A Hong Kong Protest Icon Is Jailed

If he was bothered by his diminished position, Wong did not show it. Instead he accepted a new role with the same obsessive approach he’d taken to years of manning street-side political booths in Hong Kong. A dissident diplomat, he traveled to Taiwan, Germany, and the United States, where he testified at a congressional hearing. At each stop, the media coverage his trips generated was matched by angry condemnations from Beijing. Wong’s globetrotting, however, was not to last. Numerous arrests left him unable to travel.

With avenues for dissent vanishing, it looks likely that resistance to the Hong Kong government and its mainland Chinese backers will morph, growing subdued within the territory but more vocal among the city’s far-reaching and influential diaspora. Lian Yi-zheng, the former chief editor of The Hong Kong Economic Journal and a political commentator, told me that everyday people who supported protests, rallies, and the activists who organized them have been spooked by Beijing’s clampdown. “The traditional movement has become more and more hemmed in,” he said. “Formerly it was very well embedded in society, but now it is more and more being driven out.”

Law, who fled the city this year, has become a de facto spokesperson for the movement, lobbying leaders across Europe to stand up more boldly to China. Other organizations have sprouted up in the U.S. and elsewhere. Lian said the process would be slow and not without obstacles, particularly as governments hosting dissidents would be wary of offending Beijing, but noted that globally, “there has been a sea change in the opinion of China and its ruling party.”

Read: From Asia’s finest to Hong Kong’s most hated

Challenged by numerous protests over the past decade, the Hong Kong government’s response has been to see fault everywhere, and with nearly everyone, except itself and its policies. Poor messaging, not the contents of a deeply unpopular extradition bill, was to blame for last year’s demonstrations. During the Umbrella Movement, and again five years later, the authorities peddled baseless claims of clandestine foreign forces fomenting demonstrations, beguiling unwitting residents into turning their anger toward their government.

Many of these grievances stem from the city’s education system, the favorite target of pro-Beijing politicians and Hong Kong’s government. Maligned as insufficiently nationalistic, the calculus for supporters in favor of overhauling it is simple: more Chinese patriotism in schools, resulting in fewer Wongs, Chows, or Lams, and thus fewer protests on the streets..

So it was hardly a surprise when, late last month, the city’s education secretary outlined a plan to begin completely retooling classes to include more national education focused on the positives of China. The first reforms will target liberal studies, a compulsory course introduced just over a decade ago that champions critical thinking and a focus on social issues. The announcement came as Wong, Chow, and Lam sat in jail awaiting sentencing, the education changes they began their activist careers fighting, and were able to temporarily fend off, starting to move forward unabated.