‘Far from adequate’: Hongkongers in exile call for Australia to lift its response to Beijing crackdown

Hong Kong politicians in-exile are lobbying Australia to offer safe haven to pro-democracy activists still trapped in the Chinese territory, stop Australian judges from serving on its top court and sanction financial institutions, including HSBC, as more activists are arrested for subverting Beijing.

Legislative councillor Ted Hui, who fled Hong Kong for Europe with his young family while on bail, said he appreciated Australia’s offer to extend visas for Hongkongers already in the country but “it was far from adequate”.

“I cannot see other lifeboat plans that would help protesters or the family members now being threatened,” he said.

Pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui, pictured during a demonstration last year.Credit: AP

The Australian government launched a program in July targeted at students and skilled workers already in Australia, extending their visa by five years, after Beijing imposed new national security laws that punished dissent in the semi-autonomous region with sentences of up to life in prison. The Department of Home Affairs said on Friday that 2584 visas had been extended under this scheme.

It also prioritised future applicants on the occupational skills list and those who had a sponsoring employer who could pay a salary above ​$153,600. But the Department said this pathway was still being developed and did not provide figures on how many Hongkongers had applied or been approved.

“The visas are not for pro-democracy activists or family units who would like to migrate together,” said Hui. “The situation in Hong Kong at the moment is miserable. The persecution of different people is escalating.”

Another 55 Hongkongers including social workers, disability rights activists, politicians and students were detained in the territory in January on charges of subversion. Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was re-arrested while in jail on Wednesday for allegedly assisting 12 activists who were caught by China’s coast guard while attempting to get to Taiwan by boat in August.

“It is not just activists but others professions and teachers,” said Hui. “The spectrum that has been targeted range from the most moderate to the most radical. It is a big message that all dissent will be silenced, very soon.”

The Hong Kong government maintains that the laws are necessary to restore order to the global financial hub after protests over Beijing’s rising influence rocked the city in 2019 and 2020.

A spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs said the Australian government had been consistent in expressing concerns about the imposition of the national security law and was troubled by the law’s implications for Hong Kong’s judicial independence, and the rights enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong.

Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching, who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade References Committee, said Australia should consider welcoming Hongkongers who risked their safety to protect the democratic norms and institutions.

“There is a recent precedent in Australia of making a special dispensation to offer asylum to those fleeing persecution,” she said. “In 2015, Australia permanently resettled 12,000 Syrians, Iraqis and Yazidis on humanitarian grounds.”

Speaking from London where he is now based, Hui said Australia should use Magnitsky laws to target individuals and corporations involved in human rights breaches with the Chinese Communist Party.

In December, Hui had his and his families accounts locked by HSBC, Hang Seng Bank and Bank of China after Hong Kong police ordered the financial institutions to freeze his funds over money-laundering allegations. The claims relate to HK$850,000 ($141,000) in crowd-funding raised for a civil injunction against alleged police brutality that was allegedly transferred to Hui’s family accounts. He denies the allegations.

Pro-democracy member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council Ted Hui Chi-fung being removed by security during a scuffle with pro-Beijing legislators.Credit: Getty Images

Hui said the bank should have resisted the police direction. “It refused to confront the regime. It did not get a court order.”

Hui said other dissidents, non-government organisations and charities targeted by police have also had their accounts frozen by Hong Kong financial institutions.

“What I’m advocating for is sanctions against the people who have made the decision to freeze people’s accounts,” he said.

Under the laws, Hong Kong police would have been able to strip the banks of the authority to deal with the funds in the accounts if they refused to comply.

HSBC is the largest of the three banks to have operations in Australia. A HSBC spokeswoman said the bank was unable to comment on individual cases.

“Like every bank, we have to operate within the law and legal frameworks of all the countries in which we operate,” she said. “When we get a specific legal instruction by police authorities in Hong Kong, or anywhere else, to freeze the accounts of somebody under formal investigation, we have no choice but to comply.”

Hui met with a group of Victorian MPs in early February to lobby for stronger action on China. “What he had to say about the deterioration in human rights [...] was very concerning, indeed alarming,” said Victorian shadow attorney-general Edward O’Donohue. Hui’s pro-democracy colleague Sunny Cheung has previously spoken with the new chair of the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, James Paterson. Cheung has also testified before a US congressional hearing on Beijing’s activities in Washington.

The Magnitsky laws will give the Australian government similar powers to the US to impose visa, property and financial sanctions on individuals who commit human rights abuses. They are expected to be introduced to federal Parliament this year.

“I am trying to encourage them to pass the law,” said Cheung.

Speaking from an undisclosed location due to fears for his safety, Cheung said Australian judges still serving on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal should leave Hong Kong. Thirty non-permanent judges from across the Commonwealth have presided in the court since the British handover to China in 1997 to continue the common law tradition in the territory.

Sunny Cheung testifies during a hearing before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington. Credit: Getty Images

Former Australian High Court chief justices Murray Gleeson and Robert French along with former High Court judge William Gummow have remained on the court since former NSW chief justice James Spigelman resigned over the national security laws in September.

The court has never had jurisdiction over acts of state, such as defence and foreign affairs, but the imposition of the new national security laws gave the Hong Kong government the power to decide which judges could hear national security cases.

“If the world still recognises the legal system in Hong Kong, Beijing can still claim that everything is impartial,” said Cheung. “But that is not true.”

”It gives a fake legitimacy to the national security law,” said Hui. “It is an endorsement to the existing judicial system as if it is still standing.”

French said in September that he would not continue on the court if he did not believe it could maintain its judicial independence.

Hui, who fled Hong Kong with his wife and two children aged 7 and 9 in December by pretending to be on official business, said it was a relief to them knowing that their dad wouldn’t be “arbitrarily taken away by the police at any time”. But he said he worried what children left in Hong Kong would learn about the pro-democracy movement.

“Primary school children now have to recite charges under the national security law, including the specific wording for collusion with foreign forces,” he said. “Their parents will tell them the truth but I worry that they cannot be a person of integrity at all.”

“They will have to tell lies to survive in the education system,” he said. “It is miserable that they have to be one person at school and another at home.”

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