Final July, 5 younger males boarded a leisure boat in a distant harbor in Hong Kong. They handed via waters patrolled by the Chinese language authorities and headed east, throughout the South China Sea.
Once they neared Taiwan, they lower off their motor, hoping to be rescued by the Taiwanese Coast Guard. They have been in luck.
Now, after months in Taiwan, they intend to hunt asylum in the US, the place they arrived at Kennedy Worldwide Airport in New York on Wednesday.
They’re a part of a trickle of political activists who’ve fled Hong Kong since China’s central authorities imposed a harsh nationwide safety regulation on the town in June, snuffing out many types of political dissent, together with the pro-democracy protests wherein the 5 males had participated.
The account of their escape from Hong Kong, their keep in Taiwan and their arrival in the US was offered by Samuel Chu, founding father of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a Washington-based advocacy group that organized for the lads’s journey and lodging and helps them apply for asylum. Not one of the 5 males needed to be recognized out of concern that it may endanger their relations in Hong Kong. One in all them spoke on the situation of anonymity.
Whereas in Taiwan, they have been held on a army base and never allowed to speak with their household and buddies, although the person who agreed to be interviewed stated that they had been handled effectively. They believed that the US supplied the very best likelihood for them to restart their lives, he stated.
After weeks of negotiations, the lads have been allowed entry into the US on humanitarian grounds, Mr. Chu stated.
Their arrival in the US may create additional tensions between China and the US, posing an early problem for the incoming Biden administration simply as relations between the 2 international locations are at their lowest level in a long time.
China has solid Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters as criminals, whereas the US and different democracies have challenged China over its crackdown on the town’s liberties. The involvement of Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that’s claimed by China, solely provides to the sensitivity.
Spokeswomen for the State Division and United States Citizenship and Immigration Providers declined to touch upon the case, citing privateness issues. A press officer for the American Institute in Taiwan, which serves because the de facto American embassy there, additionally wouldn’t remark, nor would a spokesperson for Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council.
All 5 protesters, who vary in age from 18 to 26, fled Hong Kong fearing that they’d quickly face imprisonment, and at the least one had beforehand been arrested in connection along with his position within the protests, Mr. Chu stated.
The Trump administration’s transfer, in its last days, to grant entry to the lads on humanitarian grounds stands in distinction to its dramatic curbing of refugee quotas over the previous 4 years. In December, laws in Congress that will have made it simpler for Hong Kong residents to achieve refugee standing was blocked by Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.
A couple of years in the past, the thought of political dissidents fleeing Hong Kong, a former British colony that reverted to Chinese language rule in 1997, would have appeared unimaginable. Hong Kong’s greater than 7 million folks have one of many world’s highest per capita incomes and revel in political liberties which might be unknown in mainland China.
However after Xi Jinping turned China’s prime chief in late 2012, Beijing started to rule over Hong Kong with an more and more heavy hand. The nationwide safety regulation, imposed after huge and typically violent pro-democracy protests swept the town in 2019, has prompted some activists to depart. Most departed in a lot much less dramatic trend, boarding a aircraft for Europe or North America; others, fearing arrest on the airport, took to the ocean.
In August, weeks after the 5 males made it to Taiwan, 12 different Hong Kong activists have been caught by the Chinese language Coast Guard whereas making an attempt to succeed in the island. Most of them had been arrested in Hong Kong and have been leaving to keep away from trial. They have been held for months in mainland China with out prices; in December, 10 of the activists obtained jail sentences starting from seven months to a few years, two of them for organizing the escape try and the others for illegally crossing a boundary. Two different activists, each juveniles, have been returned to Hong Kong.
Different international locations have additionally taken in Hong Kong activists. Canada has granted asylum to 14 folks from Hong Kong for the reason that finish of December, based on a press release from the New Hong Kong Cultural Membership Canada, a volunteer group that assists political refugees from the town. In October, Hong Kong’s authorities protested Germany’s granting of asylum to an indication chief who confronted prices of rioting.
Britain is providing a brand new visa to Hong Kong residents that will allow the tens of millions of them who have been born earlier than the 1997 handover to finally change into British residents.
Amy Qin and Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting.