Hong Kong’s dying democracy

Of the many disruptions caused by Covid-19, its impact on the pro-democracy protest movement in Hong Kong was one of the most tragic. In 2019 and 2020, the largest series of demonstrations in the region’s history had forced then-chief executive Carrie Lam to withdraw her controversial extradition bill with mainland China. But then Lam ordered a violent crackdown, and the pandemic made further demonstrations impossible.

Since then, the authorities have further expanded national security laws and, as Frankie Vetch writes, “most of the democracy movement within Hong Kong has been dismantled or driven underground.” But for some time afterwards, one woman remained “a rare voice of open defiance”: lawyer Chow Hang-tung. After being held in prison without trial for five years, she was sentenced last week for up to 10 years in prison. In the days before her conviction, she told Vetch through an intermediary that “we should not lose our confidence in the people, who are where hope lies.”

Chow is not the only Hong Konger to be featured in our People section this year. In March, Prospect’s Imaan Irfan interviewed author Dorothy Tse, whose novella City Like Water “paints an unsettling, dreamlike picture of a city overtaken by authoritarianism.”

Nineteenth-century artist Richard Dadd was institutionalised in a very different manner, but it also inspired him to produce “dreamlike” works. After developing symptoms of psychosis and killing his father, Dadd was admitted to Bethlem Hospital (better known as “Bedlam”) at just 27 years old. The goal of the Royal Academy’s new exhibition about the man is clear, writes Prospect’s David McAllister: “to get us to consider the merits of Dadd’s work as the output of an artist rather than mere Victorian curio, as it was in the past. All the same, it is impossible to separate our judgement of his work from the circumstances that gave rise to it...”

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports today that Rupert Lowe is on course to earn as much from Elon Musk’s X as he does from his parliamentary salary. I wrote about Lowe’s domination of X in June, and considered whether Musk may have tipped the algorithmic scales in favour of his favourite Brit.

Finally, Lightbulbers have weighed in in favour of sovereign wealth funds, despite Ethan Zuckerman’s reservations about the AI-based proposals from Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. With Andy Burnham facing questions today about his plans for North Sea drilling (an idea Sam Alvis and Simon Sharpe have critiqued in in Prospect), reader Derek argues that “the UK missed the chance” to copy Norway and use North Sea revenue to establish a sovereign wealth fund, “because Margaret Thatcher chose to let private interests pocket the money.” What do you think? Email me at ben.clark@prospectmagazine.co.uk with your thoughts.