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.