Observations from expat in HK, how can I help?

First, I will say that you, Hong Kongers, have taught me the beauty, courage, solidarity, determination, and persistence of good people.

I came to Hong Kong as an international student for a year in September. I am an ethnic Asian but had never been to Hong Kong or Asia before. I want to briefly talk about my experience here to Hong Kongers, as none of my expat or foreign friends can understand. My family had to escape the communists, my grandfather worked his whole life to fight them and for human rights, he knew Martin Luther King and advised for US president Jimmy Carter after immigrating to the US. When I arrived in Hong Kong, I knew very little about the protest movement but only supported it from my ideology. My first weekend, I went to the march in Tuen Mun to see for myself what the press was talking about.

I saw the police surround the march, fire tear gas and maybe rubber bullets too. The majority of protesters did not have gear. You, Hong Kongers, gave me a face mask to hide myself, warned me where the tear gas was, and helped me escape around police lines and onto a bus.

After this, I did everything to learn about your five demands, the police brutality, CCP, influence in Hong Kong, and details of the protest movement. I joined telegram channels (many of which I had to translate), followed HK accounts on twitter, joined rallies/protests in Charter garden, Shatin, and Tseung Kwan O. After learning enough, I emailed my Congressman in the United States, urging him to pass the HKHRDA. I donated to Demosisto, crowdfunds for first aiders, and HK independent news sources. During CUHK and Poly U sieges I was in TKO and TST trying my best to do my part to help. I did some things on the cyber front as well, but will not give details on this public forum.

I say all these things not because I want to brag. These small things are insignificant compared to the sacrifices all of you have made. I say this because I want to do more. When I ask people how to help, I have usually done all of the expat things already. It is difficult when you don’t speak Cantonese to involve yourself and help more. I know maybe it is not my fight, but I feel a responsibility to stand on the right side of history. I know if you fail, I will be next. I have joined a number of international-targeted TG chats but they seem rather passive and focused on news. I don’t trust just any account that contacts me, but I hope someone can point me in the right direction on how I can do more.

Through your international network, reveal what is happening in HK.
Draw attention from your friend and government what impact would have to your country if HK fails this time and how dangerous that can be when ccp has grown up to an unbeaten monster. The fight in HK to ccp is a multi-dimensional one. You would find an appropriate way to contribute yourself to the fight. We will win together.

Thank you for your support!

Thank you so much for your support! Please keep yourself safe during your stay in HK. You can help by keep paying attention to what is happening in Hong Kong and sharing them on social media

Welcome on board!
We are so glad to have you with us in this battlefield. Do you know IAD? The Hong Kong Higher Institutions International Affairs Delegation, which focuses on international lobbying for HK, you may contact them for more information and what you can help in this freedom movement 😊

As an international student in HK, I’m sure you could do more.....
1. You may take the leadership role in organising and uniting the international students, who are also willing to help and support the freedom movement, both in your campus and other universities to share the news, spread it out, hold seminars, participate in local rallies and protests.
2. International students could also lobby their senators and politicians to support the freedom movement in HK, such as condemning those human right violators like the HK police, HK government officials and CCP.
3. Encourage their countries to draw up something like Magnitsky Act or HK Human Right and Democracy Act in order to sanction those human right violators and even sanction HK or China in some ways.
4. Boycott China Global Movement——this is in an initial stage. There’s no doubt that China is imposing a global risk to other countries..... if you don’t fight back now, your own national security will be at risk. We are proposing something economic related, but it could extend to academic and cultural involvement with China. ( you may read “silent invasion” to learn more how Australia was invaded by China in all aspects)
5. Try to lobby your country or other countries to offer assistance to Hongkongers who may need political asylum because of their involvement in this fight. Do you know some youngsters are in exile or they may be subjected to political persecution....it’s sad but that’s the truth in HK.....we definitely need more international support....

Thank you for your commitment! We need more people like you in this fight! We stand together!

First of all, i would like to express my gratitude.
Regarding your question- i would say the best thing to do is to boycott anything related to China
Obviously it's very hard to stop using all products made in China
But i would say it's a good start to delete apps made by Chinese companies like Tik Tok.
There are a number of reasons.
1. There's political censorship in Tik Tok (Both China and international version). Rmb that girl talking abt the Muslims in Xin Jiang while making her eye lashes? The video was taken down once the video went viral.
2. Your personal data will be obtained by the application once is download.
3. There's no such thing as copyright in the app.

There are over 5 billions users ard the globe using TikTok
i hope ppl can start to delete the app

Then we can move on to boycotting other companies.
Let me know your thoughts about that

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I had not heard of IAD yet. I will try to reach out to them in the coming days.
1. I’ve been running a discussion channel to inform my international peers on the yellow side of the story, as the news most expats get from SCMP or foreign outlets leave a lot of the narrative out of the stories. Many other foreign students I speak to have gone to local protests or rallies only when clashes get intense as a way of sort of protest sightseeing (something I am really against). Many of the people I know are sympathetic but don’t want to get involved in HK because they don’t feel like it is their fight as well. I try and tell people that HK struggle is the same as the world’s against authoritarianism and the CCP’s international dominance, infiltration, and erosion of freedoms. However, many still can not resonate personally to involve themselves. I am currently back in the United States, where I have written about my experience and sent copies to journalists within my networks. Hopefully I will have something published soon to remind people here that they too are at risk and should stand with HK.
2. Many of the intl students I’ve spoken to have taken this action and lobbied senators, with HKHRDA being passed, this is good. I hope HK issue and CCP stays on election agenda in the US for 2020.
3. I am in touch with friends who are well connected to EU governmental bodies and I will see if they can be of assistance in pressing this.
4. I personally do my best to boycott China-made products. However, I feel it is difficult because of how well integrated China is in global supply chain. Personally, I think the first step to make this meaningful is to create or establish Alibaba-like alternatives for the rest of Asia and emerging countries that can manufacture with similar quality, scale, and price as China. This will give options to retailers around the world to purchase non-Chinese goods and remain competitive.
5. Overall lobbying I will continue to try to do. It is difficult because I am not best connected yet. So right now I am trying to push on the public opinion side of things to promote awareness and support for HK abroad.

Thanks again for your suggestion and add oil!

Absolutely. Completely agree. I never have and never will use tik tok. For my friends that download it I tell them about this but many are pretty addicted to the app. At least the ones I tell do not post videos and do not make an account but just use app to view videos. The censorship on tik tok is also really bad.

Don't buy Chinese goods!

Thanks a lot for your support, bro!

Push

Thank you very much!
Please stay safe!

i know that many ppl are addicted to the app and that's worrying.
is there any way for us to counteract?

Honestly, best way right now is to limit the amount of data people are GIVING to Tik Tok. By default, Tik Tok it has full access to the device’s camera and microphone (hardly surprising for a video-sharing app) and its contact list, as well as detailed location data using GPS. If you make videos, it has your facial recognition data. Urging people to 1) not create accounts 2) disable the data given to Tik Tok through the phone privacy settings and 3) refraining from using Tik Tok to post videos or create content.

For people to really realize this and stop using it there needs to be a scandal like there was with Facebook where the data was proven to be compromised.

You have a good grasp of whats going on in China. We all are glad to know this


From my experinece, It is difficult to make them stop using tik tok, buying chinese product and stuff simply by citing how evil China is and how far their infiltration they have done. More often than not they are simply overwhelmed, and rather pick a way to avoid that emotion by thinking it is too remote for them to act etc.
Alarmism, urgentism or whatever you call it can also make people think they are stupid and inferior, it attacks them, we need to avoid it.

It seems paradoxical, but i found persuasion works best not by laying out everything in front of them, but nudging them to discover the truth themselves.

What works for me is simply raise their awareness about stuff made by CCP first (in some random convetsation, be causal). Once they tell you they got slight idea of whole picture, tell them more about how they steal data, tik tok user account deleted for supporting East Turkestan social credit score, suppression in East turkestan, etc.

They will mostly jump into a "holy smoke" kind of reaction, and It is the time tell them what to do next. Persuaion works best when people are shocked and the matter concerned is personally related.

It may be a good persuasion strategy on a smaller scale audiences, but definitely not a clear and straight forward strategy for bigger scale of audiences. But we can work our way up to a mass scale.

Agree for sure! Will approach and tell people this way now! These are very good points.