Everything Was Once Possible

Hong Kong after the protests

This article was published in The Oxford Review of Books, Summer 2025 Edition.

From a distance, Hong Kong remains unchanged. The iconic skyline dazzles against Victoria Harbour, neon signs flicker above crowded night markets, and the finance district’s famed efficiency hums along in its towering skyscrapers. Still the “Pearl of the Orient,” 東方之珠, the perfect embodiment of East meets West. Yet beneath this veneer of continuity, much has shifted.

Where once political banners lined the roads, varyingly defiled, they are now conspicuously absent. Lampposts, previously plastered with stickers and flyers advocating democracy, stand bare. The bustling newsstands that offered all sorts of publications and periodicals, from the irreverent Apple Daily to salacious magazines to the measured Ming Pao, are few and far between. Instead, a different sight greets visitors to Tsim Sha Tsui’s bustling shopping district: hundreds of red flags—both Chinese and Hong Kong SAR—fluttering in the wind.

As of September 2024, more than 180,000 Hong Kong nationals have applied for the British National (Overseas) visa, and thousands more for residency in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Taiwan. Many have become disillusioned with the city’s future under the 2020 National Security Law, fearing the erosion of political freedoms. Those who stay behind respond to democratic backsliding in different ways. On social media, political posts and activist groups have become scarce, while commentators carefully toe the fine line between staying true to their beliefs and avoiding criticism of the government. The growing influence of Beijing looms large, with nearly half of Hong Kong’s adults viewing China’s power as a major threat, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. Beyond politics, Hong Kong recorded the world’s lowest birth rate in 2022, trailing countries like Korea and Singapore—an issue often attributed to the uncertain political climate. 

The past decade of political transformation in Hong Kong has not gone unnoticed, but global attention has been sporadic. The world took note in 2014, when yellow umbrellas became a symbol of defiance during the Umbrella Revolution. Five years later in 2019, the city once again made headlines, as over two million Hongkongers—more than a quarter of the population—dressed in black to protest an extradition bill they feared would erode the city’s legal and political autonomy. But since then, the gradual deterioration of Hong Kong has faded from international consciousness. 

To understand Hong Kong’s present, one must revisit its past. In 1997, the city was handed back to China after more than 150 years as a British colony, under the promise of “One Country, Two Systems”. This framework was meant to ensure that Hong Kong would retain freedoms unavailable in mainland China, including an independent judiciary, the freedom to directly elect its legislators, and a high degree of autonomy. These freedoms were slated to end fifty years after the Handover, in 2047.

Beijing’s first attempt to introduce a national security law in 2003 was met with mass resistance. As half a million Hongkongers took to the streets, two government officials resigned, and the bill was shelved indefinitely. Four years later, Beijing promised universal suffrage for the 2017 Chief Executive election and the 2020 Legislative Council election. By 2014, when it became clear that this definition of one-person-one-vote would only be limited to Beijing-approved candidates deemed to “love the country and love Hong Kong”, seen as a vague euphemism to install a puppet leader, protests erupted. Starting with student demonstrations and a civil disobedience campaign, this culminated in the 79-day occupation known as the Umbrella Movement. The demonstrations ended without meaningful concessions, but they precipitated a fundamental paradigm shift in the identity of Hongkongers—the previously politically apathetic population, who had focused on personal livelihoods and economic stability, were galvanised into political consciousness. This was demonstrated in the 2016 Legislative Council parliamentary elections, where an unprecedentedly high voter turnout allowed anti-establishment candidates to maintain a crucial veto power over the pro-Beijing camp.

In 2019, the high-profile murder of a Hong Kong woman in Taiwan exposed legal loopholes in Hong Kong’s extradition agreements. The government’s proposed fix, however, sparked outrage: a bill that would allow the extradition of suspects to mainland China’s opaque legal system. Fearing this would endanger Hong Kong’s judicial independence, millions took to the streets. Although most protests started as peaceful, illegal occupations, some morphed into violent, bloody clashes with the police. The government eventually withdrew the bill, but the aim of the protests had evolved, with demands including full democracy, an inquiry into police conduct, and amnesty for arrested protesters. The concurrent 2019 District Council elections, widely seen as a de facto referendum on the protests, saw the highest voter turnout in Hong Kong history and a near-clean sweep win for the pro-democracy camp, whose number of seats jumped threefold from 124 to 388. Emboldened by this stunning victory, they quickly devised plans to gain a majority for the 2020 Legislative Council elections. 

Beijing did not retreat nor take this lightly. In 2020, as Covid-19 restrictions on public gatherings brought a conveniently abrupt halt to the protests, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress swiftly passed the National Security Law, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature. The law, vaguely defined and broadly enforced, criminalised acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. This was met with opposition locally and internationally. The Hong Kong Bar Association, which represents the city’s barristers, stated it was “gravely concerned with both the contents of the [national security law] and the manner of its introduction,” while countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong.

The pro-democracy camp was not fazed—they continued to stage their own unofficial primary election to shortlist candidates, maximising the chances of achieving a majority in parliament. However, the Chief Executive unprecedentedly postponed the Legislative Council elections, again allegedly due to Covid-19. Not only did this completely stop the momentum of the pro-democracy camp, but it also allowed Beijing to pass sweeping electoral changes before the elections happened. Sitting legislators were disqualified from running on various grounds, with the rest of the pro-democracy camp resigning in protest. By mid-2021, the proportion of Legislative Council seats to be directly elected shrank from 50 to 22 percent, with a vetting mechanism and “patriot clause” introduced for every candidate. Consequently, the 2021 Legislative Council elections saw the lowest turnout in history. Of the 90 elected members, 89 were pro-Beijing. It was now firmly a rubber-stamp parliament. 

Meanwhile, the media landscape was suffering. Apple Daily, once the loudest pro-democracy voice in the media, was shut down after its assets were frozen, its offices raided, and its founder, Jimmy Lai, arrested. Other prominent publications such as Next Magazine and Stand News were also accused of breaching the National Security Law and forcibly shut down, while multiple other outlets closed over press freedom concerns. The annual vigil to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, with Hong Kong being the only place on Chinese soil to publicly mourn those killed, ceased, never resuming even after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted. The vibrant protests and democratic spirit that had come to define Hong Kong had ground to a violent halt.

Just last year in March 2024, the government peacefully passed a second national security law under Article 23 of the Basic Law, further criminalising dissent under new categories such as treason and foreign interference. In the once-rowdy Legislative Council, 89 out of 89 politicians unanimously voted for the bill. Later in the same year, sentences of up to ten years were handed down for the 47 activists and politicians who had organised unofficial primary elections back in 2021 and coordinated the 2014 and 2019 protests, in national security trials overseen by judges hand-picked by the Chief Executive. This was the final nail in the coffin for any change in Hong Kong’s political fortunes, perfectly timed for the tenth anniversary of the Umbrella Movement. It was as if the past decade had been wholly erased.

Some insist that Hong Kong has not changed much. Others say that Hong Kong has changed for the better, having eradicated the evil local secessionist voices and the malign Western influences which have attempted to sabotage the city. One of the establishment’s favourite refrains is 說好香港故事, which roughly translates to“tell a good story about Hong Kong.” It urges Hongkongers to spread the word about their city’s continued vibrancy and its loving relationship with the motherland. In some ways, this stubbornness is admirable—it illustrates the indomitable “Lion Rock spirit” on which Hong Kong prides itself. But the cognitive dissonance and sheer refusal to accept that there has been irrevocable damage to the freedoms we once enjoyed are shocking. If the changes in the ability to vote, the composition of the parliament, the freedom of the media landscape and the liberty of speaking without fear of political retribution are not enough, then at what point can it be concluded that the Hong Kong as we know it is well and truly dead? 

Now, citizens keep their heads down and continue with life as usual. But the Lion Rock Mountain still stands tall, unyielding, and if you close your eyes you just might be transported back to ten years ago, when Hong Kong was still free and everything was possible.

Art Credits: Poppy Williams