12 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALSUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020
HONG KONG — In Western de-
mocracies, they have been wel-
comed as refugees escaping Bei-
jing’s tightening grip over Hong
Kong.
In China, they have been de-
nounced as violent criminals es-
caping punishment for their sedi-
tious activities.
A group of Hong Kong activists
who have been granted asylum in
the United States, Canada and
Germany in recent weeks are the
latest catalyst for deteriorating
relations between China and the
West. Western leaders have as-
serted that they will stand up for
human rights in Hong Kong, while
Chinese officials have rebuked the
countries for what they called in-
terference in Beijing’s affairs.
The protesters’ newly con-
ferred status has made clear how
profoundly Hong Kong has
changed since China imposed a
tough new security law this sum-
mer. For decades, the city had
been a place of shelter for people
escaping war, famine and political
oppression in mainland China.
Now the semiautonomous city
has become a source of asylum
seekers.
“The United States is a country
that allows us freedom,” said
Vicky Xiao, a 20-year-old univer-
sity student from Hong Kong who
is in California and seeking asy-
lum in America.
Ms. Xiao said she feared being
arrested if she returned to Hong
Kong because she had taken part
in the demonstrations that roiled
the city last year. One of her for-
mer classmates who had also
joined in the demonstrations in
Hong Kong had been detained by
the police, she said.
The United States is directly
challenging Beijing over its crack-
down on Hong Kong. The Trump
administration moved to list refu-
gees from the city as a priority for
the first time — even as it reduced
the total number of refugees the
United States will take in annu-
ally. At least three bills now before
Congress would enact greater
protections for people fleeing
Hong Kong for the United States.
And the government has moved
unusually quickly to grant asylum
to at least two protesters who left
Hong Kong late last year.
The two activists, who asked
not to be named to protect their
families in Hong Kong, showed
The New York Times documents
stating they had received asylum
in September. They said they had
fled to the Los Angeles area after
receiving multiple calls from an
unlisted number that made them
concerned they were at risk of be-
ing detained.
Ms. Xiao, the university student
who is awaiting a decision on her
asylum application, is also in
Southern California. She is cur-
rently on a student visa and lives
with her parents, who are on busi-
ness visas.
She described sneaking out of
her parents’ house with a back-
pack of clothes last August and
flying to Hong Kong to join the
protests without their approval.
She said she returned after three
days, but has also helped organize
protests in the United States,
which she thinks could put her at
risk of arrest if she had to return to
Hong Kong after her visa expires.
“I don’t know what will happen
to me if I go back to Hong Kong,”
Ms. Xiao said. “But I don’t think
that the consequences will be
good.”
China has not commented on
the U.S. asylum cases. But Beijing
and the Hong Kong government
have dismissed the notion that the
city’s residents might need shel-
ter from oppression, saying the
authorities guarantee the rights of
its people. “There are no so-called
‘refugees being persecuted’ in
Hong Kong,” the city government
said in a statement.And officials have lashed out
publicly at other countries. Hong
Kong’s No. 2 leader, Matthew Che-
ung, summoned Germany’s con-
sul general on Wednesday to com-
plain after Germany granted asy-
lum to a university student who
was wanted on a rioting charge.
Mr. Cheung said the move would
“only send a plainly wrong mes-
sage to criminals.”
In Canada, China’s ambassador,
Cong Peiwu, warned Ottawa
against accepting refugees from
Hong Kong. He said that such a
policy would embolden criminals
in the Chinese city and put “the
good health and safety” of 300,
Canadian passport holders and
companies in the territory at risk.
The ambassador’s remarkswere regarded by some as a po-
tential threat against Canadians
in Hong Kong. They were also a
reminder of the two Canadians
who have been held for nearly two
years in China in retaliation for
the arrest of a top executive of
Huawei, the Chinese technology
giant. Canada’s foreign affairs
minister, François-Philippe
Champagne, denounced the com-
ments as “totally unacceptable
and disturbing.” (China later as-
serted that the remarks had been
taken out of context.)
The crackdown over Hong
Kong has prompted residents
with means to consider their op-
tions elsewhere. Some have
turned to Britain, Hong Kong’s
former colonial master, which has
expanded channels for the city’s
residents to immigrate.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
said in June that the country
would allow holders of British
overseas passports in Hong Kong
to live and work in Britain for up to
five years and later apply for citi-
zenship. The residency plan is
open to nearly three million peo-
ple in total.
China has criticized the plan. A
foreign ministry spokesman,
Zhao Lijian, said on Friday that
Beijing is considering not recog-
nizing the British overseas pass-
port as a valid travel document.
Interest in the passports hasgrown, with the number of over-
seas passport holders more than
doubling to over 357,000 in April
from about 170,000 in 2018. Such
passports, which were given to
Hong Kong residents before the
territory was returned to China in
1997, bear the insignia of the
British government but do not
confer the rights of citizenship.
Derek Yeung, 60, who worked in
sales for technical products,
moved to Britain in August to take
advantage of the new policy. He
said that he had often traveled tothe mainland for work and had
seen corruption and abuses of
power. His experience convinced
him that he would eventually need
to leave Hong Kong after it re-
turned to Chinese rule.
“Because of my experience in
China, I predicted that Hong Kong
will soon degenerate into a police
state,” he said by phone from
Cambridge. The security law im-
posed this summer “just con-
firmed my fears,” he said.Overseas activists have also set
up nonprofits like Haven Assist-
ance to help Hong Kong’s pro-
testers navigate asylum pro-
cedures abroad. Popular destina-
tions include the United States,
Britain, Germany and Taiwan,
which opened a government office
to assist asylum seekers from
Hong Kong this summer.
The group was started by Si-
mon Cheng, who was granted po-
litical asylum in Britain in June,
and other activists. Mr. Cheng
says he gets 10 to 15 inquiries a
day about asylum procedures in
Britain alone.
“I am now safe here, but I need
to help more people,” Mr. Cheng
said. “I can’t be like a free rider.”
Mr. Cheng, a former employee
of the British Consulate in Hong
Kong, had been detained for 15
days in mainland China last year
and accused of soliciting prostitu-
tion, a charge he denies. He says
that while he was in custody he
was beaten and hung for hours in
a spread-eagle position, and co-
erced into making a confession.
Mr. Cheng said that as an over-
seas passport holder, he was eligi-
ble to stay in Britain, but that gain-
ing asylum would demonstrate
the injustice of his experience.
“I wanted to fight for my reputa-
tion, to show my detention politi-
cally motivated, that it was intrin-
sically persecution,” he said.As China Clamps Down, Activists Flee Hong Kong for Refuge in West
“I don’t know what will happen to me if I go back to Hong Kong,” said Vicky Xiao, left, a 22-year-
old college student. She is among a group of protesters who recently left the city to seek asylum.LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESBy AUSTIN RAMZY
and MARIA ABI-HABIBA stark reversal for a
city that was a haven
for the oppressed.
VIA VICKY XIAOSEOUL, South Korea — Like
thousands of other Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses who refused to join the mil-
itary because of their religious be-
liefs, Lee Seung-ki will serve time
in a South Korean prison.
But unlike those before him, Mr.
Lee will not enter as a convicted
criminal. He will be among the
first conscientious objectors in
South Korea allowed to perform
alternative service — jobs like
cook, janitor and clinic assistant
— behind prison walls.
For three years starting on
Monday, Mr. Lee and 63 others
will work, eat and sleep in prisons,
though they will live apart from
the inmates and will be allowed
several weeks of leave. And unlike
Jehovah’s Witnesses who served
prison terms for their beliefs, they
will have no criminal record to
trail them for the rest of their lives.
Alternative service is a seismic
shift in a country that considers
conscription crucial to its defense
against North Korea, with which it
is still technically at war. Military
duty is seen as a revered rite of
passage for able-bodied young
men, who are required to spend 21
months in uniform, usually be-
tween the ages of 18 and 28.
South Korea has imprisoned
more conscientious objectors
than any other country. Its Mili-
tary Service Act requires up to
three years in prison for those
who refuse the draft without “jus-
tifiable” reasons. For decades,
hundreds of young men, almost all
of them Jehovah’s Witnesses,
were put behind bars each year,
usually for 18 months. As inmates,
they did much of the same work
that Mr. Lee will be doing.
“The difference is that the old
objectors did it for 18 months
wearing a prisoner’s uniform, but
we will do it for three years as le-
galized conscientious objectors,”
Mr. Lee said. “I am grateful that I
am finally given this chance to
serve the country without
violating my conscience.”
A historic 2018 ruling by the
Constitutional Court found that
imprisoning conscientious objec-
tors was unconstitutional because
there were no alternative forms of
service, and it ordered the govern-
ment to create some. In Decem-
ber, Parliament passed legislation
that allowed for civilian service in
prisons “and other areas of public
interest” — though for now, at
least, prison work is the only op-
tion the government is offering.
Human rights groups were crit-
ical, saying that the three-year re-
quirement made South Korea’s al-
ternative service the longest in
the world.
Conscientious objectors “are
confronted with little more than
an alternative punishment,” Ar-
nold Fang, an East Asia re-
searcher for Amnesty Interna-
tional, said in December. “Confin-
ing people to work in a prison —
and for almost twice as long as the
typical military service — does
not respect their right to freedom
of thought, conscience, religion or
belief.”
Still, for Jehovah’s Witnesses,
alternative service is a hard-won
victory.
In the decades after the Korean
War, when South Korea was ruled
by military dictators, male Jeho-
vah’s Witnesses of draft age who
refused to serve were dragged
into military boot camps and
stockades, where they were vili-
fied as “traitors,” beaten and in
some cases killed, according to re-
ports from a presidential commis-
sion in 2008.
One member of the church, Kim
Keun-hyeong, 27, said he knew
from an early age that he would
end up in prison unless he aban-
doned his beliefs. His older
brother, also a Jehovah’s Witness,
was imprisoned for refusing mili-
tary service. When Mr. Kim dis-
obeyed his enlistment order, he,
too, was put on trial on charges ofdodging the draft.
But his case was suspended in
2013, when he joined 27 others to
mount the legal challenge that led
to the Constitutional Court’s rul-
ing.
“I respect the decision of those
who join the military,” Mr. Kim
said. “But I also wanted my deci-
sion not to join the military for my
religious conviction to be re-
spected, as well.”
After the court’s ruling, officials
and lawmakers weighed various
forms of civilian service, like
working in nursing homes, fire
stations or hospitals. Some ar-
gued that if alternative service
was not long and rigorous enough,
young men would try to evade the
draft under the pretext of ethical
principles, compromising the
country’s ability to deter NorthKorea’s 1.1 million-strong military.
In their prison work, conscien-
tious objectors will be exempt
from guard and prisoner-escort
duty, which involves carrying fire-
arms. But like soldiers, they will
live in barrackslike facilities.
The question of who should be
excused from military service has
long been a sensitive topic in
South Korea.
“It’s a sacred duty to defend our
country, but that doesn’t mean
that everyone has to carry a weap-
on,” Noh Woong-rae, a senior law-
maker in the governing party, said
this month. He floated the idea
that K-pop stars, like members of
BTS, should be exempted from the
draft.
For decades, top athletes have
been excused from military serv-
ice on the grounds that they en-hanced national prestige. K-pop
fans say it is unfair that world-
class pop stars are denied that
privilege.
In a report to Parliament this
month, the Military Manpower
Administration, which oversees
the draft, offered a compromise: It
would let top K-pop stars post-
pone their service so that they
could perform for a few more
years at the peak of their careers.
Such a revision would be a god-
send for the oldest member of
BTS, Kim Seok-jin, who turns 28 in
December and must enlist within
the following year.
But South Korea cannot afford
too many exemptions. After dec-
ades of low birthrates, it will soon
lack enough young men to main-
tain its conscript military at
620,000 members, defense offi-cials say. (The military accepts fe-
male volunteers — about 13,
are now serving — but there has
never been serious discussion of
drafting women.)
There is still much hostility in
South Korea toward men seen as
draft dodgers. Yoo Seung-jun, 43,
once one of the most popular K-
pop singers, saw his career crash
and burn in 2002, after he was ac-
cused of evading military service
by becoming an American citizen.
He has since been barred from en-
tering South Korea.
As for Kim Keun-hyeong, his
travails did not end with the Con-
stitutional Court’s ruling.
His original case in a lower
court was reopened, with prosecu-
tors focusing on whether he was a
genuine conscientious objector.
Trying to debunk his argument
that he had lived according to
pacifist biblical teachings, they
asked online gaming companies if
Mr. Kim had ever played games
involving guns and violence.
It was not until last month, eight
years after he first disobeyed his
draft order, that Mr. Kim was ac-
quitted and recognized as a legiti-
mate conscientious objector.
The ripple effects of his ordeal
still linger.
When he got married last year,
the couple had to cancel their hon-
eymoon to Malaysia because he
had no passport. He had been de-
nied one because he was still on
trial.
Mr. Kim must now apply to a
government panel that selects
conscientious objectors for alter-
native service.
He and his wife are bracing for
years of living apart once his pris-
on job begins.
“We wept together when we
discussed how we were going to
live separated for three years,”
said his wife, Kim Seo-young, who
is also a Jehovah’s Witness. “But
we promised each other to travel
around the world together when
he finally gets free.”South Korea Lets Draft Resisters Serve Their Country, as Prison Employees
By CHOE SANG-HUNLee Seung-ki, a Jehovah’s Witness in Seoul, took a prison job as an alternative to military service.WOOHAE CHO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES.