she said, adding that the whole building had been “virtually destroyed”.

In a bid to prevent further accidents, a local company temporarily halted the provision of gas to 50 residential compounds and businesses in the area, state-run news outlet China National Radio said.

Explosions and other deadly accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards and poor enforcement.

A recent spate of such accidents has prompted calls from President Xi Jinping for “deep reflection” and greater efforts to stop them.

Last month, at least 15 people were killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in the eastern city of Nanjing.

In January, dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the “illegal” use of fire by workers in the store’s basement.

That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory.

Domestic media reports suggested the fire was caused by an electric heating device.

Last June, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest of the country left 31 dead and prompted official pledges of a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety.

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Hong Kong lawmakers have completed a review of the clauses in the city’s proposed security legislation following six consecutive days of meetings, moving the bill a step closer to being passed into law by the opposition-free legislature.

Continuing their meetings on Tuesday, lawmakers on the Bills Committee on Safeguarding National Security Bill and government officials discussed the draft law of Article 23, the city’s homegrown security legislation.

Lawmaker Peter Koon questioned officials about a clause in the draft law which states that authorities can deny early release to prisoners convicted over national security offences. Under the current law, inmates can be granted early release contingent on good behaviour.

The draft law proposes that national security offenders may not be eligible for early release schemes if it is believed that they could continue to endanger national security, and that the commissioner of correctional services would review the decision to deny them early release annually. The move would apply to people convicted of national security offences, including under the Beijing-imposed security law.

Koon suggested that the decision could be reviewed every six months instead.

“[Reviewing every six months] would give [inmates] motivation to improve themselves,” he said in Cantonese.

Otherwise, inmates may not have the incentive to be diligent or behave well, Koon added.

But Secretary for Security Chris Tang said annual reviews were more “reasonable” because the authorities needed to “inspect” whether there had been changes to the offender’s “thinking and behaviour,” and whether they still posed a threat to national security.

Lawmaker Lai Tung-kwok asked whether the power to deny national security offenders early release was retroactive, and if people currently serving time for such offences would be affected.

Acting law officer of the Department of Justice, Daphne Siu, said it would not be retroactive. She added that inmates could lodge appeals anytime.

Under Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the city is obliged to pass its own domestic security legislation.

Separate from the national security law that Beijing imposed on the city after the 2019 protests, the homegrown security legislation seeks to criminalise five offences: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets and espionage, sabotage endangering national security, and external interference.

Marathon meetings

Legislators on the Bills Committee on Safeguarding National Security Bill have met to discuss the draft bill every day since Friday.

The draft will be put to a general meeting, in which the city’s 89 lawmakers will discuss the bill, next Wednesday at the earliest, local media reported.

It is expected to be passed swiftly by the “patriots-only” Legislative Council, which lost its opposition after the government overhauled election rules to introduce candidate screenings and nomination requirements.

Local media outlets reported that the law could be passed as early as in April.

In 2003, the last time Hong Kong attempted to legislate Article 23, an estimated 500,000 protesters marched to oppose the law. Local opposition this time around has been muted with the Beijing-imposed national security law in effect, under which mass protests have not taken place.

During the bill committee meetings, lawmakers have suggested amendments to the draft bill that would make the legislation harsher. On Tuesday, some said a proposal relating to measures against “absconders” was “too lenient.”

The draft bill currently states that authorities could levy sanctions against an individual charged under the homegrown security law if they do not appear before a court in the six months after they have been issued an arrest warrant. The sanctions include cancelling their passports and prohibiting anybody from providing them with funding.

Lawmakers said the six-month period was too long and that punitive measures should be levelled as soon as possible, with security chief Tang saying the government was considering scrapping the window.

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A total of 916 boars were ” humanely dispatched” in Hong Kong over the past two years, with the government citing the need to reduce “nuisance” caused by the wild animals.

Responding to a lawmaker’s questions in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, Secretary for Environment  and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said that the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) had deployed more CCTV cameras and installed new trapping devices in 2023 to more efficiently capture the wild boars.

The number of boars killed rose last year, with 41 wild pigs “humanely dispatched” on average per month, a 70 per cent increase from the monthly average of 24 in 2022.

Hong Kong’s population of wild boars was around 1,360 last year, a decline of 26 per cent from 2022, when there were 1,830.

Tse said in LegCo that authorities had installed 100 infrared cameras across the city to document the animals’ numbers and patterns of occurrence.

Since November 2021, the government has dropped its long-standing trap, neuter, return (TNR) policy, which stipulated that wild pigs in urban areas were captured and returned to the wild.

The policy change came after a police officer was bitten by a wild boar in Tin Hau. In 2021, authorities received 20 reports of people being injured by boars, a sharp increase from the number in 2020, when just three were injured.

Local media outlet reported in November 2021 that AFCD officers had used bait to lure boars to be killed, triggering criticism from the public and animal rights groups, who called it an “abhorrent” move.

Tse said, since the policy change, AFCD had regularly conducted operations to capture and “humanely dispatch” wild pigs in urban and rural areas where the animals have been sighted, human injuries have occurred, or the boars’ presence may pose potential risks to the public.

In 2013, former chief of food and health Ko Wing-man said in response to pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo’s question that AFCD injected general anaesthetics to euthanise the animals. The injection was normally performed first in the thigh or buttock muscle and then in the heart, in the presence of at least one field officer and one veterinary officer.

Human feeding

According to the government, “human feeding activities are one of the root causes of wild pig nuisance.”

Earlier this year, authorities sought to change the city’s wild animal protection laws to raise the maximum penalty for illegally feeding wild animals to HK$100,000 and imprisonment for one year. The amendment will come into effect in August if it passes the opposition-free legislature.

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By Holmes Chan

Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific on Wednesday reported its first annual net profit in four years, citing a surge in demand as it emerges from the impact of the financial hub’s Covid isolation.

Hong Kong’s aviation sector has struggled to fully recover from the impact of pandemic-era policies, which imposed strict rules on travellers and kept the city internationally isolated before they began to be lifted in late 2022.

“In 2023, we finally left the Covid-19 pandemic behind us,” Cathay chair Patrick Healy said, adding that it was “our first profitable year since 2019”.

“The year was characterised by a notable surge in travel demand following three years of pandemic-related restrictions.”

And CEO Ronald Lam said in the statement: “To our stakeholders, thank you for standing by us and motivating us to be the company of choice. We are ready to unleash the potential and innovation of our next exciting phase of development -– Cathay is back!”

While airlines around the world had been hit by the impact of travel restrictions, Cathay’s recovery has been slower than regional rivals such as Singapore Airlines.

The airline said profit surged to US$1.25 billion last year, compared with a loss of US$847 million in 2022, after hitting its target of operating at 70 percent of pre-pandemic passenger flights.

It carried 18 million passengers in the 12 months, up from 2.8 million in 2022.

Cathay also posted an operating profit of US$1.9 billion in 2023, the highest on record, according to Bloomberg News, and announced its first dividend payment since 2019, at HK$0.43 per ordinary share.

“In 2023, we finally left the Covid-19 pandemic behind us,” Healy said.

The firm’s share price jumped 5.5 percent on the news in Hong Kong afternoon trade.

Total revenue surged 85 percent to US$12 billion, though cargo revenue fell 16.2 percent to US$3.3 billion.

Cathay earlier vowed to return to 100 percent pre-pandemic passenger flight levels by the end of 2024, but on Wednesday pushed back the target by up to three months.

The company said it was working to address the effects of “truly significant” challenges facing the aviation industry, in areas including “recruitment, training and supply chain shortages”.

It added that it planned to expand its workforce this year by around 20 percent, or 5,000 people.

Cathay saw a spate of flight cancellations during the Christmas and New Year holidays, which the company attributed to underestimating the pilot levels needed during the seasonal flu peak in Hong Kong.

“This incident has negatively impacted our brand reputation and the confidence that Hong Kong people and our customers have in Cathay,” Lam said in an internal memo at the time.

In January, Cathay said it had signed up 100 cabin crew via its first recruitment drive in mainland China.

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Beijing has condemned an editorial by US newspaper The Washington Post on Hong Kong’s “painful descent into authoritarian repression” with the legislation of a new security law, accusing the outlet of “ignorance and double-standards” on Hong Kong affairs.

In an editorial published on Monday, The Washington Post mentioned the landmark national security trial involving 47 high-profile Hong Kong democrats.

The 47 were charged under a Beijing-imposed security law on February 28, 2021, over their roles in an opposition primary in July 2020 to select candidates who would help the pro-democracy camp win a controlling majority in an election expected later that year. 

Calling the primary “a normal exercise,” the newspaper said: “[t]he only plausible, credible verdict is ‘innocent,’ letting all 47 go free — even though 31 have already pleaded guilty in hopes of ending their long torment and perhaps getting a more lenient sentence.”

On Tuesday, the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong responded to The Washington Post in a statement, saying, “those charged are not as ‘innocent’ as you thought. ”

“When I read the part about the Jimmy Lai case, I just can’t help laughing,” the statement continued, refuting the US outlet’s claim that Lai, founder and owner of Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, was “exercising his right” to push a pro-democracy agenda and urge the US to place sanctions on Hong Kong officials “involved in rolling back freedoms.”

In response, the commissioner’s office statement read: “What about this: the owner of the Washington Post exercises his prerogatives of ordering you to editorialize in favor of foreign sanctions against U.S. officials?”

While the 47 democrats – most of whom have been detained for more than three years – are still awaiting a verdict following the trial of the 16 among them who pleaded not guilty, the trial of Jimmy Lai is ongoing.

The Washington Post editorial also said that while the Beijing-imposed national security law was “draconian enough”, Hong Kong’s local officials “feel the need to double down with a local version that will expand the repression further.”

The op-ed concludes: “Hong Kong had been something special, an outpost of freedom on Chinese soil that could mediate between Beijing and the free world. China has crushed what had been one of its greatest assets.”

Beijing slammed this conclusion, telling the US outlet to “relax.”

“Regarding your alarmist assertion that ‘China has crushed what had been one of its greatest assets’, well, just relax and take a deep breath. With the firm support of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, the Pearl of the Orient will only shine even brighter,” the Commissioner Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong said.

Rebutting foreign outlet

On Tuesday alone, Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have hit back at three foreign media outlets regarding their coverage of Hong Kong’s proposed security law, including Bloomberg, the Guardian and the Washington Post.

Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang slammed a Bloomberg opinion piece that called the draft security legislation “worryingly vague,” and called The Washington Post editorial for its “misleading and inappropriate” editorial.

The government also issued a statement condemning UK newspaper The Times after it published a “misleading” report suggesting that Hongkongers who had old newspapers could violate the proposed homegrown national security law.

Last Tuesday, the government said it “strongly disapproves of and condemns false reports” by Bloomberg, which suggested that that Hong Kong planned to ban some social media under its new security law. Authorities clarified that they had “absolutely no intention” of blocking social media, and Bloomberg later admitted an error.

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Hong Kong has hit out at British newspaper The Times after it published a “misleading” report suggesting that readers holding old newspapers could violate the proposed homegrown national security law.

The Times published the article with the headline “Hongkongers to be jailed for keeping old newspapers” on Monday afternoon. The first sentence of the article read: “Hongkongers could be convicted and imprisoned for sedition for keeping old copies of newspapers, the territory’s pro-Beijing authorities have said.”

The British media outlet added that “[s] ecurity laws being pushed through in Hong Kong would impose up to three years in prison for keeping copies of the defunct newspaper Apple Daily,” referring to the pro-democracy tabloid that shut in June 2021 following arrests and a police raid.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Hong Kong said the report was “extremely misleading.”

“Not only is the report extremely misleading, its headline is also completely wrong, which misleads people into believing that one can be imprisoned for possessing certain old newspapers, thereby generating panic among members of the public,” the statement read.

It added that as stipulated in the draft bill of Article 23, the homegrown national security law, the prosecution has to prove that the defendant possesses the publication “without reasonable excuse” before the defendant may be convicted by the court.

“It is not possible for a person who does not know that the publication concerned has a seditious intention to be convicted,” the statement reads.

‘Reasonable excuse’

Hong Kong authorities have been working to swiftly enact the homegrown security law. The bill was introduced last Friday, just nine days after the end of a one-month public consultation period.

Since Friday, the Bills Committee on Safeguarding National Security Bill has held meetings daily totalling 35 hours to review the draft bill, with extra sessions held on Saturday and Sunday.

Apart from introducing a series of new offences and measures for suspects, prisoners and absconders, the proposed legislation also raises penalties for many offences.

For example, the possession of “seditious publications” could be punishable by up to three years in jail, compared to two years under the current colonial-era sedition law.

During a meeting at the Legislative Council on Monday, pro-Beijing lawmaker Peter Koon asked if people would violate the law if they had copies of the Apple Daily newspaper at home.

Security chief Chris Tang said in response that it would depend if the person accused had a “reasonable defence.”

“[If someone said] I had [the newspaper] for a long time, I didn’t know it was still there, the aim was not to incite… then I believe that could be a reasonable defence,” Tang said in Cantonese.

The newspaper’s founder, media mogul Jimmy Lai, is currently standing in a national security trial in which he faces foreign collusion and sedition charges.

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Chinese multinational technology giant Alibaba has pledged to inject HK$5 billion into Hong Kong’s entertainment sector to finance promotion to an international audience.

Hong Kong-made television dramas, films, events and training of young creatives will receive funding from video platform Youku, Alibaba Pictures and other businesses under the media arm of Alibaba, the company announced on Monday.

The five-year project, dubbed the “Hong Kong Cultural and Art Industry Revitalisation Program,” would concentrate on film production and distribution, rights acquisitions and television series production, a government statement read.

Unveiled during the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market exhibition, the programme would also offer investments in concerts, collaboration with performance venues, and talent development.

The company would collaborate with film and television companies in Hong Kong to co-produce films, as well as television series for streaming platforms. Alibaba said Youku would support the production of a sequel to the popular newsroom drama “The QUEEN of News” by broadcaster TVB.

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung, who officiated Monday’s press conference, said the government hoped that the investment plan would bring the city’s film and television entertainment sector “to the next level.”

“We eagerly hope that [Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group] will work more closely with the film and TV industry of Hong Kong to develop new modes of co-operation and explore business areas, to nurture new talent, and to create rich and diversified content for film and TV,” an English statement by Yeung read.

Last October, Chief Executive John Lee pledged during his Policy Address to help the industry draw capital from the private sector and expand new markets by injecting HK$4.3 billion to the Film Development Fund and the CreateSmart Initiative. The government also vowed to earmark HK$200 million to finance 20 local film projects to boost their chances of being released in mainland China.

Kenny Ng, associate professor of the Academy of Film of the Hong Kong Baptist University told HKFP at the time that the new scheme may be more attractive to filmmakers who were already familiar with the complicated procedures of getting a green light from mainland Chinese authorities for a film to be released.

Those who were not familiar with the rules may need to rely heavily on middlemen, the scholar said. 

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Hong Kong’s Ocean Park has christened a 1.9-metre crocodile found last April in Yuen Long “Passion,” following a public vote on its name.

The theme park announced the crocodile’s name at a ceremony on Tuesday. The name Passion received the most votes in a Facebook poll that also included Bo Bo, Harmony, Hope and Lotus.

Ocean Park said that the crocodile, which is estimated to be around four year old, will be living in a new facility next to the park’s entrance, meaning that members of the public would not have to pay to see it.

The park added that the name Passion is short for passionfruit, the Cantonese term for which is similar to Pat Heung, where the reptile was discovered last April.

“This connection emphasises the energetic nature of the crocodile, captured by the word ‘Passion,’” the park said in a press release announcing the poll.

“Furthermore, ‘Passion’ represents the Park’s dedication to ecological conservation upon the crocodile’s arrival.”

Last April, the crocodile was transferred from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) to Ocean Park after residents in Yuen Long reported the wild animal to authorities.

The park said then that the crocodile was female, measuring approximately 1.9 metre in length and weighing around 35 kg. It added that the crocodile’s species was not native to Hong Kong.

Paulo Pong, the chairperson of Ocean Park, said during Tuesday’s ceremony that he hoped visitors could become aware of the risks that foreign animal species could bring to the city’s ecological system, local media outlets reported.

Speaking at the same event, Mickey Lai, a deputy director at the AFCD, said he hoped the crocodile would become “an ambassador” promoting ecological preservation and diversity. It would also remind residents to care about animals and not to smuggle or illegally keep endangered species.

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Moody’s has downgraded one of China’s largest housing developers’ credit rating, as woes in the country’s property sector show no sign of abating.

China’s real estate market is grappling with unprecedented challenges, with some developers on the verge of bankruptcy and lower property prices deterring consumers from making investments.

Vanke — long considered to be financially stable — is one of several major Chinese developers to run into trouble, with Moody’s on Monday downgrading its rating to “Ba1”, indicating it has “substantial credit risk”.

It said the firm’s contracted sales had fallen around 40 percent — to 34.5 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion) in just the first two months of the year.

“Moody’s expects volatile operating and funding conditions for China’s property sector to continue to drag on China Vanke’s contracted sales, access to funding and liquidity,” the rating agency said Monday.

The hurdles facing the firm would continue for “the next 12-18 months”, it added.

It did not rule out further downward revisions to Vanke in the future.

Vanke was the second-largest developer in China last year in terms of sales, according to specialist firm CRIC.

It is part-owned by the city government of Shenzhen in southern China — once seen as a guarantee of its solidity.

But setbacks make it the latest Chinese developer to be caught up in a mounting crisis within the real estate sector, following Evergrande and Country Garden.

The industry, which once experienced two decades of meteoric growth as living standards rose across China, has long accounted for more than a quarter of the country’s GDP.

In a bid to revive activity, authorities have introduced various incentive measures and made announcements of state support.

But such efforts have so far had little impact on the ailing sector.

Chinese Housing Minister Ni Hong acknowledged the difficulties in stabilising the market during a press conference on Saturday.

Real estate companies that “need to go bankrupt should go bankrupt, and those that need restructuring should be restructured”, he said.

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The Hong Kong government plans to amend a draft bill for the city’s new domestic security law to tighten measures against “absconders,” after lawmakers said the existing proposal was “too lenient.”

Presently, the draft bill states that authorities could levy sanctions against an individual charged under the homegrown security law if they do not appear before a court in the six months after they have been issued an arrest warrant. The sanctions include cancelling their passports and prohibiting anybody from providing them with funding.

Addressing lawmakers at the Legislative Council on Tuesday, Secretary for Security Chris Tang said the government was considering scrapping the six-month window.

See also: Hong Kong proposes cancelling ‘absconders’ passports under new security law

“We aim to create measures that could effectively combat the act of absconding, and to facilitate absconders to return to Hong Kong,” Tang said in Cantonese.

Tang’s comment came after lawmakers – who are sitting in marathon meetings to fast-track the bill’s legislation – on Monday took aim at the proposed arrangement, saying it was “too lenient.”

Gary Chan, the chairperson of the city’s largest pro-Beijing party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said that authorities would be “tying their own hands” if they provided absconders with a six-month window before taking punitive measures against them.

The six-month window should be reduced or taken away so that the counter measures could be levelled as soon as possible, Chan said, adding that offenders who endangered national security were unlikely to return if they had left the city.

Peter Koon, an Anglican clergy and a chaplain of the St. John’s Cathedral, said: “As a priest, I think [the officials] are more merciful than me.”

In the draft for the Safeguarding National Security Bill – also known as Article 23 – the secretary for security could declare a person charged with national security offences as an absconder if they fail to comply with an arrest warrant for six months and the security chief “reasonably believes” they are not in Hong Kong.

The bill proposes banning residents from providing absconders with financial support, leasing them property, or establishing a joint venture with them. Offenders could face up to seven years in jail.

It also seeks to cancel absconders’ passports as well as suspending their professional qualifications and business registration in the city.

Officials previously said that the window was proposed to “give absconders a chance” to come back to Hong Kong and surrender.

‘Innocent residents’

Tang on Tuesday also said that authorities would consider tightening measures against absconders so that “innocent residents” would not be affected.

The security chief said that business owners and co-investors would not be suspected of breaching the law if their partners were declared absconders. They would only be targeted if they continued to do business or began a business with them, Tang said.

Similarly, landlords would not be suspected of breaching the domestic security law if their tenants fled overseas and were wanted by the authorities.

Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the government shall enact laws on its own to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against Beijing. Its legislation failed in 2003 following mass protests and it remained taboo until after the onset of the separate, Beijing-imposed security law in 2020. Pro-democracy advocates fear it could have a negative effect on civil liberties but the authorities say there is a constitutional duty to ratify it.

The bills committee will continue discussing the draft on Wednesday, marking the sixth straight day – including last Saturday and Sunday – of meetings. The draft will be brought to the general meeting, in which the city’s 89 lawmakers will discuss the bill, earliest on next Wednesday, local media reported.

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Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi will start deliveries of its first electric vehicle by the end of March, the firm’s boss said Tuesday, bringing its highly anticipated entry into the automotive industry to the brink of completion.

Xiaomi — the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer — also produces tablets, smartwatches, headphones, and scooters.

In 2021, the Beijing-based firm announced its planned foray into the electric vehicle sector, made highly competitive in recent months as top Chinese brands engage in an aggressive price war.

“The Xiaomi SU7 will be officially released on March 28,” Lei Jun, the company’s founder and CEO, wrote on Chinese social media site Weibo.

The announcement was accompanied by a photo of the new vehicle, which was first unveiled to the press in December.

The firm’s shares soared nearly 10 percent by midday in Hong Kong, where the firm is listed.

Equipped with Xiaomi software and electronic features, the SU7 is produced by Chinese auto giant BAIC.

Its batteries — with a driving range of up to 800 kilometres (500 miles) — are supplied by China’s largest electric automaker BYD, as well as domestic battery giant CATL.

“The goal is to become one of the world’s top five automotive manufacturers through 15 to 20 years of hard work,” Lei said in December.

Many top tech firms in China — the world’s largest auto market — have invested recently in the country’s EV sector, where foreign firms have struggled to get a foothold.

Founded in 2010, Xiaomi has achieved rapid growth through its strategy of marketing high-end devices at affordable prices, initially directly through online channels.

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Six nurses at a Hong Kong private hospital have accused a member of senior nursing staff of sexual harassment, prompting an internal investigation.

HK01 reported on Monday that some female nurses in the intensive care unit (ICU) of at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Medical Centre had accused a male nurse, who was their superior in the unit, of sexual harassment. The hospital has confirmed the incident.

The alleged harassment involved verbal and physical acts, with at least six nurses filing complaints to the hospital.

Citing sources, the local media outlet reported that some nurses accused the hospital of not taking the matter seriously as it did not demote the nurse, instead transferring him to another department.

The hospital told local media outlets on Monday evening that it had received reports from nurses and conducted an internal investigation into the incident. It said that the hospital had taken disciplinary action against the accused, including issuing a warning letter and moving him out of the department.

The hospital added that it had not found sufficient evidence showing that the incident could constitute criminal offences, and therefore it did not report the case to the police. But the hospital said it did not prevent the staff involved from filing police reports.

Sexual harassment

According to the Sex Discrimination Ordinance, making an unwelcome sexual advance or an unwelcome request for sexual favours to a person, or engaging in other unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, might constitute sexual harassment at workplace and educational institutions.

The ordinance, which is overseen by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), stipulates that sexual harassment is an unlawful act that falls under civil jurisdiction. However, sexual harassment might constitute a criminal offence if it involves behaviour such as indecent assault and voyeurism.

According to the EOC, apart from reporting the case to employer, victims of alleged sexual harassment can also file complaints to the EOC within one year of the incident taking place or file a lawsuit in District Court within two years of it taking place.

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Those who have been arrested under a proposed security law and granted bail, and those who have refused bail and been discharged by police, may be subject to restrictions on their movement, security chief Chris Tang has said.

According to the draft of the Safeguarding National Security Bill, suspects accused of endangering national security may be subject to a series of new restrictions, including extending their pre-charge detention time, limiting their access to lawyers, and issuing a movement restriction order for those on bail.

According to the bill, those restrictions would be granted by the courts upon police application. A movement restriction order would be valid for three months, with the possibility of extending it for another month, and would require a suspect to live at a specified address and give police the identities of anyone they live with.

Tang said in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Monday, as lawmakers discussed the draft bill, that such measures would serve as “combos” to prevent suspects from leaving Hong Kong.

Tang added that anyone who violated the movement restriction order would face a maximum penalty of one year in prison.

Kitson Yang, a pro-establishment lawmaker, asked in LegCo on Monday whether authorities would consider introducing electronic ankle monitors for national security suspects. Tang said the measure would not be adopted.

“Taking into account Hong Kong’s situation and human rights issues, we have not considered introducing any electronic devices or electronic ankle monitors [for those under arrest in national security cases],” Tang said in Cantonese.

Asked whether the new legislation would empower authorities to confiscate arrestees’ passports, Tang said the Beijing-imposed national security law already authorised police to take the passports of people on bail.

Other new powers

In addition, the draft bill outlines giving authorities the power to cancel the Hong Kong passports of security law “absconders” and ban providing them with financial support.

It also proposes amending the city’s prison laws to raise the threshold for national security prisoners to apply for early release.

If the draft bill passes Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature, the amendment would apply “whether the sentence of the prisoner… was imposed before, on or after the commencement of” the change in law.

Authorities have been working to swiftly enact the homegrown security law. The bill was introduced last Friday, just nine days after the end of a one-month public consultation period.

Beginning on Friday, the Bills Committee on Safeguarding National Security Bill has held 28-hours worth of meetings to review the draft bill, with special sessions held on Saturday and Sunday. Meetings will continue on Tuesday.

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Proposed limits on Hong Kong national security detainees’ access to lawyers would depend on police investigation, the city’s justice minister has said.

Speaking to lawmakers at the Legislative Council on Monday (LegCo), Secretary for Justice Paul Lam said the two clauses in the draft bill for the city’s domestic security law – known as Article 23 – which refer to limiting those held on suspicion of endangering national security from accessing specific lawyers or, in certain circumstances, from seeking legal advice, would be applied according to police intelligence.

“[Which clause to apply] really depends on how much intelligence we have, how likely there is to be an accomplice outside to tip off others, and that how certain we can be about [an alleged accomplice’s] identity,” Lam said in Cantonese, adding that “accomplices” could be lawyers.

According to the bill, police could apply for a court warrant to stop a suspect from seeking counsel from “specific lawyers” during the pre-charge detention period, which authorities also proposed extending to up to 16 days.

Police could also bar detainees from meeting any lawyers at all for 48 hours on the grounds that the legal visit “will endanger national security or cause bodily harm to any person,” the draft bill states.

A marathon discussion at the LegCo continued on Monday, after the bills committee convened extra meetings over the weekend to fast-track the legislative process of Article 23, with lawmakers focusing on the proposed limits to legal visits during detention, a constitutional rights guaranteed by the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

See also: New powers proposed for police, courts to limit national security detainees’ access to lawyers

Lam said the rationale behind the proposal was that some lawyers could exploit their privilege when meeting detainees to facilitate acts that endangered national security or impede investigations.

“The guiding thought is that some lawyers are not sincerely providing legal services, but instead they may take the opportunity to destroy evidence or notify [an accomplice],” he said. “[The proposals] are to prevent people from harming national security or obstructing our work in the name of legal counsel.”

But Lam said that the move of barring detainees from meeting lawyers could not be “endless” as it would be a “significant” limit on their constitutional rights.

Vernon Loh, senior assistant solicitor general of the Department of Justice, said the ban – which may last 48 hours – could only be applied for once during the detention period. He said the lengthier the ban, the more likely it could be subject to a legal challenge.

He added that the government had referenced national security legislation in the UK, under which suspects could be barred from meeting lawyers during a 48-hour detention period.

Apollonia Liu, deputy secretary for security, said that the 48-hour time frame could help police investigate the identities of lawyers, who if the detainees were to meet may have endangered national security.

Once the identities became clear, authorities could resort to the restrictions on specific lawyers, she added.

Lawmaker Kennedy Wong, a solicitor, asked whether there would be any appeal mechanism for lawyers, saying that such allegations would have “serious consequences” on their reputations.

Ivan Leung, acting deputy principal government counsel, said the court warrants would be handled by a magistrate in a closed court and that it would not affect the lawyers’ reputations.

He added that the restrictions would be imposed on the detainees’ rights and not the lawyers’, therefore there would not be appeal mechanisms for the latter.

Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the government shall enact laws on its own to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against Beijing. Its legislation failed in 2003 following mass protests and it remained taboo until after the onset of the separate, Beijing-imposed security law in 2020. Pro-democracy advocates fear it could have a negative effect on civil liberties but the authorities say there is a constitutional duty to ratify it.

The bill, which Chief Executive John Lee said should be passed “at full speed,” outlines a raft of national security offences including treason, insurrection, and sabotage, with sentences ranging up to life imprisonment.

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Jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai’s “radical” stance during the 2019 protests and unrest was common knowledge, a commentary writer for Lai’s pro-democracy paper Apple Daily has told a national security trial against his ex-boss.

Yeung Ching-kee, who earlier pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and is testifying against Lai for the prosecution, told a panel of three handpicked national security judges on Monday that Lai would appeal to the paper’s readers to take to the streets in 2019, when the city saw massive protests sparked by a now-axed extradition bill.

Lai is facing a 80-day trial and life in prison after he denied two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed security law. He also pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiring to publish “seditious” materials under the colonial-era sedition law.

US foreign policy

Yeung, who managed the paper’s “forum” page, told the court on Monday that Lai became “more radical” in October 2018 after then-US vice-president Mike Pence delivered a speech on a shift in US foreign policy towards China.

See also: Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai was sympathetic towards frontline ‘valiant’ protesters in 2019, court hears

Over text message, Lai told Yeung, who would later write a piece on Pence’s speech, that Washington’s move was a response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “weakness” and that its timing was “perfect,” the court heard.

Yeung added that Lai’s radicalisation was reflected in the tabloid’s coverage thereafter: “During the anti-extradition movement, it was common knowledge that Apple had a radical stance. News reports would always mention the words ‘take to the streets,’ and I didn’t think that made for a good headline.”

“‘Take to the streets’ today, ‘take to the streets’ tomorrow… [you’d] always see it,” Yeung added.

Lai, and by extension, the paper, also believed that there should be “unity” between frontline “valiants” and peaceful protesters at that time, Yeung told the court.

For a period, the paper’s reports incorporated the mantra of “no condemnation, no snitching, and no severing of ties,” but it was no longer mentioned after the national security law took effect in June 2020, though not as a result of a change in the paper’s stance, Yeung said.

The idea of not “severing ties” referred to the need for unity in the movement, whilst “valiants” referred to those who used non-peaceful means on the streets.

No independence commentary

Yeung also said on Monday that the paper would not run pro-independence commentaries even though freelance commentary writer Eric Poon, known otherwise by his penname Sang Pu, publicly supported Hong Kong independence.

“When publishing his articles, the subject matter would not be related to Hong Kong independence,” Yeung said.

Yeung was not familiar with the situation of overseas writers, however.

The prosecution presented an editorial piece written by Hong Kong Watch’s now-former political advisor Sam Goodman on Canada’s “lifeboat” emigration programme for Hong Kong. Asked if he was familiar with the UK-based NGO, Yeung said he only knew of it, but did not have a clear idea of how it functioned.

Yeung told the court that he knew the group was concerned with the human rights situation in Hong Kong, but “did not pay much attention” to their writing, and could not make any conclusive comments.

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Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top political body has said she felt Beijing’s “care and support” for Hong Kong during an annual parliamentary gathering, adding that she would take the “spirit” of the key Two Sessions meetings to the local community.

Starry Lee, a member of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, spoke to the media group that runs state-backed newspapers Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po as the Two Sessions ended in Beijing on Monday.

“The central authorities’ seminars clearly showed the central government’s care and support [for Hong Kong],” Lee said in Mandarin.

China’s number two official Premier Li Qiang is highly concerned with “other situations in Hong Kong” including the legislation of Article 23, Lee said, referring to the domestic security law that is currently being discussed in the Legislative Council.

Lee added that Hong Kong delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, would serve as a communication bridge.

“The premier also has a wish that we would take the spirit of the Two Sessions and spread it widely in Hong Kong society,” said Lee, who is also a lawmaker and the chairperson of the city’s biggest pro-Beijing party, The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

The Two Sessions, an annual gathering of Beijing’s political elites, drew to a close on Monday. The week-long event saw pledges by officials to do more to boost China’s ailing economy and prioritise national security.

Regarding Hong Kong, Li said on the first day of the meetings that Hong Kong should continue implementing the governing principles of One Country, Two Systems and “patriotic administration.”

Meanwhile, a press conference traditionally held by the premier at the end of the Two Sessions was scrapped this year. The event was a rare opportunity for foreign media outlets to question China’s top leaders directly, albeit usually with questions vetted ahead of time.

209 suggestions submitted

The Two Sessions in Beijing took place as the draft bill of Article 23, Hong Kong’s homegrown security law, was introduced to the legislature for lawmakers to discuss.

Separate from the national security law that Beijing imposed on the city after the 2019 protests, the domestic security legislation seeks to criminalise five offences: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets and espionage, sabotage endangering national security, and external interference. Under Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the city is obliged to pass its own security legislation.

Ahead of the bill’s introduction to the legislature, Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang met with Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress on Thursday. Ding is the head of the Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, the highest body overseeing China’s policy towards the two territories.

Lawmaker Ma Fung-kwok, one of the deputies, told reporters after the meeting that Xue said the central authorities “fully supported” the legislation of Article 23.

See also: What is Article 23? Hong Kong’s homegrown security law is back in the spotlight

Brave Chan, also a deputy, cited Ding saying that the domestic security law would safeguard national interests and Hong Kong’s stability.

Hong Kong’s deputies to the National People’s Congress submitted 209 suggestions to central authorities during the Two Sessions, Ma told local media outlets on Sunday. Among them were proposals to increase the duty-free allowance for mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong from HK$5,000 to HK$30,000, as well as expand the multiple-entry visas to residents from more mainland cities.

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By Jing Xuan Teng

Chinese consumer prices rose in February for the first time since August, data showed Saturday, bucking a months-long stretch of deflation that compounded the country’s myriad economic woes.

The world’s second-largest economy posted some of its lowest growth in decades last year and is battling a prolonged property sector crisis and soaring youth unemployment.

But in a rare bright spot, official statistics Saturday showed the consumer price index rose 0.7 percent last month, according to Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) — the first increase since August.

The figure was higher than a 0.3 percent rise analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected and a sharp increase on the 0.8 fall seen in January, their sharpest drop in more than 14 years.

The positive data comes as senior officials meet in Beijing for the annual “Two Sessions” of China’s parliament and its top political consultative body, in gatherings that have been dominated by the economy and national security.

On Tuesday, Premier Li Qiang told that gathering the country would seek five percent growth in 2024 — an ambitious goal that he acknowledged would be “not be easy” given the headwinds facing the economy.

High among those issues has been deflation, which China entered last July for the first time since 2021.

Apart from a brief rebound in August, prices had not risen until last month.

Consumer prices traditionally see a boost during the Chinese New Year period, also known as Spring Festival, which fell in February this year.

“It was primarily food and service prices that rose more,” NBS statistician Dong Lijuan said in a statement.

“During the Spring Festival period, consumer demand for food products grew, in addition to rainy and snowy weather in some regions affecting supply,” Dong said.

Demand remains weak

China’s sinking prices are in stark contrast with the rest of the world, where inflation remains a persistent bugbear, forcing central banks to ramp up interest rates.

While deflation suggests goods were cheaper, it poses a threat to the broader economy as consumers tend to postpone purchases, hoping for further reductions.

A lack of demand can then force companies to cut production, freeze hiring or lay off workers, while potentially also having to discount existing stocks — dampening profitability even as costs remain the same.

Given the holiday factor, one analyst cautioned against seeing Saturday’s figures as suggesting China was no longer struggling with deflation.

“I think it is too early to conclude that deflation in China is over,” Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said.

“Domestic demand is still quite weak. Property sales of new apartments have not stabilised yet,” he explained.

And producer prices continued to fall in February, dropping by 2.7 percent, the NBS said.

“Affected by the Spring Festival holiday and other factors, industrial production was in its traditional off season,” Dong said.

Investors have called for much greater action from Beijing to shore up the flagging economy.

But despite calls for broader stimulus measures Beijing indicated this week it was unlikely to resort to big-ticket bailouts, setting a fiscal deficit-to-GDP target of three percent, similar to last year.

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By Jing Xuan Teng

China’s leaders on Monday wrapped up a week-long key conclave at which they admitted more was needed to revive a sluggish economy battered by an ailing housing market, poor domestic demand and record-high youth unemployment figures.

Top officials have been upfront about the myriad challenges China is facing, admitting that a modest five percent growth goal will not be easy and that “hidden risks” are dragging the economy down.

But details of how they plan to tackle the problems have been scant. They have also simultaneously moved to deepen powers to deal with threats to their rule and tightened a veil of secrecy around policymaking, scrapping a traditional annual press conference and vowing to include national security provisions into a raft of new laws.

Delegates to the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, gathered at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to rubber-stamp legislation at 3:00 pm local time (0700 GMT) as the conclave came to an end.

Among the legislation approved was a revision to the Organic Law of the State Council, China’s cabinet, which state media has said will aim to deepen the “leadership” of the ruling Communist Party over the government.

They also approved the country’s state budget and the national economic and social development plan for 2024.

Only a handful of the body’s almost 3,000 delegates voted against any of the motions.

The tightly choreographed event capped a week of high-level meetings that have been dominated by the economy, which last year posted some of its slowest growth in years.

On Saturday, ministers pledged to do more to boost employment and stabilise the country’s troubled property market.

“Workers face some challenges and problems in employment, and more effort needs to be made to stabilise employment,” Wang Xiaoping, minister of human resources and social security, told a press conference.

And housing minister Ni Hong added that fixing the property market — which long accounted for around a quarter of China’s economy — remained “very difficult”.

More action needed

Despite official pledges of fresh support, analysts say they are yet to see the kinds of big-ticket bailouts the flagging economy needs if it is to rebound.

“Reviving the economy requires boosting household wealth and income, something China’s leaders clearly aren’t yet ready to do,” said analysts at Trivium, a research firm specialising in China, in a note.

And throughout the “Two Sessions”, officials have appeared reluctant to face questioning about the myriad economic headwinds China is confronting.

Last week, they broke a decades-long tradition by scrapping a press conference by the premier — long a rare chance for foreign media to question the country’s number-two official.

The topic was swiftly removed from search results on Chinese social media giant Weibo, as was a hashtag declaring “middle-class children have no future”.

Lawmakers have also vowed to adopt wide-ranging security laws in 2024 to “resolutely safeguard” the country’s sovereignty, further expanding the Communist Party’s powers to punish threats to its rule.

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The storming of Hong Kong’s legislative complex during the 2019 protests was “not an impulsive act,” an activist convicted of rioting has said in his mitigation plea.

Using force to enter the Legislative Council (LegCo) on July 1, 2019, was a “desperate outcry” by protesters who felt that peaceful demonstrations alone were not capable of putting a stop to a since-axed extradition bill, activist Owen Chow told District Judge Li Chi-ho on Monday in a mitigation hearing.

Chow and another activist Ventus Lau, neither of whom had legal representations, gave their mitigation speeches on Monday after pleading guilty last year to rioting inside the city’s legislature more than four years ago.

Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.” 

The key date in Hong Kong’s months-long unrest saw protesters storming the government building in Admiralty by breaking glass windows and doors and scrawling protest slogans on the walls. Some also sprayed black paint on Hong Kong’s emblem inside the legislative chamber, while others vandalised the portraits of previous legislative presidents.

Chow on Monday admitted that he had sprayed slogans on the walls inside the legislative complex, torn up three copies of the Basic Law and helped put up a banner which read “There are no rioters, only tyranny” inside the chamber.

Most protesters who stormed the LegCo building were “fearful,” according to Chow, who said that their actions had escalated because they felt that peaceful and lawful means would not stop the government from pushing the controversial bill forward.

“Riot is the language of the unheard,” Chow said, quoting American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

“[Entering LegCo] was not an impulsive act, but rather a desperate outcry by those who felt that they were left with no other options,” he added in Cantonese.

Chow said the storming of LegCo was a milestone in the 2019 unrest, symbolising a “direct exercise of political rights” by Hongkongers. It was also an act of resistance against what he described as a system that continued to suppress public opinion.

“The court is not a place for you to express discontent towards the political system,” the judge said, interrupting Chow.

Lau told the court that he did not take part in the clashes on July 1, 2019. He went to the LegCo building out of concern that there would be “bloody incidents” and said he wanted to “minimise casualties” that evening.

Lau said he only took “defensive gear” handed out by demonstrators at the scene, including a cycling helmet and protective goggles. His helmet was very recognisable and he had no intention of hiding his identity, the activist told the court.

Lau said he had temporarily left Hong Kong after his protest-related arrests, and had thought about not returning to the city. But he decided to face his criminal liabilities in the end, because he “did not want to spend [his] whole life unable to return to the city [he loves].”

Lau’s mitigation plea was stopped multiple times by the judge, who said the activist’s speech showed an inclination of “expressing [his] political stance.” The court was not a platform for Lau to make political statements, the judge warned.

“If you let me choose 100 more times, I would still choose to enter [the LegCo],” Lau said in Cantonese.

The activist, who has been remanded in custody for more than three years for a separate national security case, said he had missed a lot of important milestones since being detained. He felt that his loved ones were being “punished” alongside him, including his girlfriend of nine years, who had to “run around” for him every day while he was in custody.

“I just want to be a competent boyfriend when get out,” he said.

Both Lau and Chow are among 47 pro-democracy figures facing up to life imprisonment over an alleged conspiracy to commit subversion in connection with an unofficial legislative primary election held in July 2020.

Lau is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in the landmark national security case, while Chow is waiting for a verdict after facing trial that exceeded 100 days. The court finished hearing closing arguments in December last year, but three handpicked judges said that “no guarantees” could be made as to whether a verdict would be delivered in three to four months as anticipated.

Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.

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Cooperating with foreign groups is a “neutral” act and it will not violate Hong Kong’s proposed domestic security law unless it is done via “improper means” and causes an “interference effect,” security chief Chris Tang has said.

The remarks came on Sunday, when lawmakers asked questions concerning the proposed new “external interference” offence during a fast-tracked discussion in the Legislative Council (LegCo) about the Safeguarding National Security Bill.

The draft bill defines external interference as someone who “collaborates with an external force to do an act” with “intent to bring about an interference effect,” and uses “improper means when doing the act.”

Pro-establishment lawmaker and convenor of the Executive Council Regina Ip said on Sunday in the LegCo that many former foreign officials served in think tanks and academic institutions to influence the policies of other countries. Ip asked if cooperating with those groups would be considered external interference.

In response, Tang said that while such cooperation might constitute “collaborating with external forces,” it will not violate the law if “improper means” were not employed and it did not cause “an interference effect.”

Ip replied that defining working with foreign groups as “collaborating with external forces” sounded very “negative.” Tang said: “It’s neutral. Cooperating with others is a neutral act. Cooperation is neutral.”

Jeffery Lam, a pro-establishment lawmaker and a member of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, said on Sunday in the LegCo that commerce chambers and enterprises often worked with foreign institutions, drawing on their experiences to lobby the city’s government.

Lam asked whether provisions specifying that certain conduct would not be considered unlawful could be introduced to the bill.

In response, Tang again said that local companies cooperating with foreign groups may be considered as “collaborating with external forces,” but would not violate the law unless they did so using “improper means” and it caused “an interference effect.”

According to the draft bill, interfering in the policy formulation of Beijing or Hong Kong authorities, interfering with the functionality of LegCo or the courts, interfering in any elections, and prejudicing the relationship between China and foreign countries, and between the central authorities and Hong Kong would be considered as “bringing about an interference effect.”

74 minutes per section

Over the weekend, the Bills Committee on Safeguarding National Security Bill convened extra meetings totalling 16 hours to examine the draft bill of Article 23, a 200-page document.

Including Friday, the committee hosted almost 20 hours of meetings to examine 73 articles under 11 sections, representing around 70 per cent of all articles.

Ming Pao reported that each section was examined for approximately 74 minutes.

The committee is holding meetings on Monday and will also meet on Tuesday.

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Hongkongers will need a “reasonable defence” for keeping “seditious publications” at home, security chief Chris Tang has said as a lawmaker brought up the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper during a fast-tracked discussion about the city’s impending domestic security law.

Legislator Peter Koon asked whether residents would breach the law if they had publications at home that were deemed “seditious,” citing the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper. Its founder, media mogul Jimmy Lai, is current standing in a national security trial in which he faces foreign collusion and sedition charges.

“[Apple Daily] is certainly seditious, but what if some people intend to keep a record of such a bad newspaper and has two copies at home, would that be counted as possessing seditious publications?” Koon asked in Cantonese.

Tang said it would depend if the person accused had a “reasonable defence.”

“[If someone said] I had [the newspaper] for a long time, I didn’t know it was still there, the aim was not to incite… then I believe that could be a reasonable defence,” Tang said.

He added that the time of publication would not matter in the prosecution of possession of seditious publications.

But Ivan Leung, acting deputy principal government counsel, said Koon’s question involved ongoing legal procedures and that he would refrain from commenting. Leung said only that it did not matter if the materials in question were published prior to the enactment of the proposed law, and that whether a person has committed the offence depended on the “seditious intention.”

Over the weekend, the Legislative Council convened extra meetings totalling 16 hours to discuss the Safeguarding National Security Bill – also known as Article 23 – after the government officially introduced it to the legislature on Friday. It came just nine days after the end of a one-month public consultation period.

The bill, which Chief Executive John Lee said should be passed “at full speed,” outlines a raft of national security offences including treason, insurrection, and sabotage, with sentences of up to life imprisonment.

The bill also proposed raising the penalties for some existing offences, such as upping the maximum sentence for sedition from two years to seven years – or 10 years if the offender is found to have colluded with an external force. Meanwhile, the possession of “seditious publications” could be punished by up to three years in jail, compared to two years under the current colonial-era sedition law.

According to the proposed bill, “seditious intention” covers the incitement of hatred, contempt, or disaffection against China’s political system, its apparatuses in Hong Kong, and the city’s government and legal system.

It also includes the intention to cause hatred “amongst different classes of residents of [Hong Kong and China].”

The proposed definition replaced certain words in the existing sedition legislation, which was last amended in the 1970s when Hong Kong was still a British colony.

The bill also specified that the prosecution does not have to prove that those suspected of committing sedition offences intended to incite public disorder or violence – a deviation from other common law jurisdictions.

‘Despicable intention’

As meetings were underway in the Legislative Council, the government on Sunday issued a statement condemning the Washington-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (CFHK) for “intimidating” Chinese and city officials.

The statement came after CFHK on Saturday called on the US to impose sanctions on local officials responsible for the Article 23 legislation.

“The vaguely written and broad definition of the offences would allow the Hong Kong government to target any individual or entity for exercising their rights and freedoms with egregious sentences,” CFHK said in a statement.

The government said that by requesting US sanctions, CFHK may have committed foreign collusion under the Beijing-imposed national security law, which also criminalises secession, subversion, and terrorism.

“[The CFHK] blatantly clamoured at this juncture for so-called ‘sanctions’ against dutiful officials of [China and Hong Kong] with a view to intimidating them, completely ignoring the due legislative procedures… and fully demonstrating its despicable intention,” a government spokesperson said, calling CFHK an “anti-China” organisation.

The spokesperson added that US-based activist Frances Hui, who is wanted by national security police and has a HK$1 million bounty on her head, was a core member of the CFHK, therefore showing the “necessity” of the proposed offence targeting absconders.

The Article 23 bill proposes giving powers to authorities such as cancelling absconders’ passports, as well as new offences prohibiting the flow of funds to to them.

Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the government shall enact laws on its own to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against Beijing. Its legislation failed in 2003 following mass protests and it remained taboo until after the onset of the separate, Beijing-imposed security law in 2020. Pro-democracy advocates fear it could have a negative effect on civil liberties but the authorities say there is a constitutional duty to ratify it.

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Charlene was gripped by a mixture of confusion, fear and shame at Hong Kong’s busy Wan Chai MTR station last July when she suddenly found her trousers were wet. 

“Was it a kid accidentally spilling water? I turned around… Everyone was busy shuttling past me in the station. I couldn’t see any suspects,” she recalled.

She immediately ducked behind a pillar. “Even my underwear was wet. It felt so shameful and disgusting… I couldn’t understand why there was water. Then I thought: was it sexual harassment?” 

She reported the incident to police based in the station but they said it would be hard to catch a suspect without CCTV in the area, Charlene, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told HKFP in Cantonese. 

“It was like being hit with a hard blow, but you don’t know who hit you, how they hit you. And no one helps. The matter was left unsettled, and it lingered, ” Charlene said.

More than six months later, she saw a video online posted by another woman whose bum had been splashed by an unidentified liquid in Mong Kok, and decided it was time to speak out. 

Two days later, she set up an Instagram page entitled “Pissed-us-off,” sharing her own trauma and appealing to others with similar experiences to speak up. 

To Charlene’s surprise, within just a month she had received 150 reports from people – 99 per cent of them women – who had been splashed in crowded areas like streets in Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, an escalator at Lam Tin and a bus terminal at Tung Chung. 

The earliest case dated back to 2004 and nearly all victims had been splashed around the buttocks. While some said the liquid was water, others reported the smell of urine and some feared it may have been semen. 

The incidents triggered public attention. In late February, a 56-year-old man was arrested and accused of pouring unidentified liquid on a woman in Causeway Bay, before being remanded in a psychiatric ward. In 2008, a 40-year-old man with the same name was convicted of indecent assault for spilling semen on a woman’s bum in public.  

Police at the time said they had received nine reports between January 20 and February 18 from women aged 16 to 32 who were splashed with liquid in Mong Kok. One woman’s trousers were soiled twice in one hour.

In response to HKFP, the police said they had included courses on sexual violence in the curriculum of the Police College and its Detective Training Centre, touching on topics such as “psychological techniques for dealing with victims” and “empathetic listening.” Officers were also provided training to improve their sensitivity and communication skills when handling cases of sexual violence.

Charlene said catching one suspect did not bring the issue to an end. “I hope society will become more aware of sexual violence,” she said, adding that the issue should be tackled jointly by the media, the police and the government.

Hidden victims

Ruby Lai, an assistant professor of Lingnan University specialising in gender studies, has been studying the liquid-splashing cases. One of her friend’s, Lai told HKFP, had encountered this kind of sexual harassment twice.

“This is a kind of sexual violence classified as ‘street harassment.’ All around the world, reported rates of street harassment are low as the attackers can flee easily, and society hasn’t developed a clear awareness of this type of sexual violence. It therefore takes a lot of time and effort to report a case,” Lai said in Cantonese. “Many victims just bear it.” 

Nicole, a medic in her 30s who asked to be known by her first name, told HKFP that she now felt uncomfortable every morning when walking to the bus terminal in Tung Chung after being splashed with an unknown liquid while there twice.

The first assault was on May 11 last year. “Suddenly I felt my butt was warm and there was some liquid wetting me from outside to inside… I was too scared to look back at that moment. What if there was some pervert behind me?” she said in Cantonese.

“I thought of reporting it to the police. But there were no CCTV cameras at the bus terminal and I did not see any suspect.” 

She became suspicious during every morning commute, paying close attention to the people behind her at the bus terminal. But in August, she was assaulted again. 

“That day I was a bit relaxed and I was looking at my phone while I walked. As soon as I got on the bus, I found my butt was wet,” Nicole said. “It was so disgusting.”

She considered reporting the assault to police but did not do so in the end. “I was very cowardly… I felt scared until now. And you can’t do anything except check who is behind you, ” she said, bursting into tears.  

A feeling of fear still lingers for Charis, who told HKFP she encountered the same kind of sexual harassment in 2016.  

“I was hanging out with my cousin in Mong Kok. While we were just about to cross an intersection with the crowd, I suddenly found my buttocks wet and warm,” Charis who only offered her first name told HKFP in Cantonese. 

Confused and not sure what had happened, she did not report the incident to police. “But it haunts me. To this day, every time I pass the intersection, I put my hands behind my back to cover my buttocks.”

‘It’s not my fault‘

Lily, an office clerk, was harassed at the same intersection in Mong Kok at around 6pm on February 4. The episode haunts her. 

She remembered reading an online post about a similar sexual harassment and returned to the scene the next day, taking a short video about her ordeal and uploading it to Instagram with an appeal to watch out for suspects.

Lily struggled with her feelings before uploading the video. “I was afraid others might say: why were you targeted, was it because of what you did, like what you were wearing on that day?” She soon decided she should not blame herself. “It’s not my fault. It’s the fault of the pervert,” she said.

It was Lily’ post that encouraged Charlene to go public. 

“It’s hard for one person to take action,” Charlene said. “I would have felt scared. But now I am not alone, I am [backed by] a group of people. We’re a collective able to face the issue. That made a difference in our power.”

Responding to Lily’s video, 56 people left comments saying they had experienced the same kind of sexual harassment. 

More victims came forward, sending messages to the Instagram page or filling in online forms. Charlene studied characteristics of all the cases, published a map of “black spots” and rolled out guidelines for victims and witnesses. 

She avoided blaming the victims. “The page is not asking women to be more careful. That’s not reasonable. The responsibility should be borne more by passers-by. When you are in some hot spots for sexual harassment, can you put down your phone and notice your surroundings? Could you offer some help if someone encounters a liquid-splashing assault?”

Soon after Charlene launched her page, Nicole and Charis sent messages sharing their long- hidden trauma. “It still felt hard bringing up the incidents, but we need to stand up, ” Nicole said. 

A ‘neglected’ type of sexual violence

“While the general public still considers sexual violence as limited to rape and indecent assault, various types of sexual violence have long existed in daily life,” Florence Tsang, a social worker of the anti-sexual violence NGO RainLily, told HKFP. 

“Like image-based sexual violence, and the splashing of liquid on women’s intimate areas, they have been neglected. It was not until recently, thanks to the concern page, that we recognised such a social problem,” Tsang said in Cantonese. 

The gender studies scholar Lai said liquid-splashing, as a type of sexual violence, had its roots in pornographic videos usually tagged as “cum on women in public” or “ejaculation in the streets” on Chinese and English online porn platforms. 

HKFP found many videos apparently shot on mobile phones and uploaded to porn sites. They usually showed a man following one or more women in the streets, through shopping malls or up escalators. Often, the man appears to ejaculate onto the women without their knowledge. 

The BBC last June investigated a criminal group led by a Chinese national which organised a team of 15 people to grope women in public areas in China and to film the process. The group then sold the videos online for huge profits. 

“The criminals are smart – they know semen will contain DNA, therefore they turn to warm water or other unknown liquids,” Lai said. 

Tsang said attackers were not only seeking sexual release. Such incidents were more about demonstrating their power to manipulate and threaten women. 

News reports in Chinese show that liquid-splashing sexual assaults have been reported not only in Hong Kong, but also in cities in Taiwan and China. 

According to a search by HKFP, from 2007 to 2023, at least eight male suspects were arrested for splashing semen, sputum or unknown liquids on women in Taipei, New Taipei and Kaohsiung. 

In Guangzhou, a man was arrested last October for spilling unidentified liquid on a woman’s buttocks on a train. 

A grey area in laws

Hong Kong’s laws against sexual offences have not been updated to cover evolving types of sexual violence.

Lai said that while the offence of indecent assault criminalises touching without consent, and the Sex Discrimination Ordinance tackles sexual harassment in the workplace or educational institutions, no laws cover sexual harassment in a public place or sexual assault which does not involve direct touching. 

The 56-year-old  man arrested in Causeway Bay in late February was charged with outraging public decency, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

In early January, a 37-year-old man was arrested and charged with loitering after following a woman and splashing unidentified liquid on her. 

“The problem is, if they are not charged with sexual offences, their names will not appear in the Sexual Conviction Check Record even if they are convicted,” Lai said.

The Law Reform Commission has been reviewing legislation on sexual violence since 2006. In 2012 it proposed replacing the offence of indecent assault with a new one of sexual assault, which would cover behaviour such as ejaculating onto others or emitting urine or saliva. 

It also sought to broaden the definition of touching to include touching with anything or any part of the body. However, there have yet to be any reforms. 

“Our society has not been updating different types of sexual violence,” Lai said, adding that apart from updating the offence of indecent assault, Hong Kong could also learn from the UK, which last October passed a new law to protect against sexual harassment in public.

It criminalises behaviour such as catcalling, following someone and sending sexual images to others via Bluetooth, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail. 

Watch out for each other

The move to set up a concern page, to connect with other victims and to speak up online and to the media has helped heal Charlene after her ordeal. 

“Initially I felt scared, trembling, thinking I can’t change anything. Now as we have taken action, I have fought back a bit. I am not sure whether it will work, or whether people will forget about [the issue] very soon. But at least I feel a release,” Charlene said. 

Apart from the liquid-splashing, Charlene and Lily have long felt unsafe in public areas. They said they had encountered sexual assaults on buses and trains, when men had rubbed against them with their penises. 

Charlene twice reported such assaults to police but the cases remain unsettled. 

Speaking up over the past month has helped her shed her feelings of helplessness. She hopes the concern page will help other victims vent their feelings.

“People might think I am surrounded by negative emotions from lots of people after receiving messages from other victims. Actually, I felt love – I talked with everyone who sent messages to me. We’re supporting each other,” Charlene said. 

 “We don’t have eyes in the back of our heads,” she said, stressing the need for mutual support to stop sexual violence. “If everyone is watching out for everyone else, keeping an eye on those ahead of you, we won’t need to worry so much about what happens behind us.”

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China has intensified efforts to block software that enables internet users to access banned websites during a top political meeting this week, a leading provider of firewall-leaping software told AFP.

Beijing operates some of the world’s most extensive censorship over the internet, with web users in mainland China unable to access everything from Google to news websites without using a virtual private network (VPN).

And as thousands of delegates gather in Beijing this week for the annual “Two Sessions” meeting, VPN software has increasingly struggled to circumvent the censorship while outages have become much more frequent, even when compared to during previous sensitive political events.

“Currently, there is increased censorship due to political meetings in China,” a representative of the Liechtenstein-based service Astrill — one of the most popular VPN services for foreigners in China — confirmed to AFP.

“Unfortunately, not all VPN protocols are functioning at this time,” they said.

“We are working intensively on bringing all services back to normal, but currently have no ETA.”

The use of a VPN without government authorisation is illegal in China, as is using the software to access blocked websites.

State media workers and diplomats, however, are allowed to access prohibited websites such as X, formerly Twitter.

Security has tightened across Beijing throughout the Two Sessions, with security officers patrolling streets with sniffer dogs and elderly volunteers in red armbands monitoring pedestrians for suspicious behaviour.

Chinese social media giant Weibo has also been quick to block sensitive topics.

All hashtags discussing Beijing’s decision to call off a traditional press conference by the country’s premier were quickly removed from search results.

And another, a reference to China’s economic woes declaring “middle class children have no future” was also removed.

China’s domestic media is state-controlled and widespread censorship of social media is often used to suppress negative stories or critical coverage.

Regulators have previously urged investors to avoid reading foreign news reports about China.

In a speech last year, President Xi Jinping said the ruling Communist Party’s control of the internet had been “strengthened”, and that it was crucial that the state “govern cyberspace”.

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By Peter Martell and Tenzin Sangmo

From teaching centuries-old crafts to cataloguing their language, exiled Tibetans guard the cultural identity of a homeland most have neither seen nor dare visit, and where they say Beijing is eradicating their heritage.

Crouched over a minutely detailed devotional “thangka” painting depicting Buddha, artist Lobsang Tenzin teaches students in northern India.

“It is important to keep the traditions of our history,” said the 49-year-old, dipping a needle-thin brush into rich blue paint made from crushed lapis lazuli as six young Tibetan trainees watch.

“These skills were nearly lost, but we pass on the skills by teaching young artists.”

Tibetans will on March 10 mark the 65th anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese forces that led to their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile, followed by tens of thousands of compatriots.

Inside Tibet, the chaos of China’s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution left temples razed and monasteries reduced to ruins, destruction that continued in the decades that followed.

Today, activists decry what they say are Beijing’s determined efforts to erase what is left of Tibet’s cultural and religious identity.

Lhadon Tethong, head of the Tibet Action Institute, condemns what she calls “cultural genocide” — including Beijing’s sharp restrictions on Tibetan language, with children “indoctrinated” at state-run boarding schools.

Beijing, which maintains “Tibet is part of China”, fiercely rejects the accusations.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning this week said that people in Tibet are “living a happy life”, in response to UN rights chief Volker Turk’s assertion that China was violating fundamental rights.

Tibet enjoys “social stability, economic growth, solidarity among all ethnic groups and harmony among various religious beliefs”, she said.

‘Former glory’

Tibet scholar Robert Barnett, from SOAS University of London, called Beijing a “foreign ruler deciding what’s best for a people whose culture it barely knows”.

“There is a gradual whittling away of a culture and a history,” Barnett said.

“It is a process where you gradually eliminate all the elements of a history, a people, culture and of a society that are inconvenient to the new rulers.”

Tibetan authorities say there are 130,000 Tibetan exiles, many in India and Nepal but also in more than 25 countries worldwide — just a fraction of the seven million living under China’s control.

As the decades pass, that makes the preservation of cultural identity even more challenging.

Tenzin studied and now teaches at the Norbulingka Institute, a social enterprise centre training more than 300 men and women in painting, embroidery, weaving and woodcarving.

The complex of red and green Tibetan-style buildings, close to the Dalai Lama’s base in India’s Himalayan hill town of Dharamsala, was launched in 1995 to employ highly skilled artisans eking out a living with repair jobs.

“After the great masters came to India, they ended up doing odd jobs, trying to build their lives in a new country,” said Tsultrim Dorjee, a senior manager at the institute.

“The institute helped them use their skills… the goal was to return Tibetan art to its former glory.”

Others take a more modern approach, like 29-year-old artist Tashi Nyima, with his bright cartoon-style canvases that nonetheless still reflect his people’s heritage and political battles.

Born and brought up in Dharamsala, where red-robed monks and nuns crowd streets alongside Tibetans in baseball caps and jeans, Nyima said younger generations struggle with a “very mixed identity”.

But he remains committed to the cause.

“I’ve always believed that Tibet will be free one day,” he said, in front of his painting of a shackled monk.

“If I didn’t have this belief in me, I wouldn’t have done these kinds of works — I would have just stopped.”

‘Long haul’

Another battle is keeping the language alive.

While Google Translate offers 133 languages, Tibetan is not among them — but exiles in 2022 released their own 223-volume dictionary, available online.

“Once the language is preserved, then everything falls in place,” said Dorji Damdul, director of Tibet House in New Delhi, founded by the Dalai Lama to promote his people’s heritage.

“Language is like the medium through which all the flow of culture and philosophy happens.”

But young Tibetans in India are increasingly seeking opportunities in Europe and North America.

Damdul, born in India in 1968 and a former translator for the Dalai Lama, admits that keeping an identity alive is a “major challenge”.

“In Tibet, assimilation by force happens with the communist Chinese,” said the Buddhist scholar. “In the West, natural assimilation can happen because it’s too free.”

Tibet’s Dharamsala-based government in exile says it is looking to keep the increasingly scattered community connected, including via online conferences teaching younger generations about their history.

“If they understand Tibet a little more, they could be the best advocates,” said Penpa Tsering, elected as the government’s sikyong, or leader, by Tibetans worldwide.

“Even though we are physically distant, we are mentally close together.”

Tsering’s administration oversees more than 60 Tibetan language schools in India and Nepal and supports nearly 300 monasteries and nunneries.

“We are here for the long haul,” said Tsering. “Don’t think that we’ll vanish just like that.”

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Two recently published books shed light on the relations between central and local authorities in mainland China, and provide valuable lessons for Hong Kong.

In one, we see that local politicians in Wuhan failed to learn the lessons of SARS, repeating mistakes during the outbreak of Covid-19 that had disastrous consequences for the country and the world. They operated in a system designed centrally that prioritised politics and stability above all else.

In the other, we see that local politicians not only accepted instructions and advice from central authorities, but also actively, persistently, and effectively represented local interests to central authorities. Both cases, one negative and the other positive, offer something for us to learn from.

Yang Dali’s new book, Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak Spiraled Out of Control, published by Oxford University Press, shows the shocking consequences of prioritising politics and stability over science when Covid-19 emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, with a population of 11 million.

Yang’s day-by-day account covering the period from December 8, 2019 to the end of the Wuhan lockdown on April 8, 2020, shows how the Chinese Communist Party’s culture of “telling good stories” smothered attempts by clinicians in hospitals and labs to report the dire situation on the ground. As a result, city and provincial leaders, wrapped in a political cocoon, repeatedly lied to central authorities and the public.

According to Yang, local authorities designed elaborate strategies to suppress information about the infectiousness of the disease and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, allowing the virus to spread throughout the community and beyond. The police, a key part of the stability-maintaining apparatus, vigorously suppressed the many whistleblowers in Wuhan who tried to break through the local party’s wall of silence, Li Wenliang among them.

Local officials, ever vigilant, aggressively censored the national online disease reporting system that would have alerted officials outside of Wuhan and Hubei province, and in Beijing. Local authorities repeatedly concealed from visiting investigation teams the fact that scores of medical personnel in Wuhan hospitals were sick with what came to be called Covid-19.

As Yang points out, central authorities admonished the visiting investigation teams to defer to local authorities “under the[centrally-designed] principal of territorial management, the locals are in charge, and you experts are there to provide assistance.”

As we know, the wall of silence eventually crumbled. The World Health Organization (WHO) first found out about a possible outbreak of a “viral pneumonia of uncertain etiology” from social media. In other words, similar to the SARS outbreak in 2003, China did not initiate reporting to the WHO in accordance with the International Health Regulations.

From Ma Xiao’s book, Localized Bargaining: The Political Economy of China’s High-Speed Railway Program, published by the Oxford University Press in 2022, we see central-local relations in an entirely different light.

Ma traces in great detail how local officials in Jiangsu’s Yancheng city, population 8 million, lobbied and won the extension of high-speed rail to their city, “tirelessly travelling to relevant departments in Beijing and the provincial capital to make the case for the city.”

These efforts involved both the mayor and the party secretary who mobilised the community. They visited the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Railways/China Railway Corporation “numerous times.” The lobbying spanned over a decade.

Local officials leveraged their positions in the party and state hierarchies. They used local social elites to mobilise “spontaneous expressions of demand for policy benefits by grassroots constituents (e.g., protests) to put pressure on their superiors and extract policy concessions.”

After doubts, delays, and false starts, they succeeded. Yancheng Station opened on December 16, 2019.

Ma shows us what is expected of local officials in mainland China. Hong Kong, by contrast, apparently resisted a high-speed railway station, and only after much discussion, protests, and court cases was a deal finally done.

My point is not about high-speed rail, but about the representation of Hong Kong in the places that matter. Most crucially, these include party committees such as the Central Hong Kong and Macau Work Leading Small Group and Central Committee. The Hong Kong government has no representation on either of these central bodies and yet they make policy on and for Hong Kong.

In the high-speed rail case, local officials lobbied provincial party and government agencies and State Council offices and a ministry turned state-owned enterprise.

The two books taken together reveal much about central-local relations in which Hong Kong is embedded. In both cases a common incentive system for local officials is at play. The system rewards local leaders with promotion for performance. How to define performance depends on the context.

In the Wuhan case, the centrally imposed incentive system led authorities to value politics and stability over science. Local officials suppressed, concealed, and lied to central authorities and the public, with disastrous consequences. Yang labels their behaviour a kind of bureaucratic pathology. We all paid for this. True, central authorities held local Hubei and Wuhan leaders to account, and heads rolled.

The same incentive system, this time prioritising economic development, motivated local officials in Yancheng to press central authorities for benefits and they were brilliantly successful.

What can we in Hong Kong learn from these cases? First, unlike authorities in Wuhan, in the past we have valued learning from previous experience. Yang’s account indirectly highlights the autonomy of Hong Kong, under One Country, Two Systems. Our scientific community had the autonomy to investigate and report publicly its findings on sensitive issues such as novel infectious diseases. Our system also has highly valued transparency and sharing information.

Our system, at least previously, was focused on learning lessons from past mistakes. Thus, after SARS, authorities in the government and the Legislative Council convened panels to investigate what went wrong and how to improve our system of infectious disease management and control. We learned a lot from this and it made us better prepared as a community for the outbreak of Covid-19.

But throughout the Covid-19 pandemic we also made obvious – and perhaps not so obvious – mistakes that must be investigated formally and publicly. The lack of coordination between government departments, the Hospital Authority and the medical profession left our elderly mostly unvaccinated and resulted in the highest death rate in the world from Covid-19.

Conflicting messaging confused many about the benefits and risks of vaccination. How could isolation and quarantine have been better managed? Did we need to close the borders for so long?

Experts would undoubtedly see more, and their investigations could help us better prepare for the next pandemic. These were emergency management decisions, made under pressure. The government now claims to be interested in emergency management. I urge the authorities to reconsider their decision not to investigate how they managed Covid-19. This assumes that Hong Kong has the autonomy to conduct such an investigation. Do we?

Second, we should leverage Hong Kong’s autonomy to lobby Beijing for benefits, Yancheng-style. Our relative autonomy permits us to have a relatively independent legal and judicial system, well-developed financial services, connectivity to the rest of the world, and so forth.

Representation of Hong Kong requires persistent and targeted lobbying to be effective. Such lobbying could win Hong Kong a more central role in the Greater Bay Area, improved logistics and regional airport arrangements, and an enhanced role in the provision of financial services. Ma’s case study also shows the importance of mobilising the community even to protest, something that our leaders today are perhaps loath even to contemplate. This is the hardscrabble reality of politics in China that we need to learn. 

Finally, we need to understand that, from the perspective of the central authorities, prioritising politics and stability is not wrong. This is reflected in the fact that officials have quietly re-employed the party secretaries of Hubei and Wuhan, who were dismissed in February 2020. Priorities often conflict. Which to pursue is a matter of judgement.

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Maria Editha Garma-Respicio fondly recalls her teenage years writing for her school newspaper, reading in the library and penning poems about love. Growing up in Tuguegarao, a city in the northern Philippines, she sought solace in the written word when all else seemed to be falling apart.

“I wrote about everything,” Respicio, as she asked to be called, said. “I wrote about my emotions, being in love, everything.”

Decades later, writing continues to play a central role in Respicio’s life. The 45-year-old domestic worker in Hong Kong writes poems about life as a migrant worker, her two children back home and whatever inspires her in the moment.

“Writing is a kind of therapy for me,” Respicio told HKFP. “It’s healing.”

Respicio’s poetry has been published in a number of literary magazines. Most recently, two of her poems found a home in Ingat, a new anthology of poetry, photographs and sketches by the city’s migrant workers.

Released last Sunday, Ingat – meaning “take care” in Tagalog – is a collaborative effort by Migrant Writers of Hong Kong, photography non-profit Lensational and independent publisher Small Tune Press. It features the work of dozens of domestic workers telling stories about family, hardship, love and sacrifice.

All the works in the book are accompanied by Chinese translations with the aim of making it more accessible to Hong Kong readers. The anthology’s dusk jacket pays tribute to balikbayan boxes, or large cardboard boxes stuffed with food, clothes and other gifts that domestic workers send home to their families.

The city’s 340,000 domestic workers, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, are the backbone of many Hong Kong families. Research has shown that domestic workers contribute significantly to the city’s economy, freeing up parents from childcare and other duties so they can enter the workforce.

Migrant worker activists have long campaigned for their rights, citing cases of domestic workers being denied rest days, food or their salaries.

Respicio wrote two poems for the anthology: Diaspora Spirit and Adios. The first is a tribute to the courage of migrant workers, while in the second, she described a tearful farewell to her family in the Philippines.

“Goodbye’s a torture, my tears shedding / I’ll no longer witness my baby’s milestone / Others children I will be caring / Making me numb like an ice stone,” she wrote in Adios.

Christine Vicera, one of the leaders of the project and co-founder of be/longing, an initiative supporting ethnically diverse communities, said the book aimed to carve out space for work that is “often forgotten or not as visible” on Hong Kong’s creative scene.

Born in the Philippines but having moved to the city as a toddler, Vicera – who co-edited the anthology – said she always wished there was more diversity in the literary scene.

“Growing up, I’ve always wanted to see works by people in our communities on bookshelves,” she said. “People from Hong Kong, people who are Filipino and of course, people who are migrant domestic workers.”

‘A very powerful story’

Established in 2021, Migrant Writers of Hong Kong unites domestic workers with a common love for the written word. The group partners with universities to organise writing workshops, poetry exhibitions and arts events on Sundays, the sole day off for most domestic workers.

Maria Nemy Lou Rocio co-founded the group after being inspired by Migrant Writers of Singapore. Noting an absence of such a community here, the 42-year-old set out to create a safe, inclusive space for domestic workers in Hong Kong to share their creations and hone their craft.

“Migrant workers are very talented. Every poem they write is a very powerful story,” Rocio, who came to Hong Kong as a domestic worker six years ago, told HKFP.

Shortly after establishing Migrant Workers of Hong Kong, Rocio told Vicera that she wanted to produce an anthology to showcase the writing of domestic workers. The idea was soon expanded to spotlight not just written work, but photos, art and other mediums.

Kristine Andaya Ventura’s contribution to Ingat is a sketch of a couple paddling a boat under the full moon. The 36-year-old Filipina has been working overseas as a domestic worker since she was 19, first in Lebanon and then in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Malaysia. She came to Hong Kong at the end of 2022.

“[My sketch] is about two hearts saying goodbye. No matter how happy they are today, tomorrow they need to say goodbye to separate, to have a good future,” she told HKFP.

Ventura is as much a writer as she is an artist, having penned dozens of poems over the years. She published a book of her poetry called She is a Lioness in 2021, telling stories about heartbreak over a failed marriage, battling depression, and life as a domestic worker in a foreign land.

Her main writing inspiration, she said, was her two children aged eight and 17.

“I want to dedicate [my poems] to them [to show] how I love them and miss them,” Ventura said. “When I miss them, I will express that I need to work outside the country for them… to give them financial support.”

“Writing helps me ease the pain,” she added.

Besides poems, Ingat also features around two dozen photos taken by members of Lensational, a non-profit that supports domestic workers interested in photography.

Felicia Xu, a volunteer at Lensational who curated the photo submissions, said photography was a powerful tool for migrant workers as it transcended the barriers of language.

Years ago, Lensational ran an event inviting domestic workers and their employers to view their work, she told HKFP. Some of the employers became emotional when they talked to their domestic workers.

“When [one of the employers] saw the photo, it raised her interest and she started asking questions,” Xu said.

“She got to know the struggles of the domestic worker that she basically spends every minute with, but she didn’t know anything about her emotions… and that photo broke the ice.”

Defying stereotypes

For the migrant workers who contributed to the anthology, writing poems and taking photos is a way for them to express their emotions. But more than that, they hope their work can prompt society to see a different side to them.

“I want [our] messages to be read by the locals… and I hope they can appreciate their domestic helpers more,” Rocio told HKFP, adding that she believed the anthology could be an “eye-opener” for many Hongkongers.

A study by researchers at Lingnan University last year found that domestic workers were unfairly represented by the city’s media outlets. According to an analysis of almost 400 reports about the mistreatment of domestic workers in Chinese-language media, outlets tended to use language that highlighted the “positive personality traits” of employers.

The anthology’s launch also comes as the government continues to crack down on what it calls domestic workers’ “job-hopping,” or prematurely ending their contracts to change employers. Lawmakers have alleged that domestic workers are induced to “job hop” by employment agencies offering them financial incentives, a claim activists deny.

The government is slated to announce new rules by July that could make it harder for domestic workers to switch employers.

Vicera said influencing policy-making was tougher nowadays as the legislature lacked lawmakers who campaigned for domestic workers’ rights.

See also: Without an opposition, Hong Kong’s ‘patriots only’ Legislative Council leaves marginalised groups behind

Since authorities overhauled the electoral system in 2021, only people deemed “patriots” by the government can run in leadership races. During previous legislature terms, when there was still an effective opposition, pro-democracy lawmakers worked with NGOs and activists to lobby for domestic workers’ interests.

Under these circumstances, visibility – through projects such as Ingat – is more important than ever, Vicera said.

“These stories are able to challenge certain stereotypes and at the end of the day, make people realise that beyond their identities as domestic workers, they are mothers, daughters, writers, photographers, and storytellers too,” she added.

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The Dalai Lama, the charismatic Buddhist spiritual leader celebrated worldwide for his tireless campaign for greater autonomy for his Tibetan homeland, has been a thorn in China’s side for decades.

Tenzin Gyatso, who describes himself as a “simple Buddhist monk”, became the face of the Tibetan cause as he crisscrossed the globe, mixing with royalty, politicians and celebrities.

The 88-year-old, with his famous beaming smile, has become a global symbol of peace whose message transcends religion, regarded by his many supporters as a visionary in the vein of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

The Dalai Lama was just 23 when he fled the Tibetan capital Lhasa in fear for his life after Chinese troops crushed an uprising that began on March 10, 1959 — 65 years ago this Sunday.

It took him 13 days to trek across the Himalayas to the Indian border. He has never returned.

His life in exile has centred around the northern Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, home to thousands of fellow Tibetans who maintain traditional customs, even though many have never set foot in their ancestral homeland.

In Dharamsala, he set up a government-in-exile and launched a campaign to reclaim Tibet, evolving to embrace a “middle way” — relinquishing independence for greater autonomy.

Unlikely celebrity

In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his bid to “seek reconciliation despite brutal violations”.

The award catapulted him into the global spotlight, courted by world leaders and Hollywood stars.

In his maroon robes, simple sandals and wide-rimmed spectacles, the Dalai Lama made an unlikely celebrity.

But his sense of mischief — he once announced he would like to reincarnate as an attractive blonde — and infectious chuckle proved irresistible, and made him a darling of the world’s media.

The Chinese government, however, has remained impervious to his charm, branding him a separatist and a “wolf in a monk’s robe”.

Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, and Beijing says the region is an integral part of the country.

The Dalai Lama wants greater autonomy for his people, including the right to worship freely and to preserve their culture, which many Tibetans say has been crushed under Chinese rule.

Formal negotiations with Beijing broke down in 2010.

A year later, the Dalai Lama retired from politics to make way for a new leader elected by exiled Tibetans around the world.

Life of exile

Born into a farming family in the Tibetan village of Taksar on July 6, 1935, he was chosen as the 14th incarnation of Tibetan Buddhism’s supreme religious leader at the age of two.

He was given the name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso — Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate Defender of the Faith and Ocean of Wisdom — and taken to Lhasa’s 1,000-room Potala Palace to be trained to become the leader of his people.

He indulged a precocious scientific curiosity, playing with a watch sent to him by US president Franklin Roosevelt and repairing cars, one of which he crashed into a palace gate.

But his childhood ended abruptly at age 15 when he was hastily enthroned as head of state after the Chinese army invaded Tibet in 1950.

Nine years later, as Chinese troops crushed a popular uprising, he escaped to India.

When told the Dalai Lama had fled, Chinese leader Mao Zedong reportedly said: “In that case, we have lost the battle.”

He was welcomed by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who offered Dharamsala as a base for him and thousands of fellow Tibetan refugees.

Throughout the Dalai Lama’s life, he has been treated as an honoured guest in India — an official policy stance that has been a source of tension with Beijing.

It is unclear how, or even whether, his successor will be named, with his predecessors chosen by monks according to ancient Buddhist traditions.

He has alternatively suggested the next Dalai Lama could be a girl, that his spirit could transfer to an adult successor, or that he could even be the last in the line — and that he might be reincarnated as an animal or an insect instead.

But he has always been clear on one point — that any successor named by China would not be credible.

“No recognition or acceptance should be given to a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including those in the People’s Republic of China,” he has said.

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A US Army intelligence analyst was arrested on Thursday for allegedly providing national defense information to China.

Sergeant Korbein Schultz, who held a top-secret security clearance, was taken into custody at Fort Campbell, a military base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Schultz’s indictment did not identify the country he was allegedly supplying with sensitive military information, but press reports identified it as China.

According to the indictment, Schultz, since June 2022, provided a contact in Hong Kong with documents, maps and photographs relating to US national defense.

Schultz was allegedly paid a total of $42,000 for the information.

The Justice Department said it included information about potential US plans in the event that Taiwan came under military attack.

It also included documents related to fighter aircraft and helicopters, hypersonic equipment, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and studies about the US and Chinese military.

Asked on Friday about Schultz’s arrest, as well as that of a Chinese software engineer held this week for allegedly stealing artificial intelligence technology from Google, Beijing said it was “not aware of the specific circumstances” of the cases.

But spokesperson Mao Ning said in reference to the Google case that “China has consistently attached high importance to and actively protected intellectual property rights”.

“At the same time, we also oppose the United States abusing its national power to groundlessly suppress Chinese enterprises and Chinese citizens,” she told a regular briefing.

Schultz’s indictment also comes shortly after the arrests in California of two US Navy sailors on charges of spying for China.

Petty officer Wenheng Zhao was sentenced to 27 months in prison in January after pleading guilty to charges of conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and accepting a bribe.

Zhao and another US sailor, Jinchao Wei, were arrested in August.

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