In Hong Kong, wanted suspects can fetch a high price. Information leading to the prosecution of a man accused of murder can lead to a reward of HK$300,000 (£30,200). For two men wanted in connection with an arson case that killed 17 people, the incentive goes up to HK$400,000. But the highest prize goes to those who can help capture eight overseas-based pro-democracy activists who are accused of violating Hong Kong’s national security law. For them, the bounties are HK$1m each.
For several of the accused, the warrants came as no surprise. Ted Hui, a former pro-democracy politician who is now living in Australia, was notified in February via his lawyers that a magistrate had issued a warrant for his arrest on national security charges. In 2020, Nathan Law, a former legislator who was granted asylum in the UK, was among six exiled activists who were the first to be targeted by the widely criticised national security law while overseas.
Less than two weeks ago, Ta Kung Pao, a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, ran a front page story calling for the arrest of several of those targeted on Monday.
But the timing of the warrants and attention-grabbing bounties is curious. The activists are all based in western countries that Hong Kong is also trying to woo as it tries to demonstrate to the world that it is open for business.
The UK, US and Australian governments have all issued statements condemning the warrants. The UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK would “not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals in the UK and overseas”. But in recent months the UK and Hong Kong have also started to resurrect ministerial visits after years of minimal contact because of the national security law and the Covid-19 pandemic. In May, Dominic Johnson, the investment minister, was the first senior UK official to visit Hong Kong in five years.
Western officials have shown a willingness to engage with Hong Kong economically, but political and judicial cooperation has been profoundly altered by the imposition of the national security law, which critics say has been used to silence all forms of dissent in Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society. Following the introduction of the law in 2020, several countries including the UK, Australia, Canada and the US suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
That made those countries relatively safer destinations for government critics fleeing Hong Kong. But the wording of the law states that it applies to acts committed anywhere in the world, and the warrants issued on Monday refer to violations allegedly committed after the accused left Hong Kong. That has left many of them feeling unsafe in their adopted homes.
Even if they can trust western governments not to comply with requests from Hong Kong’s police to turn them over, the warrants make travelling to other countries difficult. In an editorial, Ta Kung Pao insisted that the lack of extradition treaties with Hong Kong did not protect the wanted activists. “Don’t think that you can do whatever you want when you are overseas. As long as there are traces of violations, you will not be able to escape the law,” it said in on 22 June.
Many of the accused fear that the warrants – and the bounties – will embolden nationalists from Hong Kong and China who want to do their governments’ bidding. Finn Lau, a UK-based human rights advocated who was one of the eight people issued with an arrest warrant on Monday, says that he has been sent screenshots of Chinese nationalists discussing kidnapping him.
Some Hongkongers feel that western governments have not done enough to protect them from transnational repression, and argue that any form of engagement with the Chinese territory should be frozen. On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, said that the activists would be “pursued for life”. That creates a long-term difficulty for countries that still want to do business with Hong Kong.
