Spy arrests send shivers through Britain’s thriving Hong Kong community

Simon Cheng is still visibly tense when he talks about his detention in China. In 2019, Cheng, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong and former employee of the British consulate there, was arrested after a business trip to mainland China.

He said he was interrogated and tortured for 15 days. Beijing confirmed his detention but denied that he had been mistreated. When he was finally released, he no longer felt safe in Hong Kong and fled to the UK in early 2020 and applied for asylum.

“In some ways, it’s not difficult to adapt to a new life in Britain,” said Cheng, 33. “But I can’t leave the fate of my hometown behind me either.”

His activism – and persecution by China – did not end when he moved to London. Last year, Hong Kong authorities put a $128,000 bounty on Cheng and other activists for information leading to their arrest. Still, like many Hong Kong activists living in self-imposed exile in Britain, he hoped his newfound distance from Chinese authorities would keep him at arm’s length from them.

Last week, three men were charged in London with gathering intelligence for Hong Kong and forcibly entering a British apartment. While the men have not yet been found innocent or guilty – their trial does not begin until February – news of the arrests has brought into focus existing concerns among many activists about China’s ability to monitor and harass its citizens abroad, particularly those critical of the government.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry on Friday condemned the “false accusations” and “despicable actions” of British authorities in taking over the case. Last week, one of the defendants, a British ex-marine named Matthew Trickett, was found dead in a park while out on bail. The death was classified by police as “unexplained,” which in Britain refers to unexpected deaths where the cause is not immediately clear, including suicide. During Mr. Trickett’s first court appearance, the prosecutor said Mr. Trickett had tried to take his own life after being charged.

Concern over the arrests has spread throughout the Hong Kong diaspora in Britain, even among those who are not politically active.

“You kind of expect something like this to happen, but it’s still so surreal,” said Cheng from the London office of Hongkongers in Britain, an organization he founded to support newcomers. Attached to his sweater was a bright yellow umbrella, a symbol of the pro-democracy demonstrations that filled Hong Kong’s streets in 2014 and 2019.

China imposed a draconian national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, giving the former British colony’s authorities sweeping powers to crack down on dissidents. In response to the law, Britain introduced a new visa for Hong Kong citizens. Since then, at least 180,000 Hong Kongers have resettled through the visa program. Many have built new lives in Britain and continue to participate in the democracy movement from afar.

The British Foreign Office said last week that the latest allegations of intelligence gathering were part of a “pattern of behaviour directed by China against Britain”, which includes offering bounties for information on dissidents.

Thomas Fung, 32, hopes the arrests mark the beginning of a concerted effort by the British government to combat Chinese oppression. “We always knew there was some kind of intelligence service, that people were being spied on or just monitored, what we were doing here,” he said.

Mr Fung came to England in 2012 to study accounting. After graduating, he got a job at Oxford and decided to stay. As pro-democracy demonstrations swelled in Hong Kong, he felt compelled to show his support.

He took part in solidarity protests in London and later volunteered to help newly arrived Hong Kongers resettle. He eventually founded Bonham Tree Aid, a charity that supports political prisoners in Hong Kong. When his organization’s name was first mentioned in a pro-Beijing newspaper in mainland China, he said, “I knew there was no turning back.”

Politically active Hong Kongers like Fung and 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 borough of Sutton.

Sutton is sometimes called “Little Hong Kong” because nearly 4,000 former Hong Kong residents have settled there since 2021.

Choi, 42, came to London for work in 2008 and now runs a Facebook group for new arrivals in Sutton. In the photos he shares, he carefully conceals the faces of community members, as many fear they are under surveillance.

“I feel like they are so nervous or have lost confidence,” he said of the new arrivals. The population has become even more nervous, he said, after Hong Kong passed a law called Article 23 in March, which provides for life imprisonment for political crimes, among other things, and also applies to Hong Kongers abroad.

“Maybe there was a time when people relaxed a little,” Choi said, but those who have family in Hong Kong fear they could be sent to prison if they return. “They feel they have to behave and not say anything.”

Some in the diaspora remain vocal 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 Cafe, in east London in 2021.

The restaurant serves popular Hong Kong dishes and has become a place where members of the diaspora can meet for events and support one another. Inside, there is a noisy kitchen atmosphere run by Hong Kong chefs who bring steaming bowls of shrimp wonton soup and plates of crispy Hong Kong French toast stuffed with salted egg yolk to the table.

Photos of protests line the walls, and the blue flag of British Hong Kong flies above the cash register. Ms. Wong knows that these symbols are seen as provocation in China, but she remains steadfast in her opposition to communist rule.

“They are trying to threaten us,” she said, “but I am not afraid.”

Catherine Li, 28, moved to London in 2018 to study theatre. In 2019, she began organising solidarity protests in London. For a while, she used a pseudonym online to hide her identity. But when some of her political artworks went viral, she felt she could no longer hide and started using her real name.

Her political views have 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 accept that,” she says, 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 found a sense of community in London.

There she met her partner, 30-year-old Finn Lau, after he moved to the city in 2020. Their lives today are a busy balance between their main jobs – Ms. Li as a video game tester and actress, Mr. Lau as a building surveyor – and their activism.

Mr Lau was one of eight dissidents on whom Hong Kong authorities placed a bounty last July. He and the others on the list were warned that they would face “lifelong persecution”.

And London was not always a safe haven for him. In 2020, he was brutally attacked by masked men in London under suspicious circumstances. His face still bears the scars.

Mr. Lau believes the attack was related to his activism, but police told him it was likely a hate crime. The investigation was closed after a few weeks. He was also contacted by fake journalists who he suspects were working on behalf of the Chinese government.

The arrests in London this month gave him new hope after he was frustrated by what he saw as a lack of British response to the growing Chinese threat.

“This is the first truly decisive action by the British authorities to take seriously the threats against the people of Hong Kong,” Lau said.