China Pursues Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Living Abroad

It wasn’t that long ago that Hong Kong was an independent governed and relatively free place. But then China used the cover of the pandemic which was just then leading to shutdowns around the world, to end that freedom. Using a new national security law, China shut down the pro-democracy movement by threatening leaders with long prison sentences and silencing favorable media outlets.

Images from inside @appledaily_hk’s building. Yes, this is #HongKong. pic.twitter.com/lgPyOoiLhs

— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) August 10, 2020

That was five years ago now and freedom in Hong Kong is just a memory. But it turns out China hasn’t forgotten and is still looking to punish some of the pro-democracy voices who managed to escape their grasp at the time. Today the Washington Post has a story about one effort that took place in the UK, where thousands of former residents of Hong Kong escaped during the Chinese crackdown.

In 2020, after pro-democracy protests erupted across the city, Hong Kong passed a “National Security Law” modeled on China’s approach that criminalized virtually any conduct deemed subversive or separatist.

Three years later, Hong Kong police began announcing million-dollar bounties in Hong Kong currency — roughly 130,000 U.S. dollars — for information leading to the apprehension anywhere in the world of alleged fugitives accused of “inciting secession” or colluding with perceived enemies.

Most of those on the bounties list are pro-democracy activists who played important roles in the 2019 protests before fleeing to other countries including the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Hong Kong added 15 names to the list in July, a move denounced by the United States, Britain and other Western governments.

Because of its unique status as a haven for Hong Kong exiles, Britain faces a particularly daunting security challenge. Since 2021, more than 180,000 Hong Kong nationals have moved to the U.K. under a special visa program that Britain created as an escape hatch for its former subjects.

In 2023 Hong Kong announced that pro-democracy dissidents would be pursued for life. But Hong Kong didn’t have all of the resources of mainland China to pursue its targets, so it started hiring people in the UK to be part of a campaign of harassment. All of this was being run by an office in London supposedly focused on trade.

These hired surrogates were paid by and reported to a seemingly innocuous diplomatic outpost in the U.K.: the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office…

By 2023, individuals associated with the HKETO surveillance team were trailing some of the most prominent Hong Kong dissidents in Britain, including Nathan Law, Finn Lau and Christopher Mung, all prominent participants in the 2019 protests who continued to campaign for civil rights after leaving Hong Kong. Those conducting surveillance for HKETO took videos of dissidents at protests and assembled dossiers with their home addresses and other details, according to interviews, court records and other material reviewed by The Post.

In 2023, the office was spending around $100,000 in six months to hire local security people to carry out its campaign of spying. One of the people it hired was a former Royal Marine named Matthew Trickett who had a side-hustle doing security work for whoever would pay him.

In 2024, Trickett was hired for an operation involving Monica Kwong, a woman who had allegedly stolen money and fled Hong Kong. The owner of the company she allegedly stole money from came to the UK with several former Hong Kong police and with Trickett’s help they staked out her apartment near Manchester.

The group tried a number of efforts to get into the apartment, starting with knocking on the door and later pretending to be part of a maintenance crew. Eventually, they just broke in.

At about 11 p.m., the stakeout team forced its way into the apartment. British authorities have not released details on who breached the door or how. Relatives of Trickett said he later told them that he was not the one to force entry but acknowledged following Wai and others into the unit…

What members of the stakeout team didn’t know was that they been under surveillance since departing Heathrow, that Kwong had been relocated before their arrival, and that MI5 had been there in advance to install recording devices, according to British officials and others familiar with details of the investigation.

Peter Wai who had been the contact that got Trickett the job, was found carrying a fake ID that falsely identified him as police. In all 11 people were arrested. As Trickett realized what a mistake he’d made he became despondent and tried to commit suicide in jail. He was stopped but after being released pending trial he eventually went to a park and killed himself.

His family demanded to know why police failed to inform them that Trickett had attempted to kill himself while in custody. They believed that if they had know they might have been able to intercede. After a year, police concluded an internal investigation by saying they hadn’t done anything wrong.

The Post story says it’s not clear if what Trickett did was illegal at the time, beyond entering the apartment. He might have been convicted of something but it might not have been as life altering as he seemed to think.

In any case, Hong Kong now behaves identically to mainland China, pursuing dissidents for life no matter where they are and using authority they don’t possess on foreign soil to harass and threaten them.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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