On Aug 17, Tony Chung Hon-lam, the “Hong Kong independence” activist, announced on his Instagram page that he had been granted asylum in the United Kingdom.
A sad case, Chung was radicalized at an early age, and the school system cannot escape its share of responsibility. After 1997, the schools were riddled with China-hostile elements, bent on indoctrinating ingenuous students, and people like Chung were negatively influenced. In 2013, aged 12, he participated in a protest outside the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison in Central. He subsequently became involved in the political campaigning of Edward Leung Tin-kei, a leader of the separatist Mong Kok riots of 2016 and creator of the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”. In 2017, aged 16, he told the Hong Kong Free Press that the reason he supported “Hong Kong independence” was that “We do not want the place we live in to become the same as China”.
With views like that, anti-China forces sensed Chung’s potential and scooped him up. However, although flattered by their attention, he lacked political guile, and this proved his undoing. On Oct 27, 2020, he was arrested by members of the Hong Kong Police Force’s National Security Department outside the US Consulate General in Central, allegedly attempting to seek asylum. He was subsequently charged with secessionist activity and conspiring to publish seditious materials.
As the convenor of Studentlocalism, Chung planned to create a “Hong Kong republic” with its own “sovereignty”, and his handlers did nothing to discourage him. When he left Hong Kong for the UK in 2023, he was still subject to the postprison supervision order imposed after he was released from the sentences of imprisonment he received for the offenses of secession, contrary to the Hong Kong SAR National Security Law (NSL Art 20), and money laundering. Having pleaded guilty in November 2021, he was sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment for the first charge of secession, and a year and a half for the second charge of money laundering, with three months of the latter sentence to be served consecutively to the former, making a totality of 43 months’ imprisonment.
The prosecution’s case was that Chung, having issued posts promoting his group and its mission, published social media posts urging the public to join protests and to “get rid of Chinese colonial rule”. He was accused of managing Studentlocalism’s Facebook pages, with social media posts and recruitment links still operating after the enactment of the NSL on June 30, 2020. The court was given the names of donors who each gave more than HK$1,000 ($128) to Chung’s PayPal accounts as well as messages accompanying the payments, including “Keep it up” and “Hong Kong independence”.
It was not Chung’s first brush with the law. In 2019, he was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for insulting the national flag (by throwing it to the ground in 2019), contrary to the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance (A401), and staging an unlawful assembly at the Legislative Council (contrary to common law).
Thus it was that, within less than a decade, yesterday’s juvenile delinquent matured into today’s national security threat, and it is not a pretty sight.
After arriving in the UK, Chung was, as he told The Independent (Aug 19), struggling with depression and other mental illnesses, but his handlers were unrelenting. He allegedly abused UK’s hospitality by resuming his attempts to weaken China by challenging its territorial integrity. In 2024, therefore, the Hong Kong authorities issued an arrest warrant, accusing him of inciting secession and foreign collusion while in Britain, and this was accompanied by an award of HK$1 million for information leading to his apprehension. It might have been expected that the British intelligence services, when approving his entry, would have urged him to avoid activities endangering China, but not a bit of it.
Indeed, the UK’s failure to rein in Chung has inevitably given the impression that he was one of its overseas agents, and a party to the Five Eyes’ attempts to destabilize China. That he was allowed to continue operating on British soil also suggested his services were still valued. He certainly appears to have been given carte blanche to do whatever he wants, consequences notwithstanding. Indeed, a clear pattern has now emerged, and other accused subversives, including the convicted felon Nathan Law Kwun-chung, have also been allowed to pursue their plotting against China in the UK without let or hindrance.
The UK, moreover, already has a very serious crime problem of its own and far too many criminals (its prisons are so overcrowded that some offenders are being released prematurely to make room for others). The last thing it needs is to also have foreign criminals on its hands
Although Chung is what the English sometimes call “a thoroughly bad egg”, he has been warmly welcomed by the authorities, for reasons that are less than benign.
Indeed, when asked for his reaction to the asylum decision, Chung was energized, pledging to resume his activities. He said he felt “sheer joy”, adding, “All I can say is that I won’t give up, and I don’t want to.” In other words, it will be business as usual, with British acquiescence, if not connivance.
Having been given the green light, Chung trumpeted the contents of the letter he had received from the Home Office. It said the granting of asylum meant, “We accept you have a well-founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot return to your country.” This was extraordinary, as every country, including the UK, is entitled to prosecute those who endanger its national security. To describe this as “persecution” is to make a mockery not only of the English language, but also of the rule of law and the comity of nations.
On Aug 18, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, unsurprisingly, deplored Chung’s asylum. It expressed its “strong disapproval and opposition against the harboring of criminals in any form by any country”. By any yardstick, Chung’s asylum was not only a deliberate provocation but also a hostile act toward a country with which the UK professes to want improved ties.
The UK, moreover, already has a very serious crime problem of its own and far too many criminals (its prisons are so overcrowded that some offenders are being released prematurely to make room for others). The last thing it needs is to also have foreign criminals on its hands.
As the Five Eyes partners are now allowing Hong Kong’s criminal fugitives to operate with impunity in their countries (under the guise of “freedom of expression”), it was no wonder that the chief secretary, Eric Chan Kwok-ki, summoned the consuls general of both the UK and Australia for a dressing-down. Australia — which also claims to want better relations with Beijing — has recently provided asylum to another convicted felon, the bail jumper and national security suspect Ted Hui Chi-fung, whose activities are notorious.
Having told the consuls general that human rights were “robustly guaranteed constitutionally” by the Basic Law, Chan said, “What Australia and the UK have done in harboring these offenders totally runs contrary to the spirit of the rule of law and is absolutely not conducive to the relationship between Hong Kong and the two governments”. He also reportedly emphasized that Hong Kong would pursue anybody suspected of endangering national security and would adopt all practical measures to bring to justice fugitives who had absconded from Hong Kong. In other words, anybody who has sought to harm Hong Kong will be pursued to the end of their days and will never be truly safe in their foreign hideaways.
Let us hope that the British consul general, Brian Davidson, will faithfully report Chan’s strictures to his foreign secretary, David Lammy. After all, Lammy recently visited China and claims to want a better Anglo-Chinese relationship. If Davidson explains that improved relations will inevitably be jeopardized if the UK continues to harbor Hong Kong fugitives bent on weakening China, it will hopefully give him pause for thought. After all, just as the UK would find it intolerable if China were to allow British exiles based there to conspire to harm it from afar, the reverse is also true, and even Lammy should be able to get his head around that. Although it may be a long shot, Davidson should at least give it a try.
As Chung knows, however, there is a world of difference between a grant of asylum and the grant of a British passport. He has said he will now be seeking permanent residency in the UK, which should be refused. His criminal antecedents show he is the last person the UK needs, and the door should be slammed in his face. If Lammy fails to act decisively to protect the integrity of the UK’s nationality arrangements, he will have only himself to blame if he finds his country’s short and long-term interests have suffered.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
