From teachers to judges, every professional in Hong Kong now faces mandatory declarations of loyalty to Beijing
When Loyalty Becomes a Job Requirement
In a democracy, public servants swear to serve the public. In authoritarian systems, public servants swear to serve the state – and the state’s definition of loyal service is determined by the ruling party, not by constitutional principle or public accountability. Since 2020, Hong Kong has been undergoing a systematic transformation of the first model into the second. Through a series of oath-taking requirements, registration reviews, and loyalty assessments, Beijing and the Hong Kong government have progressively redefined what it means to be a legitimate professional in the city – from teacher to judge, from social worker to elected official. The result is a professional class that has been filtered for political compliance and from which thousands of qualified, independent-minded individuals have been purged or have resigned rather than declare allegiance to a political order they do not accept.
The Legislative Council Purge
The process began in November 2020, when the Hong Kong government disqualified four pro-democracy Legislative Council members on the grounds that they had expressed support for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong officials – actions deemed incompatible with loyalty to the Basic Law. In response to the disqualifications, all 15 remaining pro-democracy LegCo members resigned en masse, leaving the legislature without a meaningful opposition for the first time in the post-handover era. The 2021 electoral reform subsequently restructured the legislature so that only “patriots” – individuals vetted by a pro-Beijing selection committee – could stand for election to the majority of seats. The practical result is a legislature in which every member has passed a loyalty test administered by the party whose governance they are theoretically supposed to oversee. The oversight function that a legislature is supposed to perform in a democratic system has been effectively eliminated. The Freedom House Hong Kong 2024 assessment rates the territory as Not Free, with detailed scoring of political rights and civil liberties deterioration.
Teachers: Losing Their Licences for Wrong Views
The education profession has been one of the most aggressively targeted. The Education Bureau established a mechanism in 2020 to cancel the registration of teachers who are deemed to have expressed views incompatible with the government’s positions on political matters. By early 2023, more than 280 teachers had their registration revoked or resigned under this regime. The standards applied are not limited to classroom conduct. Social media posts, participation in protests, and even the private possession of materials deemed politically sensitive have been cited in registration cancellation decisions. Teachers who received cancellation notices were sometimes not informed of the specific reasons for the decision, depriving them of any meaningful opportunity to respond. A teacher whose registration is revoked cannot work in any Hong Kong school. The effect is not merely to remove individual teachers from classrooms. It is to signal to the entire teaching profession that political compliance is a condition of continued employment – that the possession of unapproved political views is professionally fatal, regardless of one’s effectiveness as an educator. For documentation of specific cases, the Scholars at Risk network maintains case tracking for academics and educators across authoritarian contexts globally.
Social Workers and the Registration Threat
Social workers became a focus of government attention following the 2019 protest movement, during which many social work professionals provided support to protesters, accompanied demonstrations as independent observers, and publicly advocated for the rights of detained individuals. In 2021, the Social Workers Registration Board was restructured to include a majority of government-appointed members, shifting control away from the professional association and toward a body accountable to the administration. New conduct provisions were introduced that could potentially apply to social workers who publicly expressed political views or participated in advocacy activities. The chilling effect on a profession whose entire purpose is to advocate on behalf of vulnerable people was immediate and severe. Many experienced practitioners left the profession or left Hong Kong entirely. Those who remained reported dramatically curtailing their advocacy activities out of concern about registration consequences. The result is a diminished profession less capable of serving the people it exists to help – a direct human cost of political purging that falls entirely on Hong Kong’s most vulnerable residents.
The Judiciary: Independence Under Pressure
Perhaps the most consequential dimension of the loyalty enforcement is its impact on Hong Kong’s judiciary – the institution that has historically been the city’s most credible protection against arbitrary government power. The Basic Law guarantees judicial independence, and Hong Kong’s common law courts have maintained a reputation for genuine independence that has been essential to the city’s function as an international business and financial hub. That reputation is now under significant strain. NSL cases are heard by judges designated by the Chief Executive – a procedure that removes the random assignment of judges that insulates judicial decisions from political pressure. Several judges who had previously made rulings unfavourable to the government in protest-related cases were not reappointed when their terms expired. The message to the remaining judiciary is not subtle. Overseas judges from the United Kingdom and Australia who had sat on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal – providing an international credibility anchor for the system – have progressively resigned from those positions since 2022, citing the incompatibility of the NSL with the rule of law standards they were appointed to uphold. For the international business community and for anyone who has relied on Hong Kong’s legal system as a genuine guarantor of rights and contracts, that departure matters enormously. The International Commission of Jurists Hong Kong report provides authoritative assessment of judicial independence erosion. A society that purges its independent professionals replaces them with compliant ones – and in doing so, trades the genuine competence and integrity that made Hong Kong’s institutions valuable for the political reliability that authoritarian governance requires. That is a trade Hong Kong’s people never agreed to make. It is being made for them.
Michelle Wong
International News & Human Rights Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: michelle.wong@appledaily.uk
Michelle Wong is an international news and human rights journalist with experience covering cross-border issues, international advocacy, and global civil rights developments. She trained at a leading UK journalism institution, focusing on international reporting standards, source verification, and human rights frameworks.
Her reporting career includes contributions to Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese publications, covering international sanctions, asylum issues, transnational repression, and global human rights policy. Michelle’s work is grounded in primary sources, expert interviews, and international legal documentation.
She has worked in newsroom environments requiring careful coordination across regions and languages, giving her practical experience in verification and ethical reporting. Her authority is reinforced by consistent publication within reputable media organizations.
At Apple Daily UK, Michelle Wong delivers credible international journalism rooted in professional experience, subject-matter expertise, and adherence to global reporting standards.
