UK urged to give Hong Kong citizens asylum

Victim of torture at hands of China’s secret police says new security law is a disaster for the territory

SIMON CHENG MAN-KIT, a former British consulate worker tortured by Chinese secret police, is urging the UK to “grant asylum” to people from Hong Kong as Beijing imposes a national security law in the territory.

The law – set to be approved tomorrow by China’s parliament, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature – will criminalise separatism, subversion, terrorism and acts of foreign interference.

It would pave the way for China’s ruling Communist Party to quash dissent in Hong Kong under the guise of national security.

“It’s a disaster – I cannot imagine any other scenario worse than this,” Mr Cheng told The Daily Telegraph. He fears the torture that he endured in China last year over Britain’s role in Hong Kong will soon become commonplace. “Once they legalise it, then it will become an undeniable reality,” he said. “The UK Government has no excuse to turn a blind eye.”

He added that British authorities should “grant asylum to Hong Kong citizens and equalise the rights of British National (Overseas) status holders”.

British authorities must “take care of the Hong Kong people,” rather than spouting “words [that] are still quite constrained and moderate”, he said.

Since the start of 2019, 13 asylum applications have been filed in the UK by people from Hong Kong, including

Mr Cheng’s. A decision on his application is expected next month. In that time, two applications were refused and four were withdrawn, according to official UK data.

Mr Cheng, a Hong Kong citizen, applied for asylum last year after being “disappeared” by Chinese secret police officers for more than two weeks.

He was subjected to physical torture, psychological intimidation, political indoctrination and repeated interrogations, sometimes by up to 15 men.

He was shackled for hours at a time while the nameless men threatened to kidnap him again if he ever revealed his ordeal.

Authorities called him an enemy of the state for working at the British consulate, threatened to charge him with espionage, and demanded he confess that the UK Government was masterminding protests in Hong Kong as a direct challenge to China. For months, Beijing had accused unspecified “foreign black hands” of fomenting unrest.

The UK Government publicly acknowledged Mr Cheng’s treatment and granted a visa for him to arrive in the UK after The Telegraph reported details of his detention. However, the government in Beijing retaliated with a smear campaign against him.

Mr Cheng also urged the British government to extend the right to abode to those with British National (Overseas) status, so giving them the option to come to the UK.

BN(O) status affords a passport and consular assistance but not the right to live and work in the UK. Portugal, by contrast, extended citizenship rights before returning its colony of Macau to mainland China’s rule in 1999.

About 315,000 people currently hold BN(O) passports, though some three million, who let their status lapse, would be eligible to renew. The UK has resisted calls to grant full citizenship to BN(O) passport holders – since the move would further anger China.

Along with other MPS, Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the all-party Commons foreign affairs committee, is pushing for greater BN(O) rights.

As pro-democracy protests filled the streets of Hong Kong last year, a petition seeking citizenship for BN(O) holders received nearly 102,000 signatures.

Mr Cheng, who now leads the Umbrella Union, an overseas activist group, said the UK could implement sanctions against China or raise a debate at the United Nations over whether Beijing has breached the 1997 Sinobritish Joint Declaration – the handover treaty meant to guarantee Hong Kong’s unique way of life until 2047.

However, that global scrutiny would be too little, too late to diminish Beijing’s encroachment on the city, he said.

“It’s already the end of ‘one country, two systems’,” said Mr Cheng, referring to the territory’s system of governance aimed at preserving its rights and freedoms. “China wants to build the world order themselves, rather than comply with the international order.”

He fears Hong Kong is becoming another Xinjiang or Tibet, two regions in China that have suffered severe crackdowns which Communist authorities justified as the rooting out of separatists and terrorists.

In Xinjiang, millions of Muslims are being tortured in detention camps, according to Telegraph interviews with former detainees. Tibet remains sealed.

Now, as Hong Kong braces for more street clashes, China’s military has warned ominously that it stands ready to “safeguard” sovereignty.