Undaunted by likely prison term, Hong Kong Indigenous Leader Speaks Out

Ray Wong during our interview. Photos © Daniel C Tsang

Ray Wong (黃台仰), the 24 year-old founder of Hong Kong Indigenous, a Hong Kong political party advocating Hong Kong Independence, continues to speak out for a Hong Kong way of life increasingly endangered by what he depicts as the former British Crown Colony's new colonizers, the Peoples Republic of China.  He does so despite facing a likely lengthy prison term in a forthcoming trial.

He faces a potential decade behind bars if convicted of 'rioting' in the so-called Fishball Revolution of 2016, where riot police, according to Wong, beat up bystanders and sprayed pepper spray, after he and his group went to Mongkok to help unlicensed street hawkers set up their stalls during Lunar New Year celebrations. 

As he related during an almost hour-long interview (in Cantonese, the language spoken in Hong Kong) recorded16 October 2017 at his party's offices in

tober

Hong Kong Indigenous tee shirt

an industrial warehouse building in the New Territories, his greatest fear is not prison but what happens outside while he is incarcerated, as he anticipates.  He recalls a nightmarish dream where for five years in prison he remains politically committed but on leaving the prison walls he discovers a totally changed Hong Kong, one that does not care about its future.  Luckily dreams are not predictors of what will actually happen.

[Weeks after the interview Ray Wong absconded to Germany, which granted him and fellow dissident Alan Li asylum as a refugee last May. -- 26 May 2019 Update.]

It was during his teens from Form 3 in secondary school when he realized interacting and speaking Putonghua with classmates from the Mainland the immense gulf that separated Hong Kongers (or Hong Kongese) from those who came from across the Chinese border to take classes at his school.  First there was the disdain the Putonghua Mainlanders had for him and his fellow Cantonese speakers, but more than that, he realized they were not able to think freely, having been raised under a political regime that placed everything under the dictates of Communist Party.

Hong Kong Indigenous bag

Born in Hong Kong, he started interested in politics as a pupil in secondary school,and would soon participated in local social movements, to the worry of his mother (his parents are separated), who today wonders why he has to put his life on the line, worried about what happened to Liu Shao-bo, the Nobel Prizewinner who died in prison in China.  His parents, he pointed out, came from the Mainland, and know what the Chinese government can do to dissidents.  Thus he feels sorry getting his mom be so worried, but he believes in the event communism ends in China, as some China watchers are anticipating with the impending collapse of a bloated economy, it will present an opening for an alternative future for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Indigenous leaflet 2017

He and his fellow party members were in Mongkok last year to do what they did without incident the previous year, help hawkers who were setting up to sell fishballs and other delicacies during the Lunar New Year holidays, Wong says this time the local police started beating up not the hawkers but bystanders and using teargas.  That's how the events escalated during the Fishball Revolution.

Often accused by detractors of being a nativist, he insists his party does not discriminate against Mainlanders, just those who emigrate to Hong Kong without adopting the values of a cosmopolitan Hong Kong, pointing out that there is no citizenship test required about Hong Kong culture.  He notes that fellow Hong Kong Indigenous activist Edward Leung, whom we interviewed last year, was born on the Chinese Mainland but identifies as a Hong Kongnese.  In Hong Kong Indigenous, he says there are some 75 core members with 200 to 300 other supporters. 


He sees his mission now is to let the world know about how China is oppressing the people of Hong Kong.  Having travelled to meet with officials in Europe he finds they lack deep understanding of the reality of how China oppresses people within in its control.  He sees the route taken by other activists to potentially complain about human rights violations to the United Nations as "impractical", given Big Power control there.

Now that all Hong Kong political activists face a more authoritarian and intense crackdown by the Hong Kong Government, backed by Beijing, the various political factions seem willing to talk to each other.  Witness an event that took place just last month, on September 24.  HKU Law Prof. Benny Tai (戴耀廷), a leader of Occupy Central in 2014 was seated with Wong and other believers in democratic reform on a panel discussion after a community screening of indie filmmaker and arts professor Evans Chan (陳耀成)’s in-depth documentary on the Umbrella Movement, “Raise the Umbrellas” (撐傘), amicably discussing the past and future of Hong Kong activism.  – Daniel C. Tsang.

Activist Edward Leung on Localism in Hong Kong

To listen to our June 6, 2016 Subversity Show Online interview with Edward Leung, click here.
2018 June update: Edward Leung was sentenced to a draconian six years in prison in June, 2018. Just prior to that, he wrote some thoughts on Facebook.   

Edward Leung Tin-kei (梁天琦) is a key Hong Kong localist activist who was barred from running in the recent Legislative Council elections that nonetheless resulted in fellow localists gaining seats, keeping alight the flame for self determination and even independence.  He would likely have won a seat too if he wasn't banned.

When I interviewed the Indigenous Party spokesman in June, 2016, a few days after his 25th birthday, while he expressed he would likely run in the 3 September 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council elections, little did I expect him to go through the motions of retracting his commitment to the cause of Hong Kong independence in an ultimately abortive attempt to qualify for the election (he was still banned), nor did I expect him to be pushed to the ground in a "scuffle" with a Ta Kung Pao reporter last month.  However, he likely remains committed to the independence cause.

Edward Leung interviewed 6 June 2016 at HKU Starbucks.  Photos © Daniel C. Tsang 2016

The Subversity Show Online interview in June reveals this bright Hong Kong University philosophy student as articulate and forthright when asked about his views on Hong Kong independence.  In June, I was in Hong Kong attending a library sustainability conference, and had heard him speak the previous Saturday at an alternative June 4 forum at HKU, where he was one of five speakers (one from each generation of activism).  There, he eloquently explained in Cantonese why as a longtime Hong Kong resident (he came as a young kid from Wuhan) he identified as a Hong Konger and believed, as did the other panelists, that it was more important for Hong Kong people to discuss Hong Kong's future, rather than China's, which they saw as just meddling in local affairs. Leung, after all, had won an amazing 66,524 votes when he ran last March in a by-election (he didn't win), proving that his views have huge resonance among the population, especially those around his age (he's 25).

In the interview he describes how he became radicalized when he saw his friends beaten up (bloodied) by the police in earlier local protests.  He speaks out against the unfairness of immigration policies allowing Chinese nationals to be admitted to Hong Kong without Hong Kong government vetting (only China does it).   His group is known for demonstrating against mainlanders but he explained that the purpose was aimed at stopping parallel traders and smugglers.  While he himself came from Wuhan, China at age 1, his mom spoke to him in Cantonese from his arrival in Hong Kong, even though her Cantonese wasn't very good.  That is why he identifies as a Hong Kong person, he explained.

As for politics in general, he saw the decline of social leaders, such as Joshua Wong nowadays, when he "doesn't have the same influence". According to Leung, people criticize him (Joshua Wong) as changing his political ideology, seeing independence as "no use", but he later changed his stance, now advocating self determination. 

Ironically he expected people to criticize himself as well in future.  As for his earlier by-election vote totals, he was surprised as he thought he was more radical than the public but he got more and more support.  He explained what happened during the Mongkok protests (for which he has been arrested) and what led to it.  Police actually allowed them to remain with the hawkers but later the riot squad showed up and some people argued they were there to enjoy the food.  He was eating when a disturbance broke up, with the police declaring an "illegal assembly". 

He says he was charged with "rioting"  after the police shot two bullets into the air.  People were beaten up and people started to retreat.  We could "smell the gunpowder" and people became more angry.  He sees the potential sentence of five years as "quite harsh".

As for government surveilance he says he has heard "weird voices" on his phone. He believes that publicity or the media coverage is the only way to protect the activists.  Apps like Telegram are not safe enough; Firechat is not very useful.

On campus he has protested against the Hong Kong University Council head, with a class boycott on top of getting involved in the elections, thus missing more than half of the semester, but his department at HKU has helped him to rearrange his schedule so he could still complete his studies.  He still had one summer semester after our interview.

--  Daniel C. Tsang