We are from two different backgrounds and political traditions – you’d think we might have little in common. Yet China has sought to silence us both, and we have seen at first hand how the state is trying to exert more and more power abroad.
Finn Lau woke up in London on Tuesday morning to the news that he had received an arrest warrant, and that the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong authorities were offering a HK$1m bounty for any information that could lead to his arrest. Seven other Hongkongers who fight for democracy around the world simultaneously received similar warrants and bounties.
Finn’s “crimes” include establishing the pro-democracy organisation Hong Kong Liberty, as well as engaging in “hostile activities”. Day to day, he meets politicians such as Tim Loughton, non-profit organisations, journalists and thinktanks. He organises community events for Hongkongers throughout Britain so that they have opportunities to finally exercise the freedoms that are guaranteed under international law. There is nothing criminal about Finn, nor any of the other Hongkongers in Britain, the United States and Australia that the Hong Kong government is now actively hunting.
While the world is shocked, the Hong Kong community is not surprised. This is yet another scheme to drum up fear, that has been orchestrated by the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in a grand attempt to silence Finn, his fellow colleagues and Hongkongers who participate in the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement around the world. But fear will not win.
Since the passing of the national security law, which arbitrarily criminalises anything the CCP deems to be subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces, the Hong Kong authorities have targeted Finn, countless other Hongkongers and British parliamentarians. Tim learned in March that he, along with eight other UK citizens, had been sanctioned by China for speaking out about human rights abuses.
It is not a coincidence that the arrest warrants and bounties of Finn and the other Hongkongers came just days after the third anniversary of China’s imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong and the 26th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China. The Hong Kong government and CCP simply cannot handle the truth that many democratic countries including the UK, US, Australia, Canada, and Germany have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong. Hong Kong cannot cope with the fact that its broken judicial system is not capable of taking the swift and inappropriate actions that it wishes to impose on Hong Kong dissidents worldwide. Therefore, the Hong Kong authorities will go to any length possible to harass the greater Hong Kong diaspora – to silence, to shut down, and to hide the truth.
Neither of us will be silenced. We will continue to advocate for pragmatic policies that elevate democracy and human rights around the world while increasingly reducing Britain’s economic dependence on volatile autocratic regimes. We will continue to engage with the public, journalists, activists, and other governments to inform them of the painful lessons that the CCP wishes to inflict on these innocent Hongkongers. We will make it clear to the Chinese regime that its behaviour will not be tolerated.
Finn Lau is a political activist from Hong Kong. Tim Loughton is MP for the Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham
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