The fire that raged in seven apartment towers in the Tai Po District of Hong Kong last month, killing at least 156 people, is one catastrophe. Another is angry criticism of the government, the sort of thing that the Chinese Communist Party regards as a “national security” risk (The New York Times, December 3, 2025).
National security police have arrested at least two people for demanding more government accountability in the blaze at the Wang Fuk Court housing estate that engulfed seven apartment towers and killed at least 156 people. One of them was Kenneth Cheung, a former elected district official who posted criticism of the authorities’ response to the fire on Facebook and was accused of inciting hatred against the government online. The other was Miles Kwan, a 24-year-old university student who handed out fliers near the fire site calling for an independent probe into the disaster. The police declined to comment on their arrests.
Over the weekend, Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong issued a statement warning of consequences for “anti-China elements” who are looking to use the fire, which started last Wednesday and lasted more than 24 hours, “to cause trouble.”
“They have lost their humanity, disregarded facts, spread false information, maliciously attacked” the Hong Kong government’s efforts, the statement said….
The scale of the disaster has already laid bare likely failures in oversight and preparedness that allowed substandard and flammable materials to be used in construction, and for alarm systems to fail.
The Hong Kong government has arrested construction company employees or associates for using substandard scaffolding and netting, suggesting that the problems have been solely with certain companies and with the site of the fires rather than something more systemic perhaps involving the government.
Regarding the recent arrests of persons said to have lost their humanity by criticizing the government and calling for investigation of the government, John Lee, the chief executive of Hong Kong, told reporters: “Criminals who commit offenses must be taken to justice. I will not tolerate any crimes, particularly crimes that exploit the tragedy that we are facing now.”
Also: “He reiterated Beijing’s warning that the authorities would not tolerate any attempt to ‘sabotage’ social unity.”
In the current public discontent, the Times sees echoes of the mass pro-democracy demonstrations of 2019, the fervor and impetus of which the Party had seemed to effectively quell. Miles Kwan, the student arrested for distributing flyers, had “presented his grievances toward the government as a list of ‘four demands’—echoing the ‘five demands, not one less’ slogan that was a rallying cry for the 2019 protesters….
“So far no government officials have been held responsible for the fire. All 15 of the people who have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter are from construction companies, the police said.”
