Hong Kong Activists have worked to bring political conversation into the physical public spaces as a way to occupy city streets as the Umbrella Movement did, as well as to thwart social media tracking by the Chinese Government.  This includes everything from handwritten sticky notes to printed QR codes posed around the city.   These strategies allow for dissident political speech while promoting social distancing behavior and avoiding Chinese Government tracking.  

Decentralization of Political Speech in Hong Kong

There have also been efforts to speak out against Mainland China in innocuous ways that may be harder for the government to flag or prosecute, while remaining socially distanced.  Activists have also arranged active patronage of stores with supply chains that do not rely on Mainland China or with leadership that has taken the risk of bolder forms of protest. Young people have also taken to the popular video game ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ to hold virtual protests.  

Veiled Dissent in Hong Kong

- Decentralization of Political Speech
- Veiled Dissent


University of California, Davis

As of June 30th 2020, the Chinese Communist party passed a set of national security laws that criminalized crimes of subversion and secession using vague language that provides for potentially erratic enforcement.  While there is no direct evidence of the theory, many academics believe the timing of the law with the covid-19 virus was a calculated maneuver to extend Chinese Communist Party Control over Hong Kong, which has historically benefited from greater free speech protections than the mainland.   Civil disobedience tactics have largely fallen out of the norm as group gatherings become a major health risk in the age of Covid-19.  Social media activism has become far riskier under the recent subversion and secession crime bill, easily tracked by the Chinese Government and with potential penalties of imprisonment. 

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