How UK-based activist went from high school pupil to one of Hong Kong’s most wanted in a year


Teenage activist Chloe Cheung says she will not be silenced by Chinese fear and supression

Tom Watling
Wednesday 25 December 2024 
Independent 


A 19-year-old pro-democracy activist who went from finishing secondary school in the UK to becoming one of Hong Kong’s most wanted critics has vowed that she will not be silenced by Chinese fear and suppression.

Hong Kong authorities have accused Chloe Cheung, 19, alongside five other activists, three of whom are UK-based, of violating national security laws introduced in 2020 following protests the year before, which opposed China’s swelling anti-democratic influence on the city.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the six activists, while a HK$1m (£103,000) bounty has been put out for their capture. It is the second year in a row that Hong Kong authorities have issued such warrants and bounties on Christmas Eve.

“Today, in my adopted UK home, I’ve endured constant threats, both online and physical. But this didn’t stop me from speaking out and now I have a bounty on my head,” Ms Cheung said.

“Fear cannot restrain me. Suppression cannot silence me. I will wear this burden with pride and without fear.”

Official documents accuse her of publishing articles as a “core member” of the US-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (CFHKF), giving speeches and posting on social media “advocating separating Hong Kong from China and requested foreign countries to impose sanctions or blockade, engage in other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong”.

Just a year ago, however, Ms Cheung was finishing her final year of secondary school, living in a country into which she had been forced to flee at the age of just 15 and attending local, pro-Hong Kong democracy marches.

The teenage activist, who attended some of the protests back in Hong Kong in her school uniform, having gone straight from class to the marches when she was as young as 13, has been described as a “brave” and “fiercely pro-democracy” figure by those that know her.

During those protests, she says she “faced tear gas and batons and bullets from the Hong Kong police” before being forced to give her name to the authorities, prompting her departure from the city.

After navigating her way through secondary school here in the UK, she quickly applied to join CFHKF.

Mark Sabah, the head of UK operations at CFHKF, said: “In the space of a year, she’s gone from being a teenager that participated in local Hong Kong parades and marches to a bountied individual.”

“She works hard. She is dedicated. She is very clever and fiercely pro-Hong Kong democracy. She’s just brilliant to have on our team.

“She keeps going and going. She’s an absolutely outstanding colleague and we are completely in support of her.”

Mr Sabah described the latest warrants and bounties as “shocking yet not surprising” as he urged the British government to do more to fight Chinese and Hong Kong efforts to suppress free speech abroad.


open image in galleryKeir Starmer and Xi Jinping hold talks in Brazil last month (PA)

Criticising the new Labour government’s approach to China – in November, Sir Keir Starmer became the first prime minister in six years to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping, where the pair reportedly spoke about future trade – Mr Sabah urged Downing Street to stop “pandering” to Beijing.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to visit China in the spring of next year for talks with vice premier He Lifeng.

“On the one hand, we have the Chinese authorities, or the Hong Kong authorities, actively pursuing people who are safely living in the UK,” says Mr Sabah.

“Yet in the same breath as expressing concern and saying they stand with Hong Kong, the British government are pursuing business and trade deals, as well as economic relations, with Beijing.

“What needs to happen before they make the correlation that this constant appeasement and pandering is what gives the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese Communist Party such brazen impunity to keep on doing this to people living in the UK?”

Ms Cheung echoed that sentiment, calling on the government to “finally stand with the people of Hong Kong” to take “real action to protect us from transnational repression on British soil”.

The other three activists now residing in the UK who were included on the latest arrest warrant list include Chung Kim-wah, 64, a commentator and former pollster, Tony Chung, 23, former head of a pro-independence group who fled to the UK last year after serving four years in prison for a national security offence, and Carmen Lau, 29, a member of the Hong Kong Democracy Council and former district councillor.

These four, alongside Canada-based former actor Joseph Tay, 62, and YouTuber Victor Ho, 69, have all had bounties put out for their arrest, while an additional seven others had their Hong Kong passports revoked.

The total number of exiled Hong Kongers with arrest warrants and bounties worldwide is now 19. The government had previously issued two rounds of arrest warrants and bounties for more prominent activists, including ex-lawmakers Ted Hui and Nathan Law.

Former district councillor Ms Lau wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that she would not “back down” from her fight to ensure a free and democratic Hong Kong.

“[I] will not back down only because of an arrest warrant and a bounty,” she wrote. “And I hope to have every one of you standing with me in this fight for Hong Kong.”

Megan Khoo, policy director of UK-based Hong Kong Watch, described the warrants as “clear attempts of transnational repression, designed to silence dissent and extend the reach of authoritarian control beyond Hong Kong’s borders”.

She called on the UK, US, Canadian and Australian governments to “urgently respond” by imposing sanctions on the Hong Kong officials responsible and strengthening measures to counter “extraterritorial intimidation”.