BRISBANE, Australia—Freedom is not something that can be taken for granted, said former Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui Chi‑fung, who issued the caution to Australians at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Australia.
Hui, a democracy advocate who was granted asylum with his family by the Australian government on Aug. 15, recalled young Hong Kong people’s courageous acts during the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement and anti-national security law protests from 2019 to 2020.
“Young people, they told people like us, ‘Just leave me [alone.] If I die there in the protest, I die there. So it’s like the last battle. If it didn’t win this time, that would be the end,” Hui told the CPAC audience on Sept. 21.
“Young people [were] so courageous. They were so determined … We tried so hard to stand in front line to yell at the police, ‘Don’t shoot the kids. They are peaceful. They just love Hong Kong.’
“I still remember that feeling.”
The movement in 2019 was triggered by public opposition to the Hong Kong regime’s proposed legislation to allow extraditions to mainland China, which was seen as a threat to the city’s freedoms and autonomy under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the UK.
The campaign is the largest protest in the city’s history in terms of participation, rallying two million residents to take to the streets. More protests were triggered after the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong regime passed the national security law in 2020.
Joining Hui on the panel was Matt Schlapp, former White House political director and chairman of the American Conservative Union, who also recalled when protestors started singing the U.S. national anthem, Star Spangled Banner, and Glory to Hong Kong.
“That was the train station, right? That’s where it was raining, and the kids were lined on this staircase. That’s when they started singing their songs,” Schlapp said.
“And then ... it gets me a little emotional, they started singing my songs. They knew my songs, and that was right in the middle of America saying that my songs were racist, and people of another race are singing our songs because they think it represents freedom. That’s how insane it was.”
Facing charges, Hui fled Hong Kong in November 2020 and arrived in Australia in December that year.
The former legislator is still wanted by Hong Kong authorities and is subject to a A$200,000 bounty.
Hui encouraged Australians to cherish and fight for freedom.
“I think we had a lot of imagination about futures, freedom, democracy,” Hui said.
“We thought we would get there. We thought even though we can’t achieve that, we will just stay there, [and] that would be the status quo. So we took it for granted somehow that freedom would remain.
“But it doesn’t. It collapsed overnight, in days and months. So I think that’s [the] message to people living in freedom, that we need to keep fighting for it.”
Hui is currently working as a solicitor in Adelaide and is still advocating for the freedom and democracy of his homeland, such as the release of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.
