Hong Kong Takes Symbolic Stand Against China’s High-Tech Controls

The first major place in China to rebel against Beijing’s technologies of control is one of the last not yet fully under their thrall.
By Paul Mozur and Lin Qiqing

In Hong Kong, umbrellas are commonly deployed to shield protester activities from digital eyes.

HONG KONG — There’s no sign to mark it. 

But when travelers from Hong Kong cross into Shenzhen in mainland China, they reach a digital cut-off point.
On the Hong Kong side, the internet is open and unfettered. 

On the China side, connections wither behind filters and censors that block foreign websites and scrub social media posts. 

The walk is short, but the virtual divide is huge.
This invisible but stark technological wall has loomed as Hong Kong’s protests smolder into their fourth month. 

The semiautonomous city’s proximity to a society that is increasingly closed off and controlled by technology has informed protesters’ concerns about Hong Kong’s future. 

For many, one fear is the city will fall into a shadow world of surveillance, censorship and digital controls that many have had firsthand experience with during regular travels to China.
The protests are a rare rebellion against Beijing’s vision of tech-backed authoritarianism. 

Unsurprisingly, they come from the only major place in China that sits outside its censorship and surveillance.
The symbols of revolt are rife. 

Umbrellas, which became an emblem of protests in Hong Kong five years ago when they were used to deflect pepper spray, are now commonly deployed to shield protester activities from the digital eyes of cameras and smartphones. 

In late July, protesters painted black the lenses of cameras in front of Beijing’s liaison office in the city.
Since then, Hong Kong protesters have smashed cameras to bits. 

In the subway, cameras are frequently covered in clear plastic wrapping, an attempt to protect a hardware now hunted. 

In August, protesters pulled down a smart lamppost out of fear it was equipped with artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance software.

The moment showed how at times the protests in Hong Kong are responding not to the realities on the ground, but fears of what could happen under stronger controls by Beijing.
This week, as protesters confronted the police in some of the most intense clashes since the unrest began in June, umbrellas were opened to block the view of police helicopters flying overhead. 

Some people got creative, handing out reflective mylar to stick on goggles to make them harder to film.
“Before, Hong Kong wouldn’t be using cameras to surveil citizens. To destroy the cameras and the lampposts is a symbolic way to protest,” said Stephanie Cheung, a 20-year-old university student and protester who stood nearby as others bashed the lens out of a dome camera at a subway stop last month. 

“We are saying we don’t need this surveillance.”
“Hong Kong, step by step, is walking the road to becoming China,” she said.
Hong Kong’s situation shows how China’s approach to technology has created new barriers to its goals, even as it has helped ensure the Communist Party’s grip on power.
In building a sprawling censorship and surveillance apparatus, China has separated itself from broader global norms. 

Most people — including in Hong Kong — still live in a world that looks technologically more like the United States than China, where services like Facebook, Google and Twitter are blocked. 

With much of culture and entertainment happening on smartphones, China faces the challenge of asking Hong Kong citizens to give up their main way of digital life.

Protesters pulling down a smart lamppost during an anti-government rally in August.

In the mainland, Xi Jinping has strengthened an already muscular tech-powered censorship and surveillance system.
The government has spent billions to knit together sprawling networks that pull from facial-recognition and phone-tracking systems. 

Government apps are used to check phones, register people and enforce discipline within the Chinese Communist Party. 

The internet police have been empowered to question the outspoken and the small, but significant, numbers of people who use software to circumvent the internet filters and get on sites like Twitter.
“One country, two systems” — the shorthand to describe China’s and Hong Kong’s separate governance structures — has brought with it one country, two internets.
Undoing that is an ask that is too large for many. 

Apps like the Chinese messaging service WeChat, which some in Hong Kong use, in part to connect to people across the border, have garnered suspicion. 

Gum Cheung, 43, an artist and curator who travels to China for work, said he abandoned WeChat last year after he noticed some messages he sent to friends were not getting through.
“We have to take the initiative to hold the line. The whole internet of mainland China is under government surveillance,” he said.
The Cyberspace Administration of China did not respond to a faxed request for comment about the impact of internet censorship. 

The Hong Kong police did not respond to questions about their use of surveillance during the protests.
Beijing’s approach has sometimes encouraged the fears. 

In recent months, playing to a push from China’s government, Hong Kong’s airline carrier Cathay Pacific scrutinized the communications of its employees to ensure they do not participate in the protests. 

Twitter and Facebook took down accounts in what they said was an information campaign out of China to change political opinions in Hong Kong.
The debate over why, how, and who watches who has at times descended into a self-serving back-and-forth between the police and protesters.
The Hong Kong police have arrested people based on their digital communications and ripped phones out of the hands of unwitting targets to gain access to their electronics. 

Sites have also been set up to try to identify protesters based on their social media accounts. 

More recently, the police have requested data on bus passengers to pinpoint escaping protesters.
Protesters have called for the police to release footage showing abuses at Hong Kong’s Prince Edward subway station in Kowloon in August. 

Hong Kong’s subway operator fired back, pointing out that cameras that might have gotten the footage were destroyed by protesters. 

Other than a few screenshots, they have not released footage.
“Trust in institutions is what separates Hong Kong from China,” said Lokman Tsui, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

Privacy concerns on both sides have driven efforts to maintain real-life anonymity. 

Police officers have stopped wearing badges with names or numbers. 

Protesters have covered their faces with masks. 

Both sides are carrying out increasingly sophisticated attempts to identify the other online.
Each even has a matching, if often ineffective, countermeasure to video surveillance. 

Protesters shine laser pointers at lenses of police cameras to help hide themselves. 

Police officers have strobing lights attached to their uniforms that can make it hard to capture their images.
“Of course we’re worried about the cameras,” said Tom Lau, 21, a college student. 

“If we lose, the cameras recorded what we’ve done, and they can bide their time and settle the score whenever they want.”
“We still have decades in front of us,” he said. 

“There will be a record. Even if we don’t want to work for the government, what if big companies won’t hire us?”

The battle goes on!

Hong Kong airport targeted in weekend protest after last week's mayhem

By Donny Kwok, Twinnie Siu


HONG KONG -- Hong Kong braced for an anti-government protest “stress test” of the airport this weekend, as weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations in the Chinese-ruled city showed no signs of let-up amid rising tension between China and some Western nations.
The airport, reached by a gleaming suspension bridge carrying both rail and road traffic, was forced to close last week when protesters, barricading passageways with luggage trolleys, metal barriers and other objects, clashed with police.
China’s Hong Kong affairs office condemned the mayhem as “near-terrorist acts”.
“Go to the airport by different means, including MTR, airport bus, taxi, bike and private car to increase pressure on airport transport,” protest organizers wrote online on Friday.
The Airport Authority published a half-page notice in newspapers urging young people to “love Hong Kong” and said it opposed acts that blocked the airport, adding that it would keep working to maintain smooth operations.
Hong Kong’s high court extended an order restricting protests at the airport. 

Some activists had apologized for last week’s airport turmoil.
The protests, originally over a now-suspended bill that would have allowed extraditions to China, have plunged the former British colony into its worst crisis since its return to China in 1997 and pose a major challenge for Communist Party rulers in Beijing.
The unrest has widened into calls for greater freedom, fueled by worries about the erosion of rights guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula, adopted after the handover, such as an independent judiciary and the right to protest.
Transport Secretary Frank Chan said airport passenger volume from Aug 1 to 21 was down 11% from the corresponding period last year, with cargo volume down 14%.
Commerce Secretary Edward Yau said visitor arrivals started to fall in mid-July. 

For Aug 15 to 20, arrivals were down 49.6% on the corresponding period of 2018.
“It was the fastest and steepest drop in recent years, and the situation is obviously very worrisome,” he told reporters.
The Canadian consulate said it had suspended travel to mainland China for local staff, just days after a Chinese employee of the city’s British consulate was confirmed to have been detained in China.
China has said that Simon Cheng, the consulate employee, was detained in the border city of Shenzhen neighboring Hong Kong. 

Beijing has accused Britain and other Western countries of meddling in its affairs in Hong Kong.
Canada’s latest travel advisory on Thursday warned that increased screening of travelers’ digital devices had been reported at border crossings between mainland China and Hong Kong.

BACK IN THE USSR
Protests on Friday included a march by accountants, a “Baltic Chain”, in which protesters will join hands across different districts in the evening, and a “rally of Christians”.
“A lot of bosses are apolitical. However, politics comes to you even when you try to avoid it,” a city legislator, Kenneth Leung, told the accountants’ rally.
“We used to be ranked as the freest economy in the world for almost 20 years. Can we keep the ranking? No, it’s over. Our core values are integrity and honesty. We need to stick to our international core values.”
He put the number taking part in the march at 5,000.
In 1989, an estimated two million people joined arms across three Baltic states in a protest against Soviet rule that became known as the “Baltic Way” or “Baltic Chain”.
Alphabet Inc’s Google has said its YouTube streaming video service disabled 210 channels engaging in a Chinese coordinated influence operation around the Hong Kong protests. 

Twitter and Facebook have also dismantled a similar campaign originating in mainland China.
The protests have caused corporate casualties, such as the Cathay Pacific airline, amid mounting Chinese scrutiny over the involvement of some of its staff in protests.
Cathay confirmed on Friday that Rebecca Sy, the head of Cathay Dragon’s Airlines Flight Attendants’ Association, was no longer with the company. 

Her departure follows the shock resignation of Cathay Chief Executive Rupert Hogg last week.
Sy said she was fired immediately after managers saw her Facebook account without being given a reason.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions called on Cathay to end to what it described as “white terror”, following Sy’s sacking. 

It said 14 people had been fired in connection with the protests.
White terror is a common expression to describe anonymous acts that create a climate of fear. 

Cathay pilots and cabin crew this week described political denunciations, sackings and phone searches by Chinese aviation officials.
Demonstrators have five demands: withdraw the extradition bill, set up an independent inquiry into the protests and perceived police brutality, stop describing the protests as “rioting”, waive charges against those arrested, and resume political reform.

Moral Superiority

CATHAY CEO RUPERT HOGG REFUSED TO NAME HONG KONG PROTESTERS TO CHINESE GOVERNMENT, NAMED HIMSELF INSTEAD AND RESIGNED
BY MATT KEELEY

Rupert Hogg, shown here at the RISE Conference 2018, resigned on August 16 rather than identify employees who took part in a strike earlier this month.

The CEO of the international airline Cathay Pacific resigned last Friday.

His decision was the result of refusing to name names to the Chinese government when he was asked to provide a list of employees who were involved in the Hong Kong protests.
China's Civil Aviation Administration ordered Cathay on August 9 to provide a list of employees who were involved in a recent protest. 

He was also ordered to suspend the employees. 

Hogg provided the list—but it only included one name: Hogg's.
Hogg resigned shortly thereafter, however many believe his resignation was due to pressure from China. 

His resignation was first announced by CCTV, China's state-run television station, 30 minutes before Cathay Pacific announced Hogg had stepped down.
His resignation was widely praised by supporters of the protests in Hong Kong. 

Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party member Wang Ting-yu wrote on Facebook that he considered Hogg a hero.
"He took responsibility for the strike and resigned! He didn't sell out any Cathay Pacific employees! He took responsibility himself! Please remember the name of this gentleman. Mr. Rupert Hogg! I salute you!" Wang wrote, according to a translation provided by Taiwan News.
Wang also compared Hogg to Taiwanese hero Tang Te-chang. 

On February 28, 1947, Tang saved the lives of people on the Settlement Committee, a collection of leaders involved in Taiwan's rebellion against mainland China, by burning a list of the committee's members. 

Tang was executed shortly afterward. 

Wang wrote that, like Tang, Hogg had sacrificed himself to save others.
"True warriors show the noblest glory of human nature when facing great decisions," Wang said.
In the face of Hogg's support online, the Chinese government is claiming that it had Hogg fired, according to the International Business Times. 

China is the second largest shareholder of Cathay Pacific through the state-owned airline Air China Ltd.
On August 5, aviation workers went on strike, forcing airlines to cancel hundreds of flights. 

At a press conference that week, Cathay chairman John Solsar said the company's employees had the right to believe what they wanted.

"We certainly wouldn't dream of telling them what they have to think about something. They're all adults, they're all service professionals. We respect them greatly," Solsar said.

The protests are over an extradition bill proposed by Hong Kong's government. 

The bill would allow Hong Kong authorities to arrest, detain and extradite people wanted in territories Hong Kong doesn't have extradition agreements with—including mainland China and Taiwan. 

The bill will undermine Hong Kong's autonomy as well as infringe upon citizens' rights. 

The protests started on June 9, and have continued for the past 11 weeks.