Day: July 19, 2021

China has repatriated about 50 North Korean escapees, including air force pilots and others who could face severe punishment including the death penalty, sources on the Chinese side of the border told RFA.

The first such repatriations since Beijing and Pyongyang closed their borders in January 2020 at the start of the pandemic took place on July 14 at the northwestern border city of Sinuiju, across the Yalu River border from China’s Dandong, a source in the city told RFA.

Most North Korean escapees have a goal of reaching South Korea, but arrivals in the South are at an all-time low due to the pandemic. Not only is it difficult for North Koreans to cross over into China, once there, making their way to a third country has also gotten more difficult.

The inability to find a way out of China has resulted in effectively stranding the North Korean escapees in a country that routinely repatriates them to North Korea. The group of escapees sent back to North Korea last week had been awaiting their fate at a prison about 400 kilometers (250 miles) away in Shenyang, some for as long as two years.

“The Dandong customs office was opened just for today and they sent about 50 North Korean escapees back to North Korea on two buses,” the source, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, said last week.

“This morning dozens of police officers lined up in front of the customs office to block public access and ensure nobody was filming the repatriation,” said the source.

“There are 50 men and women in total, including North Korean soldiers and pilots who served in the air force. Among them is also a woman in her 30s who made heaps of money in Hebei province,” said the source.

“She was said to be very rich, but her neighbors ratted her out,” the source said.

Chinese onlookers who witnessed the repatriation expressed sympathy toward the returning escapees, according to another Chinese citizen of Korean descent in Dandong.

“They said ‘If they leave, they will die. It is horrible that after escaping their country to survive, they are going to be executed young.’ The witnesses even showed hostility toward the police, who are essentially sending them off to die,” said the second source.

The temporary opening to receive the group of escapees came after Pyongyang had denied several requests by Beijing to restart repatriations.

“Their repatriation to North Korea has been delayed for a year or two. The escapees were held in a prison in Shenyang and sent back together as a group all at once at this time,” said the first source.

The second source said “Chinese authorities had planned to repatriate the escapees several times since April, but they were unable to because North Korea refused to accept them, citing coronavirus quarantine measures.”

There are many more North Korean escapees in the Shenyang area, and the 50 that were not the only ones in Chinese custody, according to the first source.

“I understand there are more North Korean escapees still at Shenyang prison,” the first Dandong source said.

“There are also women who escaped from North Korea and lived quietly in hiding with Chinese husbands. They are usually released immediately, but the ones who have conflicts with local residents or other problems are arrested and imprisoned,” the source added.

Among the 50 sent back through Sinuiju are “North Koreans who escaped after the coronavirus pandemic started,” the second source said.

“So it will be difficult for them to avoid severe punishment when they get back to North Korea,” said the second source. 

“The group of escapees includes a woman who married a Chinese man, gave birth to his son, and had a wealthy lifestyle,” said the second source.

“This is the second time that this woman, whose son has turned 12 now, has been repatriated. Because her life is in peril, her Chinese husband offered a large bribe to save his wife, but she was sent back anyway,” the second source said.

North Korean authorities also sent 90 long-term residents of Chinese citizenship to cross the border into China on the empty buses sent to receive the North Korean escapees, the first source said. Chinese citizens who have been living in North Korea for generations are allowed relatively free travel to China.

During a news briefing Monday, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said it could not confirm reports of the forced repatriation.

“The Government has made various efforts to protect and support North Korean defectors abroad. However, there is nothing that the ministry can confirm regarding the issue,” said Lee Jong Joo, a ministry spokesperson.

Beijing claims it must return North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory as it is bound by two agreements it has signed with Pyongyang, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas.

Rights groups however say that forced repatriation is a violation of China’s responsibility to protect the escapees under the Refugee Convention.

More than 33,000 North Koreans have successfully made their way to South Korea in the past several decades, but the number of escapees entering South Korea sharply decreased from 1,047 in 2019 to only 229 in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Ministry of Unification statistics.

The ministry announced on Friday that in the second quarter of 2021, only two escapees entered South Korea, the lowest ever in any quarter since it began compiling quarterly data in 2003.

In the first quarter of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, 135 escapees reached South Korea, but only 12 arrived in the second quarter. Quarterly totals increased to 48, then decreased to 34, then 31 over the next three quarters before dropping off to only two in the April to June period this year.

Cheong Gwang-il, the president of NoChain, a South Korea-based North Korea human rights group, told RFA that the Sino-Korean border closure, along with increased border security in Southeast Asia has caused less activity among brokers who assist North Koreans take the China-Southeast Asia route to escape get to South Korea.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Detained Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was excluded by the military junta from annual Martyrs’ Day observances Monday honoring her father, Gen. Aung San, who led Myanmar to independence from British rule, while opponents of army rule staged protests in several big cities.

The ceremony honors Aung San and eight other members of his pre-independence interim government who were assassinated by a rival political group on July 17, 1947. Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, had attended the event throughout her long stints of house arrest under a previous military junta.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being detained by the military regime that overthrew her democratically elected government on Feb. 1, was neither invited to nor informed about the ceremony, which was broadcast live on television by junta, her lawyer told RFA.

“I asked her if she had made any arrangements for Martyrs’ Day, and she said that no one had told her anything about it,” defense attorney Khin Maung Zaw said, adding, “It is not unthinkable that a daughter should attend her father’s memorial service.”

“Also, as a leader of the state, as the daughter of the country’s leader, she should have been allowed to attend,” he said.

Toe Aung, Head of Public Relations of the Information Department of the Yangon City Development Committee, laid a wreath at the ceremony on behalf of Gen. Aung San’s family members, and ceremony organizers laid wreaths on behalf of the family members, only some of whom attended the day’s event, of the other political leaders killed in the July 19, 1947 shooting.

“The fallen leaders led by Gen. Aung San gave their lives to achieve independence and gradually democratize the country. But that goal has not yet been realized,” said Min Myint, a retired professor in the Department of Industrial Chemistry and the son of slain “martyr” Ohn Maung.

“We’d love to see peace and progress in education and the economic sectors and in social development, but now we’re seeing a lot of problems.”

“I’m very sorry for the country,” Min Myint said.

Protests held

In some cities, young people defied police to hold brief ceremonies of their own on Monday to honor Myanmar’s fallen leaders.

“We held a protest march this morning to carry on the legacy of the fallen leaders who paid with their lives for the country’s independence,” said Khant Wai Phyo, a member of the protest organizing committee in Monywa, where police blocked off a bronze statue of Gen. Aung San in the city’s center.

“We also held a brief protest at 10:37 a.m. [the time when Aung San and his comrades were assassinated] together with another city ward to mark Martyrs’ Day,” Khant Wai Phyo said, adding that four young men were arrested, and around 30 motorcycles were confiscated, when security forces arrived at the scene of a ceremony held in the area.

In Myanmar’s largest city and former capital Yangon, protests marking Martyrs’ Day have been held in neighborhoods and online since July 16, with protesters also paying homage to the monks, students, and others in Myanmar who have died in the country’s struggle for democracy and human rights.

Maung Sein, a participant in the protests in Yangon, said that a succession of military coups in Myanmar over the last several decades have betrayed the wishes for the country held by Aung San and the others killed in 1947.

“Now, following the [Feb. 1] coup, they have killed anyone they wanted. We haven’t yet created the country that our great leaders wanted. Instead, we can simply say that our country has moved backward,” he said.

Myanmar troops and security forces have killed at least 900 anti-coup protesters in the months since the Feb. 1 overthrow of the country’s democratically elected civilian government, and have arrested thousands more.

A group of Myanmar nationals living in Malaysia also held a Martyrs’ Day commemoration on Monday, holding the observance online because of restrictions on public gatherings aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19.

No observances were held in the Myanmar capital Naypyidaw, where local residents said that dozens of police were guarding Gen. Aung San’s statue in the city center, where thousands have traditionally gathered in previous years to pay tribute to their country’s fallen leaders.

Military academy bombed

In a sign the junta remains widely rejected, an explosion rocked the entrance to the Myanmar military’s Defense Services Technological Academy in Pyin Oo Lwin, in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region on Sunday night, killing at least one service member and injuring two others, sources close to the military said.

The bomb was thrown at around 9:00 p.m. into a large group that had gathered as goods were being delivered for sale at an army market, one Pyin Oo Lwin resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“I don’t know what they were actually doing, but I saw a car overturned, and there were about thirty people lying on the ground. I don’t know if they were dead or injured or just lying on the ground because of the blast,” he said.

Following the attack, the army troops stormed the Anisakan area outside the city, an area known to shelter anti-junta groups, the resident said.

Telephone calls seeking comment from military spokesperson Zaw Min Htun were not picked up on Monday.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A court in Cambodia’s capital has refused to let the mother of an autistic teenager on trial for inciting social unrest and insulting public officials see her child while he is held in prison, the woman and the boy’s attorney said Monday following his court appearance.

Phnom Penh police arrested Kak Sovannchhay, the 16-year-old son of detained former senior opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) member Kak Komphear, at his home on June 24, accusing him of using provocative words and insulting government leaders on social media.

A day later, Kak Sovannchhay was remanded to Prey Sar Prison, the largest of Cambodia’s two dozen jails run by the Ministry of Interior. His father has been serving time in the same prison for more than a year.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court questioned Kak Sovanchhay during a hearing on the charges on Monday, but the teenager’s attorney, Sam Kong, said his client did not understand the questions raised by the investigating judge. He demanded that the court release the boy on bail because he is a minor.

Prum Chantha, the boy’s mother, condemned the court for not allowing her to see her son. She has rejected the charges against both of her husband and son as politically motivated and has demanded their release.

“My son is mentally unstable and a minor, so I should have been allowed to be with him so that he doesn’t panic when asked questions or get intimidated,” she said. “But, here, I knew nothing about my son while he was at the court hearing [today].”

Both Sam Kong and Prum Chantha argue that the boy’s detention is a violation of children’s rights and a form of political persecution.

Prum Chantha said authorities arrested her son while her husband is in prison to demoralize her because she is a member of the “Friday Wives” group of women holds weekly protests demanding the release of their husbands jailed on incitement charges for expressing views critical of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s leadership.

Investigating judge San Bunthoeun had Kak Sovanchhay brought to court Monday for questioning because the boy was not interrogated on the day of his arrest, Sam Kong said.

After the court hearing, authorities took the boy back to Prey Sar Prison and did not allow his mother to talk to him.

Sam Kong said that Kak Sovanchhay could not control his emotions and impulses in court because of his autism and that the line of questioning did not appear to be in accordance with legal procedures because the boy did not understand the questions and did not know how to answer them on account of his age.

“The Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure as well as the Criminal Code and the [U.N.’s] Convention on the Rights of the Child allow the court to consider placing children in the custody of guardians or parents or rehabilitation facilities,” he said. “The laws also allow the court to consider giving children freedom rather than keeping them prison, which affects the future of the children.”

Cambodia ratified the U.S. convention in 1992.

Sam Kong also asked the court to send a medical specialist to see his client.

‘The interests of the child’

Prum Chantha, who said she pitied her son when she saw him from a distance at the court hearing, was later seen running after the police van that transported him back to prison.

“I still ask the court, if the court is independent and does its proper work, to release my son on bail so he can return to his mother’s custody because he has a mental disability, and I want him to go back to school because he is very young,” she said.

Am Sam Ath, deputy director of the human rights monitor Licadho, said he supports the demand for the release of Kak Sovanchhay for the sake of the boy’s future, because he is still in school and needs special care.

“The court should consider carefully this because it deals with the future of the child and his mental health,” he said. “He is still a minor so that his use of words might not be appropriate and thoughtful, plus he has an illness.”

“The judge should include these points in his consideration if he cares for the interests of the child in relation to juvenile justice law,” he said.

More than 80 political, social and environmental activists have been arrested and imprisoned since the end of 2019, most of them on charges of incitement and conspiracy.

National and international organizations, including major democratic countries, have repeatedly condemned the detentions as baseless and politically motivated, and have demanded their immediate release if Cambodia wants to avoid further sanctions by the international community.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service, Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

China’s internet regulators are continuing to crack down on the country’s top tech companies, with ByteDance’s Toutiao suspending new accounts and investigators moving in to ride-sharing app Didi’s headquarters.

TikTok owner ByteDance is blocking new user and content creator registrations for Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, Reuters cited people familiar with the matter as saying.

The freeze began in September 2020, with some content creators reporting on social media that they had been unable to register new accounts, but with no announcement made by the company.

New users who try to register currently see a message: “System is currently under maintenance. Registration is temporarily unavailable,” Reuters reported.

Existing users are still able to post, and the app is still available on app stores inside China, the report said.

In 2018m, Toutiao suspended more than 1,000 accounts after being sanctioned last week for alleged breaches of regulations and for spreading “pornographic and vulgar content.”

The popular app also added a channel titled “New Era,” in a reference to the political “thought” of Chinese President Xi Jinping, “to release information or reports about China’s accomplishments and efforts after socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era.”

The move came after the powerful Cyberspace Administration temporarily suspended both Toutiao and Phoenix News for “having serious problems in guiding public opinion.”

The apps had “carried pornographic content, seriously misled the public and had a very negative impact on the social media environment,” the administration said at the time.

The aggregator is ByteDance’s second largest source of advertising revenue in China, second only to Douyin, and accounting for 20 percent of the company’s U.S.$5.4 billion in sales in China last year.

But the company’s plans earlier this year to list on the U.S. stockmarket had been a slap in face for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an internet industry worker surnamed Pan told RFA.

“I think the first major factor in all of the recent crackdowns [on large technology platforms] is that they are going after private companies,” Pan said. “Secondly, they are seeking listings in the U.S., which is embarrassing [for the government].”

“Toutiao had always said they would list in the U.S. … [but then] the financial director announced that the plan had been suspended,” she said. “The word is that the listing won’t be happening now.”

Overseas share-listings

China’s cabinet said on July 6, 2021 that it would crack down on overseas share-listings by its companies, just two days after the country’s Cyberspace Administration removed the Didi ride-hailing app from Chinese stores following its U.S.$4.4 billion initial public offering (IPO) in New York.

The removal of the app wiped billions from the value of Didi Global Inc shares in the first trading session since the app’s removal.

Didi — which runs an Uber-like service with around 500 million users and 15 million drivers — went ahead with the listing despite being urged by Chinese regulators to delay the IPO, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Monday.

Officials were “wary of the ride-hailing company’s troves of data potentially falling into foreign hands” owing to public disclosure around the listing, the WSJ quoted sources as saying.

Didi is under investigation by the Cyberspace Administration, and investigations are ongoing into other U.S.-listed Chinese companies including Full Truck Alliance and Kanzhun.

“The Cyberspace Administration of China will … cooperate with the ministry of public security, ministry of state security, ministry of natural resources, ministry of transport, the state administration of taxation, the state administration of market supervision and other departments are installed at the [headquarters] of Didi Chuxing Technology Co. Ltd to conduct a review of online security,” the administration said in a statement on its official website on July 16.

‘Red entrepreneurs’

A current affairs commentator surnamed Zhao said the CCP under general secretary Xi Jinping is going after the second generation of “red entrepreneurs” who are related to revolutionary leaders, to stem their financial power and political influence.

“These platforms have made huge profits for the second generation of red elite, the children of [high-ranking] officials,” Zhao said. “Capitalist entities with a communist background are packing more and more of a punch, both internationally and in China.”

“These captains of industry are starting to challenge the authority of the central government, and so the government is moving to cut them off,” he said.

The moves against China’s homegrown tech giants come as the government is also moving to acquire stakes in private companies, businesspeople in the eastern province of Zhejiang told RFA in recent interviews.

Peng Huagang, spokesman for the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), told reporters on July 16 that his agency would press ahead with “mergers” between private sector and state-owned companies.

These takeovers would be implemented both by paid acquisitions and uncompensated nationalization, as well as share transfers, Peng said.

The process would improve competitiveness and optimize the use of skills and resources, he said.

Zhejiang businessman Jiang Jieben told RFA that the process is already under way in his home province.

“This is actually a long-term trend, which is aimed at strengthening state-owned enterprises at the expense of the private sector and private capital,” he said.

“There is pressure within and beyond provincial government to do this, and for it to happen more quickly.”

Jiang said the process had only become more obvious with the treatment meted out to Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s Ant Financial and to Didi.

“They want to nationalize all of these companies, to the point that there will be no private sector left at all,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hubei are holding a man on suspicion of murdering two officials following clashes linked to a forced demolition in the provincial capital, Wuhan.

Shu Lifa is being held in the Wuchang Detention Center after being criminally detained on suspicion of the “intentional homicide” of Xiong Zhiping, a staff member at the Wuchang District Old Town Reconstruction Project, and Sun Yi, the director of the Binjiang Business District, which directs the work of the local demolition bureau.

The clashes came after Xiong and other officials started beating Shu after arriving to survey his ruined home in Wubei village in Xujiapeng, Wuchang district, Wuhan earlier this month.

Shu, 66, and his wife Zhang Yuezhen had been camping out in a container in the ruins of their former home following a forced demolition in January, on which they hold a private property lease, refusing to leave in the absence of any resettlement arrangements or compensation.

Eventually, the authorities claimed to have obtained the necessary permit in April, and returned to Shu’s home on July 12. Shu started taking photos of them, Zhang Yuezhen told RFA.

“One of the highest-ranking leaders in the demolition office saw him doing that and snatched [the phone] away, and that’s how it started,” she said.

“He was beaten to the ground by the demolition office people, and one of them even took a brick and went to hit him with it.”

“So [Shu] ran home and got a knife, telling them to wait there.”

Xiong died from blood loss at the scene. Shu then took the knife to the demolition bureau, where he also attacked Sun.

“That woman had come to our house for Lunar New Year, but she was always threatening us, saying they would requisition our home,” Zhang said. “She did it all the time.”

“He caught sight of her,” she said, adding that Sun also died at the scene.

Zhang said Shu likely lost control of his emotions due to the stress of living in a container for several months.

“Our home was demolished on Jan. 30,” she said. “They threw out our furniture and everything we owned.”

“We have been living in the ruins in a container … and nobody has bothered to ask how we’re doing,” Zhang said. “They refuse to discuss it with us.”

“I actually lodged a complaint. We would have left if they’d negotiated [a settlement] with us,” she said.

‘It’s pretty barbarous’

A Hubei journalist who declined to be named said Shu and Zhang should have been resettled if the land they occupied was needed for redevelopment.

“National demolition laws expressly stipulate that the authorities must first arrange for residential resettlement and also a compensation deal before demolition can take place,” the journalist said.

“But what they actually do is demolish homes and take no responsibility: it’s pretty barbarous,” he said.

The incident in Wuhan comes amid simmering public anger over the use of violent forced evictions, often with no warning or due process, by local governments to reclaim land for lucrative redevelopment or speculation.

In May 2015, authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu handed down an eight-year prison term to a retired People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier for attacking members of a demolition gang who came to raze his home.

Fan Mugen was found guilty of “intentional wounding” by the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court following his trial and ordered to pay civil compensation.

Fan allegedly attacked two members of a demolition gang that came to evict his family from their home on Dec. 3, 2013, and who he said beat up his wife. The two men later died.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Changes to Hong Kong’s election system imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have set the city’s political life back by decades, to the pre-reform colonial era in the mid-20th century, analysts said on Monday.

The rule changes mean that opposition candidates are highly unlikely to be allowed to run, but even when candidates make it into the race, they will now be chosen by a tiny number of voters compared with the previous system, RFA has learned.

The Election Committee, which was already mostly composed of members handpicked by the CCP, now also includes representatives of 28 industry and professional groups known as “functional constituencies,” and the voter base for these seats has been slashed by an estimated 97 percent.

According to provisional voting registration information from the Hong Kong government, the number of registered voters in the constituencies that get to choose a member of the Election Committee has fallen by 90 percent since the last election, when the Committee only picked the chief executive.

Since the rule changes imposed by the CCP, the Committee has also been tasked with returning 40 members to the Legislative Council (LegCo).

In the education functional constituency alone, the number of registered voters is listed as just 1,700, compared with 80,000 in the previous session of the Committee.

Ivan Choy, senior politics lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), said that previously anyone in the education sector had been entitled to vote for Election Committee members. Now, however, only people “designated” by the authorities can vote in their functional constituency.

“Before, we would have more than 200,000 people taking part in these elections,” Choy said. “Some said that this participation was trivial, but now we don’t even have that.”

“I think voters will feel even more alienated from the entire election process now, for both the chief executive and for LegCo,” he said.

‘No way to lose’

Choy said Beijing has set up the forthcoming election in December so that there is basically “no way for it to lose.”

He said the CCP regards Hong Kong politics as “more manageable” after the changes.

Chinese and Hong Kong officials have repeatedly said that the electoral changes represent the “perfection” of the electoral system.

Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), confirmed Choy’s assessment, saying that democracy in Hong Kong has now regressed to where it was in the middle of the 20th century.

“Personally, I don’t think we’re even where we were in the 1980s,” Chung said. “Back then, only the District Council was elected, and then we had some indirect elections of LegCo members in the mid-1980s.”

“What we have now is worse than what we had in the 1980s, with a voter base even smaller than that of the Urban Council elections back in the 1950s,” he said.

The new electoral rules took effect on March 31, 2021, and prompted the U.S. State Department to say it was “deeply concerned” at the changes.

The comprehensive plans ensure that anyone standing for election to Hong Kong’s legislature is a staunch CCP supporter, with all candidates to be vetted by the national security police before being allowed to stand.

The new system forces election hopefuls to run a multi-layered gauntlet of pro-CCP committees before they can appear on any ballot paper.

However, the decisions of all of those committees will hinge on approval by the national security branch of the Hong Kong Police Force, according to details published by the National People’s Congress (NPC) standing committee.

There will be no right of appeal to decisions of the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee or opinions issued by the national security police.

District councilors, the last hope of any pro-democracy representation in the city, have also been removed from the Election Committee that chooses who will fill 40 of the 90 seats in LegCo and which also chooses the chief executive.

Elections pushed back

Elections to the Legislative Council (LegCo), which were previously scheduled for September 2020 and then postponed by a year, have now been pushed back to December 2021.

While 20 seats in a newly expanded 90-seat LegCo will still be returned by geographical constituencies and popular ballot, voters may only choose from among candidates pre-approved by the multi-layered vetting process, ensuring that pro-democracy politicians and rights campaigners are unlikely to make the cut.

The remaining seats will be appointed, or returned by trade, industry, and special interest groups. As with the geographical seats, all candidates must be pre-approved by national security police.

The authorities are also required to take action against anyone seeking to “undermine” the electoral system.

The State Department said in its human rights report for 2020 that the CCP has effectively “dismantled” Hong Kong’s promised rights and freedoms and “severely undermined” the rights and freedoms of the city’s seven million people.

Thousands leave Hong Kong

Thousands of people — many of them families with school-age children — have been lining up at Hong Kong International Airport to board flights to the United Kingdom ahead of a key deadline that expires on July 19, 2021, which had allowed some three million holders of British National Overseas (BNO) passport to enter the country without a visa.

Many families have told RFA as they left that their main motivation stemmed from the effect of a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the CCP from July 1, 2020 on their childrens’ education.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham), warned on Monday of a worsening business environment in the city.

“AmCham is well aware of an increasingly complicated geopolitical environment and its risks; particularly those which have evolved in recent years,” the statement said.

It said the chamber had bought a new site in downtown Hong Kong to “foster dialogue, allow businesses to network, to share ideas and espouse the values of transparency, free flow of information, rule of law and good governance.”

AmCham president Tara Joseph said the business community is concerned in particular that Great Firewall-style internet censorship may be in the pipeline for Hong Kong.

“One of the key attributes of Hong Kong is that you can go onto Google, you can go onto Facebook and any other platform you want versus what you can do in mainland China,” Joseph told Bloomberg Television, in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK.

“So I do think it’s important for the government to recognize that and to be open and say we’re going to maintain that free flow of information.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.