July 1 marked 28 years since the handover of Hong Kong. But the Big Event this year was the fifth anniversary of Beijing’s National Security Law in the city, which officials are celebrating with posters, banners, speeches and various ceremonies. International media have also noticed.
AP on the continuing pressure on small businesses with supposedly pro-democracy leanings…
It’s been years since mass arrests all but silenced pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong. But a crackdown on dissent in the semiautonomous Chinese city is still expanding, hitting restaurants, bookstores and other small businesses.
Shops and eateries owned by people once associated with the largely subdued pro-democracy movement are feeling a tightening grip through increased official inspections, anonymous complaint letters and other regulatory checks.
…Leticia Wong, a former pro-democracy district councilor who now runs a bookstore, says her shop is frequently visited by food and hygiene inspectors, the fire department or other authorities over complaints about issues like hosting events without a license. It happens most often around June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Her records show government authorities took measures against her shop some 92 times between July 2022 and June 2025, including inspecting her shop, conspicuously patrolling outside, or sending letters warning her of violations. She has been studying regulations to protect herself from accidentally breaking them.
…the fire department said it conducted checks at Wong’s business following multiple complaints this year. Wong’s bookstore passed most of them but still faces enforcement action for failing to provide valid certificates for two fire extinguishers and its emergency lighting system, it said.
The crackdown on “Reversed Front: Bonfire” resembles earlier efforts to suppress the freedom of expression, such as the banning of children’s books that allegorically depicted wolves (representing the Chinese Communist Party) invading sheep villages (symbolizing Hong Kong). In both cases, metaphor and fiction are treated as threats to national security.
These actions suggest an increasingly brittle government that responds to children’s books, digital games, and foreign holidays with legal threats and censorship. The fear of the authorities around the Fourth of July reveals their increasing insecurities around Hong Kongers setting off their own fireworks in response to the increasing crackdown on their human rights.
…Looking ahead, there is another troubling implication: if holidays like the Fourth of July are now suspect, others such as Christmas and Easter may be next, given that they present narratives inconsistent with the official ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.
Also from the Diplomat, a piece on the folding of Hong Kong’s last opposition group…
In the span of five years, the city’s opposition has been steadily and deliberately dismantled. Laws have been rewritten, activists jailed, accounts frozen, and spaces for dissent shut down. As Hong Kong’s last lawful pro-democracy group, the LSD was known for its protests, defense of civil liberties, and push for social equity. Its departure has brought an era of public dissent to a close.
Speaking to someone on the ground in Hong Kong, who wished to remain anonymous on security grounds, they said that there’s rarely a month that goes by when they “don’t discuss leaving with loved ones”.
“Whether it’s t-shirts, a song, a mobile game, books, a newspaper op-ed [opinion piece] or a social media post expressing dissatisfaction with the government, the crackdown on anything deemed seditious only seems to escalate month by month.”
The Hong Kong government is mightily miffed and issues a classic angry press release…
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government today (June 30) strongly condemned and opposed the malicious attacks on and the demonisation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL) and other laws safeguarding national security, as well as the slanderous and fact-distorting remarks made on the HKSAR’s work in safeguarding national security by foreign politicians, anti-China organisations, and various media outlets on the important occasion of the fifth anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of the HKNSL.
A spokesman for the HKSAR Government pointed out, “These anti-China and destabilising forces, organisations or media have made sweepingly generalised and grandstanding comments, completely disregarding the profound historical significance of the HKNSL and its undeniable positive impact on the HKSAR. They distorted the facts and made slanderous remarks on the HKSAR and the HKNSL. They even attempted to interfere with criminal trials conducted in HKSAR courts, thereby obstructing the course of justice…
The government also proposes restrictions on visits to prison inmates, including by lawyers and chaplains…
…to “meet the needs of safeguarding national security and modern correctional institution management,”
An interesting graphic – countries with the fewest children. Hong Kong has emigration. But developed East Asia as a whole ticks all the other boxes: high-pressure education systems, small homes, and societies that make life tough for women who have both careers and children.
The next 30 or so countries on the list are mostly in Europe.
On Taiwan matters, Aspi Strategist on how to really get Beijing angry…
In a speech kicking off his ‘10 Talks on the Country’ series on 22 June, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te declared that Taiwan ‘is of course a country’, citing its democratic system and separate history, and Beijing’s lack of jurisdiction over the island. It was one of his clearest affirmations yet of Taiwan’s national identity: not a call for change, but a statement of present-day fact.
Beijing reacted with fury. Its Taiwan Affairs Office condemned Lai’s remarks as a ‘declaration of Taiwan independence’ filled with ‘heresies’, accusing him of inciting separatism and ‘leading Taiwan toward war’. Chinese state media warned that such speeches would be ‘swept into the rubbish heap of history’, and added that Lai’s inflammatory remarks disregarded the strong desire of the Taiwanese public for peace.
…all this overlooks something deeper: Taiwan cannot make a unilateral declaration of independence—not because it lacks the will, capacity, or public mandate, but because the entire concept is a Beijing talking point.
Global Times gets sorely vexed about Lai’s first-of-10 speech.
In response to Taiwan regional leader Lai Ching-te’s first so-called “10 Talks on the Country” speech, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, issued a strong rebuke, stating that Lai’s remarks were filled with lies and deception, hostility and provocation, and his distortions of history, reality, and legal principles will only be swept into the dustbin of history.
Chen noted that the speech deliberately distorted and fragmented history, aggressively promoted separatist “Taiwan independence” fallacies, and attempted to fabricate a theoretical basis for “Taiwan independence” in order to justify his political agenda, including advancing a so-called “mass recall” campaign for personal political gain.
The speech was a blatant “Taiwan independence manifesto,” inciting confrontation across the Straits, and was also a patchwork of deeply flawed and misguided separatist rhetoric, which fully exposed Lai’s obstinate nature as a die-hard “Taiwan independence” advocate, said Chen.
Are the CCP bluffing on Taiwan? Are they truly ready to roll the dice? Is now the moment to find out, and is Mr Lai the man who is prepared to do so?
Since it’s been 28 years already, can we now please stop sounding surprised when the dictatorship acts like a dictatorship? There is nothing new or interesting about the CCP using lawfare to crush the tiniest iota of dissent. If you’re still here, particularly after 2019, this is what you signed up for. Complaining about this is as useful as complaining about the weather.
If it’s all too much, the sunny shores of Blighty or Oz or Trumpistan beckon. Funny that we’re still here, then.
Fat chance, my boy, we ain’t leaving!
Welcome back to Asia’s Aircraft Carrier Hub!
Maybe Chinese state media can add that the provocative actions of the PLA on a regular basis also “disregarded the strong desire of the Taiwanese public for peace”?
“Rubbish heaps” and “dustbins” of history seem to be the mouth frothing exclamation du jour.
AP *still* calling HK a “semiautonomous Chinese city”??? Seems a bit hackneyed.
Re Christmas and Easter—if the officially atheist CCP considers itself qualified to select the next Dalai Lama, then surely it can exercise a little latitude towards Christian festivals.