Voice of the 370k: Publication of the Latest Survey Results on the National Security Law

The Chinese Communist Party’s move to bypass the LegCo and impose the national security law is no doubt the last nail in the coffin for the ‘Two Systems’. In light of this issue, the Citizens’ Press Conference conducted a mass online survey to collect pro-democracy supporters’ opinions on the national security law between 23rd and 25th May, and collected 370,024 valid responses. Taking the largest number of participants we have had so far at pro-democracy demonstrations, which is 2 million, it returns that 1 in 6 of these pro-democracy supporters had filled in the questionnaire. Furthermore, within the 72-hour window during which the survey was open, a record of over 540,000 non-repeated visits were made to the website on which the questionnaire was lodged. This is the largest show of opinion that the Citizens’ Press Conference has ever received.

The data show that close to 99% of the respondents disapprove of the national security law, and habour intense negative feelings towards the law, with the top three being anger (79.3%), vexation (73.6%), and resentment (67.6%), all accounting for over two-thirds of the total count of respondents, followed by fear (61.9%) and pessimism (59.9%). However, these feelings of frustration do not erode the pro-democracy supporters’ will to fight for freedom: over 80% of the respondents agree that this law cannot suppress street protests and resistance within the legislature; over 90% also think that the law cannot break the international front of the movement.

Zooming into the terms stipulated in the law, Article 4, in particular, specifies that national security ‘institutions and enforcement mechanisms’ can be set up in Hong Kong. With regards to that, 93.1% of the respondents equate these establishments as the secret police, and anticipate that they would employ extreme and extrajudicial means to persecute dissidents, such as extradition to mainland China, unlawful arrests, and extrajudicial punishments. All these could go without any check by the local judicial system in Hong Kong. In another vein, Article 5 also requires the Chief Executive to roll out and report on the progress of national security education in Hong Kong. 98.1% of the respondents believe that this signifies an imminent change to our education system to brainwash schoolchildren with nationalist ideologies; 80% of the respondents also relate these proposals to the recent HKDSE History exam question controversy.

Respondents also overwhelmingly agree that the national security law creates white terror around the city. 90.1% of the respondents predict that discussing the pro-democracy movement online would become a high-risk activity under the law, along with designing and distribution political communication materials (83.6%), and signing online petitions (80.8%). On Hong Kong’s future prospects, 94.8% of the respondents believe that the legislation would weaken the international and global financial statuses of Hong Kong; 80.4% also support a desertification of Hong Kong’s special trade status in accordance with the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act as a retaliatory measure by the US against Beijing’s move.

Although 86.6% of the respondents expressed fear of the possibility that the CCP’s national security enforcers will operate in Hong Kong, and that 67.7% worry that their political stance will affect their work prospects, 48.6% of the respondents strongly stand by their determination to continue on with their resistance. For each of the pro-democracy activities presented as options for a risk assessment in the questionnaire, over 50% of the respondents expressed that it still should go ahead under the law; over 70,000 respondents even stated that they would continue to protest on the frontline, which is the riskiest, most radical activity amongst all the options offered.

Our spokesperson reported pro-democracy supporters still march on with the same strong will and energy even in the face of a gloomy future. The pessimistic outlook is reflected in the respondents’ optimism score for their outlook of the movement, which remains level, at 4.7 out of 10, with what we recorded in previous surveys, and in the rating for the future of Hong Kong as a whole, which has dropped to a low of 2.84 out of 10. However, despite the fact that 90.3% of the respondents do not hold a foreign passport (except for a BNO), 79.2% of the respondents accord with the idea of burning with the regime in order to bring it down; 64.2% of the respondents, which amounts to circa 230,000 people, also support the notion that Hong Kong independence should be adopted as the ultimate goal of the pro-democracy movement. The spokesperson commented that ‘pro-democracy supporters are determined for a long-term battle with the totalitarian regime and accompanying it to its eventual fall, against the backdrop of a homeland in ruin’.

In the end, the spokesperson described the Chinese Communist Party’s move to terminate the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework by injecting Hong Kong with their national security law as a ‘gamble to challenge the rules-based international order while the rest of the world founders in a deadly pandemic which originated in China’. However, the spokesperson concluded on the remark that ‘braving the ever deepening terror and police brutality, Hongkongers once again took to the streets yesterday and showed the world our reluctance to submit’, and that they are ‘ready to face the consequences of a decertification of our special trade status as an international financial centre’ and ‘bathe in the flame of our funeral pyre, if this means we shall emerge victorious from our ashes someday soon’.