A UK court’s conviction of two Chinese spies who tracked Hong Kong exiles shows how far China is prepared to go to suppress criticism beyond its borders. Transnational repression against the Hong Kong diaspora encompasses bounties on exiled activists, surveillance, financial harassment and criminalisation of families in Hong Kong. Inside Hong Kong, authorities continue to prosecute people for the most basic acts of dissent, including those who called for accountability after a devastating 2025 apartment block fire. China’s crackdown on freedom of expression is epitomised by the 20-year sentence handed to media owner Jimmy Lai. States that host Hong Kong exiles must urgently strengthen their protections.
When performance artist Sammu Chen tried to tie a red thread to a street post, plainclothes police stopped him before he could finish. Chen has twice been detained for his symbolic acts of commemoration of the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, when Chinese authorities killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, to crush democracy protests.
The day used to be one of commemoration in Hong Kong, in a way that was impossible in mainland China. Tens of thousands used to attend the mass vigil. But authorities banned it during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and haven’t permitted it since.
Chen’s attempted act of commemoration took place near the former site of the banned vigil. Close by, police moved on another artist marking the anniversary by holding a question mark-shaped balloon. In recent years, other symbolic acts, such as silently holding candles or flowers, have led to arrests. The organisation that used to hold the vigil closed itself down in 2021 following police investigations and prosecution of its leaders. Two vigil organisers currently await a verdict in their trial on subversion charges and face long sentences.
This is now Hong Kong’s reality, and the main public commemoration of the Tiananmen Square Massacre has moved to Taiwan. But China’s campaign to stamp out demands for democracy in Hong Kong doesn’t stop at its borders, as events in the UK recently made plain.
People hold electronic candles during a vigil at Liberty Square in Taipei on the anniversary of China’s 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, 4 June 2026- Photo by Cheng-Chia Huang/AFP.
Spy network in the UK
Last month, two men with dual British and Chinese nationality were found guilty of spying on Hong Kong democracy activists in the UK. The case showed how far the Chinese state is prepared to go to silence Hong Kong’s diaspora.
Chi Leung Wai, who worked for the UK’s Border Force, and Chung Biu Yuen, who worked for the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in London, were found to have carried out shadow policing operations, including by posing as police and intelligence officers, to gather information on and track exiles. The spies also targeted UK politicians critical of China. Their crimes only came to light when they were intercepted while trying to break into the home of Monica Kwong, a Hong Kong citizen living in the UK.
Phone messages between the two revealed that they referred to exiled activists as ‘cockroaches’ and that one of their surveillance targets was Nathan Law. Law was a student leader and politician active in Hong Kong’s democracy movement, which mobilised in mass protests in 2014 and again in 2019. Having spent time in jail in 2017 for his role in protests, he headed into exile in 2020 when the authorities introduced a draconian National Security Law. Law was granted asylum in the UK the following year.
In 2023, Law was one of eight activists the Hong Kong police targeted with arrest warrants, with a bounty of around US$130,000 offered as a reward for his capture. Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said the eight would be pursued for life. Hong Kong police took Law’s parents and brother in for questioning, and in 2024, authorities revoked his passport along with those of other exiled activists.
Escalating transnational repression
Such is the level of repression China now exerts in Hong Kong that activism can only be sustained among the diaspora. But while many states are exerting transnational repression against diasporas and exiles, the spy case shows that China remains the world leader in this field.
Hong Kong police issued a further round of arrest warrants and bounties against six more exiled activists in December 2024 and announced bounties on another 19 in July 2025. Hong Kong authorities have also started targeting exiles with spurious tax demands and may be gearing up to weaponise international anti-money laundering cooperation agreements against them.
Exiles’ families in Hong Kong aren’t spared. In February, Kwok Yin-sang, father of exiled activist Anna Kwok, was handed an eight-month sentence for violating national security laws after he tried to cash in her education savings insurance policy.
Around 100,000 people have fled Hong Kong to the UK, which controlled the territory before handing it over to China in 1997. That makes them a particular target. In 2024, addresses of Hong Kong citizens living in the UK were published online and anti-migrant protesters were encouraged to attack them, in a move that showed all the signs of a Chinese influence operation. The UK-based civil society group Hong Kong Aid consistently receives suspicious phone calls.
Intensifying domestic repression
Domestic repression intensified further in 2024 when Hong Kong authorities introduced the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which allows them to criminalise simple acts of dissent by claiming they constitute secession, sedition, subversion and other major crimes. They’ve used this latest law’s sweeping provisions and the 2020 National Security Law to prosecute activists, dissidents and journalists. Since 2020, Hong Kong authorities have arrested at least 365 people and convicted 174 under the two laws. People have been convicted for such trivial offences as wearing T-shirts with protest slogans.
The authorities’ determination to silence dissent was on display again in the aftermath of a horrendous apartment complex fire in November 2025, in which over 160 people died. People were arrested for social media posts calling for an inquiry into the causes of the fire and accountability for those responsible. Student Miles Kwan Ching-fung was detained and expelled from university after starting an online petition urging an independent investigation. China’s national security office in Hong Kong warned foreign journalists about negative coverage of the government’s response.
Media silenced
Hong Kong once had one of Asia’s most vibrant media environments, but now it ranks 140th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. In February, media owner Jimmy Lai, whose Apple Daily newspaper championed democracy, received a 20-year sentence under the National Security Law. Lai has been detained under multiple charges since 2019, often in solitary confinement. At 78 years old with diabetes and other reported health problems, he faces dying in jail. Despite Lai’s British citizenship, China has refused international appeals for his release.
Apple Daily was forced to close in 2021, and six other former employees received jail sentences at the same time as Lai. The trial was deeply flawed. Lai couldn’t appoint a lawyer of his choosing, was denied a jury trial and was convicted by judges hand-picked by Hong Kong authorities. A Reporters Without Borders representative who tried to observe the trial was deported from Hong Kong on arrival. Other journalists, including from Stand News, also forced to close in 2021, have been jailed.
Alric Lee is co-founder of Lady Liberty Hong Kong, a civil society organisation that documents human rights violations and advocates for democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.
Lai’s case shows China deepening its control through a fundamental transformation of political expression. The National Security Law reaches across administration, education and media, reshaping political participation and public speech. Formally, the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework still appears intact, with courts, a freedom of speech law and an independent judiciary, but their substance has been drastically redefined. The Chinese Communist Party has positioned itself as the sole authority over what counts as legitimate political expression. Activities once understood as normal civic life, including international engagement, journalism and political advocacy, can now be reinterpreted as crimes.
The result is collective intellectual paralysis. People no longer know where acceptable speech boundaries lie, and many choose silence as the safest option. Lai’s sentence signals Hong Kong’s new political grammar: the language of freedom still exists, but the state increasingly defines its meaning. The language of democracy, judicial independence and the rule of law remains on paper. The substance has been hollowed out.
Even at 78, and after his newspaper was closed in 2021, Lai faces 20 years in prison for journalism. His sentence is a warning to anyone who challenges China’s authority and a signal of Hong Kong’s trajectory, where the institutional facade of democracy remains while genuine freedoms are systematically eliminated.
The primary adaptation has been relocation to the diaspora. Civil society has not disappeared; it has been displaced, both geographically and structurally, with resistance now operating largely from outside Hong Kong’s borders. Communities in Canada, Taiwan, the UK and increasingly Japan now provide vital space for Hong Kong civil society to continue its work. Exiled activists and organisations advocate for human rights, document abuses and maintain international awareness.
But this shift also creates new vulnerabilities. Diaspora media outlets face funding pressure. Under the National Security Law, donating to them can be construed as supporting foreign forces, causing significant subscription drops. Transnational repression and surveillance pose further risks.
This is an edited extract of our conversation with Alric. Read the full interview here.
The campaign against Lai continues, with four bookshop staff arrested in March on suspicion of selling copies of his biography, deemed a seditious publication. The authorities’ attempts to suppress the book are part of their wider cultural censorship, which extends to banning films and ordering filmmakers to make cuts, barring publishers from book fairs and demanding the blocking of YouTube videos of the protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’. In the face of this repression, many civil society organisations, media outlets and political parties have concluded that their only option is to close down.
In these circumstances, it will continue to fall on the diaspora to keep shining a light on the suppression of basic civic freedoms in Hong Kong. States where Hong Kong’s exiles live must be alert to the threats of China’s transnational repression and defend and protect exiled activists. They must confront the full scope of this repression, or be complicit in it.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
Cover photo by Cheng-Chia Huang/AFP