On 30 June 2020, the Chinese government imposed a National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong. This imposition violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration. In response to this violation, the British government has opened a bespoke pathway for holders of British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status and their dependents to resettle in the United Kingdom and eventually gain full British citizenship. Adult children of BN(O) status holders can also independently apply by providing proof of their parentage. Over 500,000 people have left Hong Kong since the NSL’s imposition, among which 187,552 individuals have been granted BN(O) visa. Australia and Canada similarly offered immigration routes for the people of Hong Kong escaping China’s political repression.

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But since China’s assault on Hong Kong, there has been increasing incidents of transnational repression not only in the UK but also in other parts of the world. A Hong Kong protester was beaten and violently dragged into the Manchester Chinese embassy. Letters offering a reward were sent to neighbours of Hong Kong activists to bring them to Chinese officials. Hong Kong Watch and its founder Benedict Rogers were threatened under the NSL. Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, received a 20-year sentence for exercising political expression. Former secretary-general of Demosistō Joshua Wong was similarly charged with collusion with foreign forces. My own PhD supervisor, Chongyi Feng, an Australian citizen, scholar-activist, and critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was issued an arrest warrant in 2025 for helping to set up the Hong Kong Parliament. Feng is no stranger to political persecution from the CCP. In 2017, he was detained by national security police for endangering national security during a research trip to China. These examples illustrate not only the increasing intensity of transnational repression, but that political repression extends beyond civil society to legitimate scholarly activities.

As associate professor and co-convener of the Asia-Pacific Research Group at the University of Technology Sydney, Feng hosted a conference on resistance against political repression, where I presented on this topic last year. I argue that the CCP targets Hong Kong dissidents to silence competing understandings of Hong Kong’s sovereignty. The CCP does this through discursive inversion. By reversing the roles of perpetrator and victim, the Chinese government seeks to maintain its legitimacy. This article will first outline the history of political repression in and beyond Hong Kong, then illustrate how the CCP uses the mechanism of discursive inversion to maintain its political survival, and finally, conclude with some recommendations for future political resistance against the CCP.

Hong Kong’s History of Political Repression

Hong Kong was an anomaly during British decolonisation in the twentieth century (Wong 2026). While other British colonies became independent, Hong Kong was the only colony that was transferred to another sovereign state without the people’s consent. Self-determination, in this sense, was not completed under the framework of UN’s decolonisation principles. Instead, Hong Kong’s self-determination was managed through the promise “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong”. This arrangement became known as “one country, two systems”, under which Hong Kong would have the autonomy to run its own affairs as an independent political entity for fifty years, with the exception of foreign affairs and defence, ministries which are managed by China on Hong Kong’s behalf. Under the Joint Declaration, the people of Hong Kong were promised a democratically elected local government and legislature.

But the Joint Declaration was China’s strategic deception. The document did not specify the method of election for the future democratic government. As Hong Kong was a British colony, it is not difficult to surmise that this future electoral system would have been widely understood as a Westminster-type system, with open and fair elections. Indeed, Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, fully democratised the legislature in 1995. But at the 1997 handover, this fully elected legislature was dismantled by the CCP, which accused Patten of violating prior agreements, and replaced the elected legislature with a “provisional” legislature, itself a creation appointed in exile.

But perhaps the first significant repudiation on the Joint Declaration post-handover was the 2014 White Paper, which claimed China had “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong. Its subsequent Decision Paper set out the framework for this democratisation: 2-3 candidates would be “nominated” by a pro-Beijing committee for the public to elect to the office of the Chief Executive. This was widely regarded as fake democracy and led to the 79-day Umbrella Movement. Hong Kong’s own legislature subsequently rejected the Beijing package in 2015. It was then that many localist and Hong Kong independence groups sprung up in Hong Kong’s political landscape in resistance to the totalitarian party-state’s interference with local affairs. In 2016, Nathan Law was elected as the youngest legislator in Hong Kong’s history. Demosistō, formed together with Joshua Wong, advocated self-determination of Hong Kong before the end of the fifty-year agreement.

But Beijing decided to silence him. The government disqualified Law a year later, with the official reason being his insincere oath. Xi Jinping came to Hong Kong first the first time in 2017, and told Hongkongers that they must not cross the “red line”. Xi did not specify what that meant at the time. In the ensuing years, advocating for self-determination became increasingly difficult, with these pro-democracy candidates not being allowed to run for election. When Hongkongers threw black paint at the PRC emblem on the night of 21 July........

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