One million dollar rewards. Cancelled passports. Overseas arrest warrants. How Hong Kong hunts its own citizens across the globe.
Bounties, Passports, and Police: Hong Kong’s War on Its Own Diaspora
On a December night in 2024, the Hong Kong government published a list of names. Alongside each name was a photograph, a brief description, and a price: one million Hong Kong dollars for information leading to the arrest of any of six overseas democracy activists. The wanted posters circulated on government websites and were shared by officials on social media. They named people living in Washington DC, London, Toronto, and Sydney — people who had committed no crime recognisable to the legal systems of the democratic countries in which they resided. Their offence was continuing to speak, advocate, and organise against the CCP’s destruction of Hong Kong. The bounties were not primarily a law enforcement instrument. They were a message: nowhere is far enough.
Passports as a Political Weapon
Two weeks before Christmas 2024, in the same operation that announced the bounties, the Hong Kong Security Bureau cancelled the passports of seven additional overseas activists, including some based in the United States. Cancelling a Hong Kong passport does not prevent someone from travelling if they hold another country’s travel document — and most of the named individuals had by then acquired foreign citizenship. But it cuts the connection to family members still in Hong Kong, creates administrative complications for travel to countries that recognise Hong Kong SAR documents, and signals to the activist community that every instrument of state administration is available as a tool of political harassment. The SNSO, passed in March 2024, explicitly extended Hong Kong’s national security law extraterritorially — creating legal grounds, in Beijing’s framing, to prosecute individuals for actions taken entirely outside Hong Kong’s borders, in countries with which Hong Kong has no extradition agreements.
The Father in the Dock
The February 2026 conviction of Kwok Yin-sang — the father of Washington-based democracy campaigner Anna Kwok — for handling funds linked to his daughter’s overseas advocacy represented a qualitative escalation in Beijing’s transnational repression strategy. Previous attempts to pressure diaspora activists through family members had relied on informal methods: police visits, travel bans, frozen assets, social pressure. The conviction of Kwok senior was the first time a Hong Kong court explicitly sentenced a family member for the overseas political activities of a relative. Human Rights Watch condemned it as collective punishment. Anna Kwok herself, who runs the Hong Kong Democracy Council, has continued her work, stating publicly that she will not be silenced by the persecution of her father. But the message to every other activist with elderly parents, siblings, or children remaining in Hong Kong is unmistakable: your continued speech has a price, and others will pay it.
United Front Operations in British Cities
The Old Bailey trial that opened in London on March 4, 2026 — in which two dual British-Chinese nationals were accused of conducting hostile surveillance on Hong Kong democracy activists for Chinese and Hong Kong intelligence services — revealed the extent of the operational infrastructure Beijing has built inside Western democracies. The UK government’s January 2026 country policy note on China confirmed that the CCP mobilises overseas diaspora groups through the United Front Work Department to suppress opposition voices, employs physical assault, hacking, and smear campaigns against dissidents abroad, and imposes exit bans on the family members of overseas activists to create leverage. Hong Kong Watch has documented dozens of cases of UK-based Hong Kong activists who have been subjected to surveillance, threats, and harassment linked to CCP proxy networks operating in British cities. This is not espionage in the traditional sense. It is the systematic application of mainland authoritarian techniques to the streets of London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Democratic governments that welcome Hong Kong’s diaspora have an obligation to protect them from the government they fled — not as an act of charity, but as a foundational duty of sovereignty.
Yee Man Au
Community & Human Rights Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: yeeman.au@appledaily.uk
Yee Man Au is a community and human rights journalist with professional experience reporting on civil liberties, grassroots advocacy, and social inequality within Chinese-speaking communities. She received her journalism education from a highly regarded Chinese journalism school, where she was trained in ethical reporting, interview methodology, and source verification, with a strong emphasis on public-interest journalism.
Her reporting career includes contributions to Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese newspapers, where she covered housing rights, labor disputes, migrant issues, and community organizing efforts. Yee Man’s work is grounded in firsthand interviews and on-site reporting, ensuring that affected voices are accurately represented rather than abstracted.
She brings practical newsroom experience in handling sensitive subject matter, including working with vulnerable sources and navigating ethical constraints. Editors value her disciplined approach to fact-checking and her ability to corroborate claims through multiple independent sources.
Yee Man’s authority is built through sustained reporting within established media institutions and a demonstrated commitment to transparency and accountability. She adheres to correction protocols and maintains clear documentation of sources and evidence.
At Apple Daily UK, Yee Man Au contributes reliable, experience-based journalism that prioritizes accuracy, dignity, and the public record.
