According to The Telegraph, Whitehall officials pressured refugees from Hong Kong to be silent about China’s authoritarian crackdown there (“Whitehall warned it could cut refugee funding,” September 9, 2023):
Whitehall officials threatened to stop funding Hong Kong refugees for criticising groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party, The Telegraph can reveal.
Civil servants also put pressure on the exiles not to use British government money to advocate for human rights in the territory and oppose the authoritarian crackdown.
The multiple spats between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and various Hong Kong emigre groups in recent months have prompted concerns of a “chilling effect” on the diaspora.
On Saturday, campaigners urged the Government to remember the “assurances” of free speech that attracted the refugees to Britain in the first place.
Well, that’s depressing as hell. Hopefully, it’s entirely different people in the British government who, on the one hand, made it possible for Hong Kongers to come to the UK to escape Hong Kong’s increasingly authoritarian government and, on the other, are trying to make things easier for that authoritarian government by muzzling its victims.
One of the incidents that led British functionaries to urge Hong Kong refugees to keep mum began with a Welcome Programme grant of £39,990 to the Wai Yin Society, a charity in Manchester. Hong Kong refugees complained that the Wai Yin Society has close ties with the Chinese Communist Party. After investigating, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) met with the Hong Kongers and told them that “under the terms of their funding agreement, they should not bring the department ‘into disrepute.’ ”
The reprimanded Hong Kongers then wrote to the department requesting respect for the freedom of speech they’d heard tell about.
“Hongkongers holding diverse views who came to the UK via the BN(O) visa route aspire to live in a pluralistic and inclusive environment where criticisms and opposing views are welcome,” they said.
“Given the status and expectations of Hongkongers in Britain in the Hongkonger community, a lack of reaction to the Chaser News revelation [its report on the Wai Yin Society’s ties to the CCP] could be seen as a sign of ‘giving in’ to the Chinese Communist Party. . . .”
The DLUHC also separately warned transplanted Hong Kongers to avoid using grant funds for political activity. Of course, money is fungible. The same pounds used to pay for food or rent or transportation can also be used to put stamps on letters or rent space to protest Hong Kong’s jailing of children’s book authors. Such official admonitions are just a way of telling Hong Kongers who do not yet have independent incomes and permanent residential status to avoid political activity, period.
Hong Kong refugees have been treated less than delicately by British bureaucrats before. In May 2023, The Telegraph reported that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) had been giving the UK addresses and bank balances of Hong Kongers and other Chinese nationals to the Chinese government, which often hunts and harasses, even kidnaps, Chinese nationals living abroad and appreciates any actionable information it can get about them.
According to an HMRC spokesman, though, that kind of data like addresses that it gave China “can only be used for tax purposes and all countries must pass a rigorous assessment by independent experts to ensure the data is used appropriately.” Sometimes stupidity plumbs depths so deep that it can only be malice.
