Crackdown on Hong Kong Exiles Escalates, and the Ideology of “Strain” is Frightening

Recently, a piece of news in Hong Kong once again triggered a media debate: Anna Kwok Fung-yee, the executive director of the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation, who is wanted by the Hong Kong National Security Bureau for a reward of HK$1 million, has her father and her second elder brother arrested on charges of assisting in the handling of Anna;s funds. While her elder brother has been released on bail pending investigation, and the case is now adjourned until June 13 for further proceedings. This is the first time that the Hong Kong Police Force has invoked the offence of “handling funds belonging to an absconder” under the measures against absconders in the Maintenance of National Security Ordinance to arrest suspects for assisting in the handling of property in Hong Kong belonging to “specified absconders”. One cannot help but wonder, in the 21st century, whether the uncivilized way of governance of “connecting nine clans of the family” has resurfaced again.

The “guilt by association with nine clans” system is a representative system of guilt by association in Chinese history, which originated in the Qin Dynasty and reached its peak in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The core idea is that if a person commits a crime, all his relatives and associates will be punished. During the Second Qin Dynasty, the prime minister Li Si was framed by Zhao Gao, and not only was he himself chopped into pieces, but his three clans were also executed. After the usurpation of Emperor Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty, he ordered Fang Xiaoru to draft a document on his accession to the throne, but Fang refused, and as a result, he was punished with the execution of ten of his clans, including students and servants. During the Qing Dynasty, there were a number of cases in which relatives were implicated in the “delusion of the government”, such as the case of Cao Xueqin’s family, the author of The Dream of the Red Mansion, who were executed because of the “Case of Kangxi’s Guiqi”.

The detention of Ms. Kwok’s father pending trial reminds us of the modernization of Hong Kong today, which has not yet left the era of undeveloped people’s wisdom.

Who is Anna Kwok Fung-yee?

Kwok, 28, is an exiled lobbyist in Hong Kong and currently serves as the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Hong Kong Democratic Committee: in 2023, she called on the U.S. government to ban Hong Kong Chief Executive Eric Li Ka-chiu from traveling to the United States to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and in July 2023 she was put on the Hong Kong National Security Agency’s Most Wanted List, which is a list of 19 overseas activists who are wanted by the police in Hong Kong. In December 2024, Kwok’s Hong Kong status was revoked and she became stateless after she requested the U.S. government to grant her asylum as soon as possible after the warrant was made public. Kwok was accused of violating Hong Kong’s national security law by colluding with foreign or overseas forces to jeopardize national security, and the police offered a HK$1 million reward for her arrest.

According to the information, the National Security Bureau took away Kwok’s parents and two elder brothers on August 8 and 22 of the previous year, respectively, to investigate whether they had any form of contact or financial dealings with Kwok. At the time, Kwok responded on Facebook that her family “has never helped, is not aware of, and does not even know what I do”. She also said that the Hong Kong government was trying to harass her family to silence her in the U.S., but that she would not give up her work to pave the way for Hong Kong’s freedom and self-determination. In recent years, the national security police have repeatedly taken away the family members of wanted Hong Kong residents to assist in investigations, and in the first four months of this year, a total of 14 people have been taken away on nine occasions to assist in investigations. This is the first time a family member has been charged.

The cause of this incident stems from a police investigation, which revealed that Kwok’s father and others had traveled overseas to meet with Anna Kwok , and were suspected of illegally assisting in the handling of Anna’s insurance policies in Hong Kong after returning to Hong Kong. There is also evidence that Kwok’s father attempted to help Kwok to withdraw nearly HK$100,000 in cash balance from the insurance policy, and submitted a number of documents purporting to contain the signatures of both parties to the insurance company early this year. It is worth noting that Kwok’s second brother works for the insurance company, and the police suspect that he used his position and knowledge of the industry to assist in the transfer of the property.

Whose property?

Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin Sang, is reportedly a businessman with three children. One of his children, Ms. Kwok, went to the International School and studied in Norway, and later studied journalism and philosophy at New York University. For someone who can provide such an expensive education for his children, Kwok is believed to be a successful businessman and is presumably well off. On the other hand, how did Anna Kwok have the financial means to support herself, accumulate assets and take out insurance when she never had a high-paying job after graduation? If the insurance policy purchased in her name is regarded as her property and the father is sued under the National Security Law for handling his daughter’s property, is it in line with the spirit of the law, which has raised a lot of questions?

In traditional Chinese society, property is owned and developed by the family. After the death of the head of the family, the next generation will distribute the property among different members of the family according to the principles set by the family leader. In Western societies, individualism is emphasized, so property is distributed in the name of the individual, and Western law is based on this system of private ownership of property. Obviously, it is unlikely that Kwok Fung Yee’s property was accumulated from her income. Therefore, the government’s investigation into the handling of Kwok Fung Yee’s insurance policy, which involved only HK$100,000, is intended to send an important message that family members of fugitives will be prosecuted for any contact with the fugitives.

The Hong Kong Police Force’s action sends a clear message to the community that any attempt to challenge national security will be prosecuted, and those who assist the “specified absconders” will also be subject to legal sanctions, advising family members, friends or associates of absconders not to break the law, and that all absconders should turn back to Hong Kong as soon as possible and give themselves up. According to the existing laws of Hong Kong, handling of funds belonging to the absconders concerned is a serious crime, which is liable to a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment upon conviction.

Crackdown continues to escalate

Since mid-2023, the National Security Bureau of the Hong Kong Police Force has placed 19 Hong Kong residents in exile overseas, including Kwok Fung-yee, on the wanted list. It is alleged that after she left Hong Kong, she attended overseas meetings and activities in her capacity as a key member of the Hong Kong Democratic Committee, and lobbied foreign countries to sanction, blockade and carry out other hostile actions against the governments of China and Hong Kong, suspected to have violated the “collusion with a foreign country or foreign forces to endanger national security” in the Hong Kong National Security Law, and last year, on Christmas Eve, she was even arrested under the commonly known as the “National Security Law” for “colluding with foreign or overseas forces to jeopardize national security”. On Christmas Eve last year, six measures were imposed on Kwok and seven others, including revocation of their HKSAR passports and prohibition of providing them with funds, under the “Article 23” of the “Maintenance of National Security Ordinance”, which is commonly known as “Article 23”.

Kwok’s father, 68-year-old Kwok Yin-sang, is currently being returned to prison so that the prosecution can seize his cell phone and computer. Defense counsel pointed out that the defense needs to confirm whether the assets of the policy belong to Kwok Fung Yee or Kwok’s father, but the prosecution has not been able to do so, so bail has not been granted for the time being. The National Security Law Judge, Chief Magistrate So Wai Tak, subsequently decided to adjourn the case until the middle of next month, during which time the defendant could write to the court if he wished to apply for bail. The Hong Kong Democratic Committee, to which Ms. Kwok belongs, describes this unprecedented action by the Hong Kong government as an escalation of attacks on human rights defenders in the U.S., and urges the U.K. and the U.S. to take appropriate countermeasures.

Undoubtedly, this action highlights the dangerous expansion of Beijing’s complicity, which has been extended to Hong Kong. Blatantly implicating relatives in Hong Kong as a means of suppressing the voices of Hong Kong’s overseas pro-democracy dissidents is in complete defiance of basic human rights and the rule of law. What is even more disturbing is that this case is likely to develop into an ongoing retaliatory campaign against the families of Hong Kong’s exiled pro-democracy activists, a new pattern of intimidation and persecution aimed at spreading fear and suppressing pro-democracy and pro-human rights activities both within Hong Kong and internationally.

At this point, the response and support of the international community is all the more important. If Western countries insist on universal values, they must put pressure on Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities to immediately stop all acts of harassment and intimidation against the families of overseas Hong Kong democrats in Hong Kong. The international community can protect exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and other critics of the Beijing authorities from intimidation and persecution similar to that of the Long Arm if it is determined to take concrete action to hold accountable the officials responsible for the human rights abuses in question, and to put in place a strong legal framework. Otherwise, the escalation of such persecution will only get worse.

The Powerful Influence of Culture

Anyone who knows a little bit about China’s 5,000 years of history will know that while one man’s success is rewarded by the rise of all family members, similarly, one man’s offense will implicate all men. Even in modern times, similar cases of vendetta killings often occur, such as a village headman bullying villagers and the angry headman killing his entire family and even babies in their infancy. This kind of time is rare in Western societies because when modern civilization began, Chinese civilization took a very different path from that of the rest of the world: China continued the tradition of the clan bloodline, which formed the current Chinese civilization, and which is still the nucleus of its civilization even today. Ancient Greece, on the other hand, blew up the clan-blood relationship and established a contractual form of social organization, which is also the originator of modern Western civilization.

There is also the influence of Christian thought on society. The New Testament emphasizes that the sins committed by the father cannot be borne by the children, and that God will not punish the offender’s next generation for these sins. The Bible also emphasizes that each person should be judged by God for his own sins, which laid the foundation for the principle of “guilt by association” in Western law. Especially after the Magna Carta in England, the royal power and the nobility reached a contractual relationship, in which both parties were close to equality, and this relationship was extended to the relationship between the government and the citizens in recent times. This is incomprehensible to the Chinese people who have long been obsessed with imperial power. It is only that today, the Hong Kong government has ignored the application of British law in Hong Kong for over a hundred years, and is now applying in Hong Kong the same uncivilized practices that have existed in China for thousands of years.

In this case, the ownership of the assets handled by Kwok’s father is one of the main points of contention between the prosecution and the defense. The defense pointed out that there is no bail application at this stage, saying that the crux of the case is the father of Kwok allegedly handled the policy, in the end is Kwok Fung Yee or his own assets, it takes time to review the policy, but the prosecution has not been provided, hope that the case is adjourned for a week, and then decide to reply to the direction of the direction and whether or not to apply for bail. Even if the defense can produce relevant evidence, it is not difficult for those who are familiar with the process of interpretation of the law “with Chinese characteristics” to imagine that the prosecution will find a way to make the evidence satisfy the conditions for the establishment of the charges.

However, in contemporary China, the idea of “linking nine clans to one’s family” has long permeated many corners of the country, such as the “political examination” that must be passed in order to get into the civil service, and the idea that “one person committing a crime affects three generations”, although it has no legal basis, has a real impact on real-life considerations. It’s just that birth is not a choice, and the behavior of parents will have an impact on their children, but that’s fate and has nothing to do with the law. The law cannot reinforce parental benevolence, nor can it make children worse off as a result of their parents’ bad luck. However, it will take time for this modern idea of democracy and the rule of law to take root in Chinese society, which has long been steeped in feudalism.

A year ago, the bloodshed in a large shopping center in Bondi Beach, Sydney, shocked the whole of Australia. After the incident, the murderer’s parents spoke out, grieving for the lives lost and pointing out that having a mentally ill child was a nightmare for the parents; they also claimed that they did not resent the policewoman for killing their son, as she was just doing her job. If we think like Chinese people, these parents would not be able to hold their heads up for the rest of their lives, let alone speak out to the media. As a society progresses towards civilization and the rule of law, it is essential to respect the rights of the individual, and the idea of “lumping” a family together should have been swept into the dustbin of history long ago.

Article/Editorial Department, Sameway Magazine

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