Simon Cheng is still visibly tense when describing his detention in China. In 2019, Mr. Cheng, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former employee of the British consulate there, was arrested after business trip to mainland China.
For 15 days, he was interrogated and tortured, according to his account. Beijing confirmed his detention but denied he was mistreated. When he was finally released, he no longer felt safe in Hong Kong, and in early 2020 he fled to Britain. and requested asylum.
“In some ways, it is not difficult to adapt to a new life in the UK,” said Mr Cheng, 33. “But also, I can’t get away from the fate of my hometown.
His activism – and China’s pursuit of him – did not end once he moved to London. Last year, Hong Kong authorities put a bounty on Mr. Cheng and other activists, offering $128,000 for information leading to their arrest. Yet like many Hong Kong activists living in self-imposed exile in Britain, he hoped that his new distance from Chinese authorities would put him far from their reach.
This month, three men have been charged in London for collecting intelligence for Hong Kong and forcing entry into a British residence. Although the men have not yet been found innocent or guilty (the trial does not begin until February), news of the arrests has highlighted many activists’ concerns about China’s ability to monitor and harass its citizens abroad, especially those who have been arrested. criticism of the government.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Friday denounced what he called “false accusations” and “despicable actions” by British authorities in handling the case. Last week, one of the defendants, a former British marine named Matthew Trickett, was found dead in a park while he was out on bail. The death was described as “unexplained” by police, which in Britain refers to unexpected deaths where the cause is not immediately clear, including suicide. During Mr. Trickett’s initial appearance, the prosecutor said that Mr. Trickett attempted suicide after being charged.
Concern over the arrests has reverberated throughout the Hong Kong diaspora in Britain, even among those who are not politically active.
“You would expect something like this to happen, but it’s still so surreal,” Mr Cheng said, speaking from the London office of Hong Kongers in Britain, an organization he founded to help newcomers. Pinned to his sweater was a bright yellow umbrella, a symbol of pro-democracy protests that filled the streets of Hong Kong in 2014 And again in 2019.
China has imposed draconian national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, granting authorities in the former British colony sweeping powers to suppress dissent. In response to the law, Britain has introduced a new visa for Hong Kong citizens. Since then, at least 180,000 Hong Kongers have moved under the visa program. Many have rebuild their lives in Britain and continue to participate from afar in the pro-democracy movement.
Britain’s Foreign Office said this month that recent accusations of intelligence gathering appeared to be part of a “pattern of China-led behavior against the UK”, which includes bounties awarded for information on dissidents.
Thomas Fung, 32, hopes the arrests will mark the start of a concerted effort by the British government to combat Chinese repression. “We always knew there was some sort of intelligence, or spying on people, or just monitoring what we do here,” he said.
Mr Fung arrived in England in 2012 to study accounting. He found a job at Oxford after graduating and decided to stay. As pro-democracy protests grew in Hong Kong, he felt compelled to show his support.
He participated in solidarity protests in London and later volunteered to help newly arrived Hong Kongers resettle. Finally, he founded Bonham Tree Help, a charity that supports political prisoners in Hong Kong. The first time his organization’s name was mentioned in a pro-Beijing newspaper in mainland China, he said: “I knew there was no going back. »
Politically active Hong Kongers like Mr. Fung and Mr. Cheng are not the only ones who fear being targeted by Beijing. Families seeking better education and young professionals looking for job opportunities also feel threatened, said Richard Choi, a community organizer in the south London neighborhood of Sutton.
Sutton is sometimes called “Little Hong Kong» because nearly 4,000 former Hong Kong residents have resettled there since 2021.
Mr Choi, 42, arrived in London in 2008 for work and now runs a Facebook group for newcomers to Sutton. He carefully hides the community’s faces in the photographs he shares because many fear being monitored.
“I feel like they are very nervous or have lost confidence,” he said of the new arrivals. The community became even more nervous, he said, after Hong Kong passed a law law known as article 23 in March, this measure provides for sanctions, including life imprisonment for political crimes, and extends to Hong Kongers abroad.
“There may have been a period where people relaxed a little,” Mr. Choi said, but those with family in Hong Kong fear being imprisoned if they return. “They feel like they have to behave and not say anything.”
Some members of the diaspora remain fervent pro-democracy activists despite the risks. “I am very proud of my identity as a Hong Konger,” said Vivian Wong, who moved to London in 2015 and opened a restaurant, Aquila Caféin east London in 2021.
The restaurant serves popular Hong Kong dishes and has become a place where members of the diaspora can gather for events and support each other. Inside, a noisy kitchen is run by Hong Kong chefs preparing steaming bowls of shrimp wonton soup and plates of crispy Hong Kong French toast stuffed with salted egg yolk.
Photographs of demonstrations line the walls and the blue flag of British Hong Kong hovers over the cash register. Ms. Wong knows that these symbols are seen by China as provocative, but she remains firmly opposed to the communist regime.
“They are trying to threaten us,” she said, “but I am not afraid. »
Catherine Li, 28, moved to London in 2018 to study acting. She began organizing solidarity protests in London in 2019. For a time, she used an online pseudonym to hide her identity. But when some of her political art went viral, she felt she could no longer hide and started using her real name.
Her political views put her at odds with her family in Hong Kong, and she knows she risks arrest if she returns. “It took me a long time to come to terms with that,” she said, a tension she explores in her one-woman show, “In an alternate universe, I don’t want to live in the UK”
Despite these difficulties, Ms Li said she had found a sense of belonging in London.
It was there that she met her partner, Finn Lau, 30, after relocating to the city in 2020. Their lives now consist of a busy balance between their day jobs – Ms Li as video game tester and actress, Mr Lau as a building surveyor – and activism.
Mr. Lau was one of the eight dissidents for whom Hong Kong authorities offered a bounty last July. He and others on the list were warned that they would be “pursued for life”.
And he didn’t always find London a refuge. He was brutally attacked in suspicious circumstances by masked men in London in 2020. His face still bears scars.
Mr Lau believes the attack was linked to his activism, but police told him it was likely a hate crime. The investigation was closed after a few weeks. He also has been approached by fake journalists he suspects they were working on behalf of the Chinese government.
The arrests in London this month gave him hope after becoming frustrated by what he saw as British inaction in the face of a growing Chinese threat.
“This is the first genuine and critical action by the British authorities to take the threats against the people of Hong Kong seriously,” Mr Lau said.
