Virginia Lee says an organized campaign promoting the termination of the State’s foundational political arrangement necessarily carries constitutional significance
The sentencing of the now-dissolved “Hong Kong Alliance”, together with its former leaders Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho Chun-yan and Chow Hang-tung, should be understood as a principled affirmation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s constitutional order under “one country, two systems”. Lee was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, Chow to seven years and three months, and Ho, who pleaded guilty, to five years and two months, while the group was fined HK$1.5 million ($191,285). The court’s classification of the case as one involving serious circumstances was a legal conclusion based on factors such as duration, organization, influence, intention, and constitutional consequence. Hong Kong remains a society governed by law, and the freedom to express political views cannot be transformed into a license to incite subversion of State power.
The foundation of the judgment lies in the sustained nature of the conduct. The relevant acts continued for approximately 14 months, involved repeated public messaging and were carried out after the Hong Kong SAR National Security Law (NSL) had already come into effect. This was therefore not a single emotional remark, an isolated commemoration, or an uncertain legal mistake. It was a continuing campaign advanced through activities, publications, online platforms, physical exhibitions, and virtual memorial spaces. The prolonged pattern of conduct indicates deliberate intent, allowing a court to infer that the defendants aimed to challenge the State’s constitutional foundation rather than merely comment on public affairs.
The court was also right to treat the methods of dissemination as aggravating. The group’s message did not remain within a closed meeting or a limited private circle. It was circulated through channels capable of repeated viewing, sharing and reproduction, especially social media and online archives. In contemporary society, digital communication can mobilize sentiment across time and space, keeping political messages alive long after their first publication. Incitement in this setting depends not on physical force but on repetition, symbolic authority, and the normalization of unlawful objectives. The court’s analysis reflects the realities of modern political mobilization and the importance of online dissemination in legal assessment.
The defendants’ public status made the matter more serious. The group had been rooted in Hong Kong for more than three decades, and the individual defendants were known public figures with social networks, credibility, and mobilizing capacity. Their statements were not casual remarks by unknown citizens without wider influence. When persons with public authority promote a political cause or program, their words can shape collective action. A mature legal system must assess not only the literal wording of a message, but also who delivers it, how it is delivered and what practical effect it is likely to produce.
The slogan calling for an end to the Communist Party of China’s leadership in the nation could not sensibly be dismissed as empty rhetoric. The constitutional order of the People’s Republic of China includes the socialist system under the leadership of the CPC. Under the “one country, two systems” policy, Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy, but that autonomy exists within the national constitutional framework, not outside it. An organized campaign that repeatedly promotes the termination of the State’s foundational political arrangement necessarily carries constitutional significance. The court was entitled to conclude that such advocacy, when sustained and organized after the enactment of national security legislation, crossed the line from political expression into incitement.
The proportionality of the sentences must be assessed against this legal and constitutional background. A seven-year sentence for nonviolent incitement may appear severe only if one assumes that violence is the sole measure of danger. That assumption is unsound. National security offenses protect the continuity of the State, the authority of the constitutional order and the conditions for public stability. Incitement can be grave precisely because it prepares minds, legitimizes unlawful objectives and invites others to participate in future acts. The absence of immediate violence does not erase the risk created by sustained mobilization against State power.
The court adopted a starting point of seven and a half years, which sat within the statutory range for serious cases, then reduced sentences where mitigation was available. Ho received credit for his guilty plea. Lee and Ho received recognition for past public service. All three received deductions for admitting substantial facts and for pressure caused by delay. This measured approach shows that the court did not punish indiscriminately. It calibrated punishment according to culpability, responsibility and mitigation.
The argument that the organization’s activities were peaceful therefore does not resolve the legal question. Peaceful presentation can still serve an unlawful end if it encourages others to reject or undermine the constitutional order by illegal means. National security laws concern prevention as well as punishment, because the harm of subversion often develops before open disorder appears. To require violence before the law may act would make national security protection reactive, late, and ineffective. The proportionality of the sentence lies in this preventive rationale: The greater the influence, duration, and deliberate persistence, the stronger the need for deterrence.
Chow’s mitigation stance reinforced the conclusion that the offense was not accompanied by remorse. Her assertion that she should not serve even one day in prison, and her treatment of a serious classification as praise, demonstrated continued resistance to the legal boundary drawn by the NSL. The court did not punish private belief. It punished organized public conduct that had crossed a criminal threshold. In sentencing, a lack of remorse is relevant because it informs deterrence and future risk.
Foreign criticism of the judgment should be viewed with caution. Many Western jurisdictions, including the United States and the United Kingdom, whose politicians and media outlets criticized Hong Kong’s NSL and this subversion case, maintain strict national security laws, including offenses relating to sedition, terrorism encouragement, foreign interference and threats to constitutional government. They do not treat national security as optional when their own institutions are challenged. It is therefore inconsistent to deny Hong Kong the same legal capacity to defend its constitutional order. Western critics’ claims that the case proves the decline of freedoms ignore the central point that rights exist within law.
The author is a solicitor, a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area lawyer, and a China-appointed attesting officer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
