Frances Hui left Hong Kong for the last time in July 2020, seeking asylum in the United States, with the crushing awareness that she would never again set foot in the city where she was born and raised. When she recently learned of her grandmother’s death, she felt a profound sense of sorrow and longing for her hometown.
On Dec. 14, the Hong Kong authorities placed bounties on five prominent pro-democracy activists living overseas for breaking the national security law imposed by Beijing. Ms. Hui was among them.
“Yesterday, I woke to the news that I was being placed with a bounty—a million Hong Kong dollars bounty—on my head,” Ms. Hui said.
She shared her experience as a recent victim of repression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Hong Kong government during a panel discussion hosted by the Hudson Institute on Dec. 15.
“Today I was supposed to use the day to grieve and mourn the passing of my grandmother. And this is one of the things that many of us in exile have to accept and cope with, which is the chances of not being able to spend time and be there for people who hold weight in our lives,” Ms. Hui said.
“Hong Kong is no longer [the] Hong Kong we know of. It’s becoming China’s Hong Kong.”
She works as a policy and advocacy coordinator at the Committee for Freedom in the Hong Kong Foundation. She believes that the recent arrest warrant is linked to her advocacy for sanctions on Hong Kong officials. She has played a key role in the recently introduced Hong Kong Sanctions Act, which identifies 49 officials, judges, and prosecutors responsible for suppressing civil liberties in Hong Kong and subjects them to U.S. sanctions.
“The Hong Kong government deliberately took a high-profile way to issue bounties for the arrest of overseas activists,“ Ms. Hui said. ”They wanted to create a chilling effect on the community at large and to isolate us.”
The Hong Kong government is increasingly using Beijing-style tactics to control human rights and freedom, she noted, as shown by the issuance of bounties on overseas Hong Kongers, the recent arrests of supporters, and the practice of forcing prisoners to confess on citywide TV channels.
“A lot of the things that we are going through are nothing compared to people who are now in jail. And we never know what they’re going through,” Ms. Hui said.
After the controversial national security law in 2020, Hong Kong authorities detained, silenced, or forced into exile thousands of pro-democracy activists. This has resulted in a notable decline in the freedoms that were promised to the former British colony upon its transfer to China in 1997.
Ms. Hui is the first Hong Kong activist to secure political asylum in the United States.
She has been an activist since age 14. She continued to support the pro-democracy movement even after leaving her home to study journalism in the United States at Boston’s Emerson College in 2016.
She was involved in organizing global rallies and protests to show support for the Hong Kong democracy movement. She arranged a rally in Boston as well.
“Throughout the time, when I was organizing these rallies, I was being tailed. One time I was tailed to my dorm. And I got death threats from my schoolmates in the same college,” Ms. Hui said.
She said none of these students faced any consequences. The school administration didn’t take any action against the students responsible. The school issued a statement expressing its commitment to respecting everyone’s freedom of speech and refrained from making any condemnation regarding the incident.
Piero Tozzi, a staff director at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, asserted that universities are, for the sake of financial gain, complicit in overlooking these instances.
Chinese students and scholars in U.S. colleges maintain close ties with the Chinese Embassy, Mr. Tozzi argued during the panel discussion at the Hudson Institute.
They actively monitor fellow Chinese students, he said, ensuring that if anyone expresses opinions contrary to the party’s dogma or doctrine, those individuals are promptly reported.
Mr. Tozzi also emphasized the extended influence of the CCP, which engages in transnational repression targeting Chinese citizens, including ethnic minority groups such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, as well as Falun Gong practitioners living abroad. This repression is facilitated through various means, including the coordination efforts of Chinese consulates, which require investigation by the U.S. government, he said.
He also noted that there are Hong Kong economic and trade offices abroad that were initially believed to be independent but are increasingly acting as extensions of the CCP, involved in monitoring and suppressing dissidents such as Ms. Hui.
She agreed and urged that the U.S. government investigate and close each of these Chinese outposts.
“I’m not really shaken up by the bounty. The Hong Kong government doesn’t have extraterritorial power to arrest us,” Ms. Hui said.
However, she noted that the CCP and Hong Kong authorities are intimidating dissidents like her using the outposts spread across the country.
“When we are walking on the street, we have to look around. When we are closing our door, we have to make sure it’s locked. We need to make sure the camera is on so that you know nothing is happening in our house. That kind of thing happens every day in our lives. I think that’s most worrying,” she said.
