On May 7, two British-Chinese dual nationals were convicted at the Old Bailey in London on espionage charges. Peter Wai and Bill Yuen were found guilty of running a “shadow policing” operation against Hong Kong dissidents from within Yuen’s workplace, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO). Using Wai’s contacts and access to sensitive information from his role as an immigration official within the U.K. Home Office, the pair surveilled pro-democracy Hong Konger activists and attempted to launch an operation to illegally seize and return to China a woman suspected of fraud, in the style of China’s Operation Fox Hunt.
For the United Kingdom’s small coterie of exiled pro-democracy Hong Konger activists, the successful prosecution serves as vindication of their concerns about the transnational reach of the Hong Kong government. Since 2022, Hong Kong authorities have sought to pursue exiled activists with the aim of either silencing them or “persuading” them to return to face prosecution in Hong Kong. It has imposed US$130,000 (HK$1 million) bounties on 19 activists living in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia, and US$25,500 (HK$200,000) bounties on 15 more individuals. The youngest of these, Chloe Cheung, was aged 19 at the time the bounty was issued.
Bountied activists have found themselves subject to violence and harassment. In a series of particularly concerning incidents, “wanted” posters and sexualized fake images were distributed around the neighborhoods of bountied pro-democracy activists Carmen Lau and Tony Chung in the U.K., and ex-LegCo politician Ted Hui in Australia.
If the aim of such actions was to silence their critics, the Hong Kong government and its supporters have scored a massive own goal. The issuance of bounties, “wanted” posters and sexualized deepfakes have attracted much attention from journalists and politicians, turning young female activists like Chloe Cheung and Carmen Lau into the media-friendly face of the overseas Hong Kong democracy movement. They have courageously spoken out about their experiences in media interviews and oral evidence sessions of the U.K. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights’ inquiry into transnational repression in the U.K. Hong Kong has gained a reputation as a leading progenitor of transnational repression.
However, the media and political attention on the individual experiences of high-profile activists has perhaps belied the true extent and scale of transnational repression experienced by the U.K.’s Hong Kong diaspora. Since 2021 more than 180,000 Hong Kongers have moved to the United Kingdom via the British National (Overseas) (BNO) humanitarian visa program, launched by the Boris Johnson government. The total BNO diaspora in the U.K. is estimated at over 200,000 people. Survey research has shown that the average BNO visa holder is in early middle age, married with children, and living in some of the leafier suburbs of London, Birmingham, and Manchester. Their lives are quite different to those of younger activists and professional human rights defenders openly targeted by the Hong Kong government. It would be reasonable to assume that transnational repression does not feature highly as a concern for the broader diaspora.
To test this assumption, this March Hong Kong Watch launched a survey of Hong Kongers in the U.K. to assess the level of political engagement and the experience of transnational repression across the diaspora at large. We were interested in finding out if, and how, transnational repression affected ordinary Hong Kongers without a public profile for their activism, and how politically engaged the broader Hong Kong diaspora felt themselves to be.
The findings were highly concerning. Our survey found that two-thirds (66 percent) of Hong Kongers in the United Kingdom feel at risk of transnational repression, with one-sixth (17 percent) feeling “majorly” at risk. Of these, the most common concerns were about the infiltration of diaspora groups by hostile state actors or informants, and about being identified, photographed, or doxxed. These concerns were corroborated by the trial of Wai and Yuen, which provided evidence of these surveillance tactics being used against Hong Kong pro-democracy figures.
These concerns appeared to be linked to the direct experience of transnational repression. One-third, or 32 percent of our total sample, reported experiencing some form of transnational repression personally in the past calendar year. Of these, the most common form involved the infiltration of Hong Kong groups and identification by hostile actors. One-fifth of all survey respondents said that they had experienced infiltration of a group by a hostile state actor in the past year.
This finding was extremely worrying. Even if just the BNO visa holder population is taken into account, that is roughly 40,000 people that have experienced a hostile actor infiltrating a group or civic event in the past year.
Unsurprisingly, this is having a significant impact on Hong Kongers’ civil engagement across the United Kingdom. Hong Kongers reported high levels of civic engagement, but largely through online or written means such as petitions or letters. We found that 42 percent of Hong Kongers avoid participating in public events in the U.K. because of the risk of transnational repression. This risk was not necessarily to themselves; 86 percent of survey participants said that participating in public events in the U.K. puts family members in Hong Kong at risk. For many Hong Kongers, the prosecution and conviction of U.S.-based activist Anna Kwok’s father in Hong Kong has only confirmed the reality of these fears.
Altogether, these findings suggest that transnational repression against the Hong Kong diaspora extends further than commonly understood. While a small number of high-profile activists bear the brunt of transnational repression – and more should be done to protect them – our data suggests that thousands of Hong Kongers across the United Kingdom have experienced transnational repression. This appears to largely take the form of infiltration and surveillance against pro-democracy groups and events, with the implicit threat that being identified may cause problems for family members back in Hong Kong. While other authoritarian states are sometimes willing to commit acts of violence on U.K. soil against dissidents and journalists, the Hong Kong government appears to adopt a subtler approach, which is harder to expose and to prosecute.
It’s hard, but not impossible, as demonstrated by the conviction of Wai and Yuen. The U.K. National Security Law, under which the two men were convicted, gives a sufficient legal framework to prevent hostile state actors from infiltrating pro-democracy groups and harassing activists. The bigger challenge is resources. Our survey suggests that many thousands of Hong Kongers are threatened by transnational repression: their community groups and events infiltrated by hostile actors working on behalf of a foreign state; their families threatened with reprisals for participating in civic events in the U.K. To put it simply, this is a nationwide issue that requires a national response from the U.K. government. Individual activists and NGOs cannot be left to tackle this issue by themselves.
