ñcñcñcñc♪ [singing in cantonese] [singing in cantonese] bill birtles: it was the pro-democracy movement's anthem of hope. that somehow, the will of millions of hong kongers would prevail over the might of beijing. ♪♪♪ [singing in cantonese] [singing in cantonese]

bill: but what a difference a year makes. hong kong, once china's liberal outpost, has gone from a city of protest to a city of fear. male: [speaking foreign language] bill: covid restrictions have unexpectedly conspired with beijing's efforts to crush the protests and silence a city. and one by one, china's government is taking down those who resist, from billionaire tycoons to uni students. joshua wong: and now is not the time for us to kowtow to beijing and to surrender, thank you. claudia mo: the mood is a bit eerie. on the surface, hong kong is still quite so glamorous, quite so prosperous-looking, but then deep down it's rotting. bill: we join one young pro-democracy activist who's been forced underground.

max mok: the atmosphere's different. it's a lot grimmer, and it's very-- it's become a lot harder to hold on to ho. bill: as dissent is crushed, hong kong activists face a tough choice: to stay or flee? prison or exile? max: this is the only thing i think about now, this couple of weeks, is whether or not i'll be able to leave hong kong before something goes down. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [crowd noise] bill: for six months, i reported from the streets as hong kongers rose up and a city burned. [guns firing]

bill: and here it is: the inevitable conclusion to another night of protests here in hong kong. bill: many people i interviewed are now imprisoned. female: tonight, an extraordinary standoff. two australian journalists, including the abc's china correspondent bill birtles, have been rushed out of china, amid fears they faced arbitrary detention. bill: as china's relations with australia dintegrated, i was caught in the middle of a worsening diplomatic crisis. bill: it's a relief to be back into the country with genuine rule of law. bill: so this is my new temporary home: sydney's eastern beaches. i can't go back to china any time soon. and as for hong kong, well, it's more and more like mainland china.

people that i used to ring during the protests, they won't even pick up the phone and speak to me anymore. the fear there is real and it is widespread. there's a new national security law and many people there think that talking to someone like me, a foreign journalist, could now put them at risk of being arrested and jailed. ♪♪♪ bill: but with the collaboration of a local crew, we've been able to document the crushing of a rebellion. ♪♪♪ bill: the crackdown and coronavirus may have cleared the streets of demonstrators, but there's still a crowd at the courts for the arrival of protest leaders. joshua: we have more than 10,000 hong kongers who were arrested, 2000 of us were prosecuted, hundred of the activists were already physically locked up in prison.

i think their courage and determination impressed me and inspired me there's no reason for us to step backward. bill: twenty-four-year-old joshua wong and his two closest political allies are fronting up for their big day in court. hong kong's most famous student activist, he's led pro-democracy protests since he was a teenager. joshua: it would not be surprising if i'm sent to immediate detention today. in the past 3 weeks, a total of 23 activists, journalist and councilor came under arrest. every day we have activists standing in trial, protestor sent to jail. bill: today, he'll plead guilty to organizing and inciting a protest at the height of the unrest in 2019. joshua: may god bless hong kong. and we will continue to fight for freedom. ♪♪♪ bill: anticipating another jail stretch, joshua wong agreed

to talk to us a few days before his trial. joshua: i would say that, as the one who have been arrested for ten times, faced six court cases, been jailed for three times and might be jailed soon, time might be running out for my personal safety. as a political activist, my role is to continue to fight and to let the voice of hong kongers be heard around the world. bill: his instincts prove correct. five days after our interview joshua wong leaves court in a prison van with a thirteen-month sentence. one of hong kong's most prominent voices now publicly silenced. supporters defiantly telling him he's not alone. it could have been worse. his "crime" happened before the introduction in june 2020 of a feared new national security law, under which anyone

can now be charged with terrorism, subversion, secession, or foreign collusion. the penalty: up to life in prison. joshua: we can still go forward and overcome the threat. i would say that the threat could not defeat hong kongers, would just make hong kongers even stronger determination to keep on our struggle. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ bill: for each activist voice muted, there are many more still on the streets, watching, waiting to step forward. max: when you see joshua wong being arrested, it's not just joshua wong alone, it's also the

thousands of protestors that is with him. thousands of other protestors are also being arrested, and these are smler names, these are people that you'll never see the face or know the names of. ♪♪♪ bill: twenty-year-old max mok is part of hong kong's rebellion generation. he's more radical than most, calling for much more than self-rule. max: hong kong will be independent. that's what i believe in. bill: it's a statement that could now get him jailed. ♪♪♪ bill: raised on hong kong island, max mok left for university in australia, only to come back and join the mass movement. max: i remember seeing the scenes of the protests, and i just couldn't wait to go back to hong kong, because i felt this strong need to serve our homeland.

bill: like so many young hong kongers, max joined the protests, hoping peaceful defiance would be enough. max: it was a gradual process for me. i started from way back, just passing things along, helping signal things, not even in full black tracksuit and black sportswear. but eventually, in the span of like a week, honestly, you kind of just see the need to move forward, to take the positions that are now empty, because they were arresting lots of people. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

bill: he donned the black street uniform of the radicals, joining a hardcore group that believed violence was the only way to resist beijing's tightening grip on the city: attacking pro-china supporters, destroying their property. max: the one major goal we had in mind is to push this movement even further than what it was, to have more confrontations, to be more confrontational against the regime and the police. bill: but as police ramped up the arrests, max changed tactics, eventually disavowing violence, forming a peaceful student political group to launch verbal assaults on the authorities. [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language]

bill: for this, he was denounced as a traitor by thero-beijing media. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ bill: a defining moment of the 2019 protests came when activists smashed their way into the hong kong parliament, the legislative council. bill: some are wondering if maybe this could be a tactic: let the police stand down, let the protestors really run amok. extraordinary scenes: thousands of young demonstrators storming the legislative council, absolutely ransacking it, spraying graffiti all over the walls. this is such a huge embarrassment to the hong kong government and to china's government. bill: the former british colony was handed back to china in 1997 under a deal touted as "one country, two systems," with

hong kong guaranteed self-rule for 50 years. an older generation of pro-democracy activists sought to engage with the system by running for seats here in the council. but many of max's generation, born after the handover, say they failed. max: i think somewhere in them, they still are fighting for that cause, but for the--but the facts are here. for the past 20 years we haven't seen any roadmap and we haven't seen any significant progress. all we have seen is the gradual erosion of hong kong's democracy, and of the little democracy we had. i'm not chinese, and i won't be. i'm a hong konger and that's what i'm fighting for. so that's the major difference here. bill: today, the graffiti is gone, the damage repaired. inside, legislative council member claudia mo has just quit,

after eight years on the pro-democracy ticket. claudia: now, i'm taking you to my room, 809 here, you see? how they cover me up like this, see? used to be here, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. now it's all covered up. claudia: it's very maddening. it's not just physically strenuous, it's mentally very exhausting and so i was quite happy to call it a day, but that doesn't mean we're giving up the democracy fight in hong kong. claudia: we'll just take it back home. bill: claudia mo, along with the city's remaining 15 pro-democracy politicians, are packing up and resigning en masse. claudia: what exactly happened was that they disqualified four of our democratic legislators, four of my colleagues.

and to start with, i had to show solidarity with them. the reasons they used, saying they've not been patriotic, basically. they gave--they, beijing, has given some new definitions to patriotism. bill: the mass resignations means there's no opposition in the city's parliament. the council is now totally under beijing's control. claudia: look at this. bill: farewelling claudia mo, three other legco members who were also forced out. claudia: guys, this is a pilot. male: was. was a pilot. claudia: sweetie. and a medical doctor. they got all--well, i wouldn't say chucked out, 'cause i think they were--no, not you. you were--you two were, sort of, "disqualified," huh?

"disqualified" by beijing, who else? male: we were the reasons why claudia has to resign. claudia: these are my old prints. this is the hsbc back in, what, 1865, which i am going to bring. and of course i need to take this as well. so i will just roll this out. roll, roll, you'll have to excuse me now. oh, roll, roll, roll. roll, roll, roll. claudia: i was born and brought up in hong kong and i'm a hong kong person. i'm a hong konger through and through. i never ever imagined hong kong would have come to this.

bill: beijing's security services are firmly in control here now, watching, listening. many hong kongers don't dare say what they really think. one outsider still prepared to share his observations is australian lawyer and author, antony dapiran. antony dapiran: i'm a commentator and an analyst and a writer, but i don't think that anything that i do breaches the national security law. bill: he's lived here for 16 years and, before that, in beijing, chronicling the uprising and the politics of his adopted home. antony: there's a very strong sense, really, across an entire

generation of hong kongers, that this is--this is their fight, it's a fight that they strongly believe in. and i'm not sure that just jailing the key leaders or even the threat of jail for people who continue to partipate will be enough to entirely dissuade them, and it certainly won't win over their hearts and minds. bill: do you think the chinese government would want there to be an exodus of pro-democracy types? or would it be kind of annoyed to see them go? antony: it's long been part of the beijing playbook to force leading dissidents, even from the mainland, into exile, where they quickly lose their relevance. they lose their connection back home, their message ceases to be communicated back to within china, and they lose their potency as a threat to the chinese government. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

max: i feel like this battle has been moved away from hong kong for some time now. bill: in response to beijing's crackdown, about 300,000 hong kongers are expected to leave, most of them to the uk. and max now faces a tough choice. he inherited australian citizenship from his father, who returned to hong kong years before he was born. he can live in australia after completing his studies, or take his chances here as an activist. ♪♪♪ bill: max decides to leave, to join the growing ranks of exiles campaigning against china from abroad. max: as an australian citizen, as a hong kong citizen,

as a citizen of the world, it's a responsibility to me to just continue this fight on other fronts as well, because hong kong is so grim now. bill: it's a huge life-changing decision for a 20-year-old. and there's no coming back. max: it's not easy choice to make, to leave your homeland. and honestly, the weight of the issue hasn't quite set in yet. having to leave a place that i've been so used to for the past 20 years, so. and weirdly enough, i feel a bit of excitement for the future, what it holds. although the world's a bit chaotic here, i think this is the best chance we have now for striking for any future for hong kong. bill: but one young aspiring politician sees a bright future for herself in a new hong kong under tighter communist control.

today, nixie lam is out in the suburbs, near the mainland border, handing out covid masks to her supporters. there are no young activists here. nixie lam: so we were very worried about our situation last year, but this year is much better, especially after the national security law. bill: following eight years of school and university in australia, she joined hong kong's biggest pro-beijing political party. for her, the protest movement was dangerous. nixie: they're asking people to take revenge on me because i am pro-government. bill: a former local district councilor, she was dumped by voters in a massive swing against pro-beijing candidates at the last local elections. nixie: all of the district councilors that's running for the campaign, we actually bought the little vest to protect our bodies just in case somebody, if they stab us, we're not gonna die.

bill: but now, nixie lam's convinced her political fortunes will change, thanks to the peace imposed by the new national security law. nixie: i don't think a lot of people actually read the details. it's only in four fields. it's, like, secession, sedition, foreign interventions, and terrorism. you can still do protests, you can just say your views online and do your pages, whatever. you can still do that. just don't say you want hong kong independence and do some actual movements or accept foreign monies to try to promote things like that. then you'll be totally fine. bill: and there's no sympathy for jailed prominent activists like joshua wong. nixie: they're famous not because they're activist leaders in hong kg. they're famous because if you ask anyone, "who's the biggest traitor of hong kong?" they will give you those names.

bill: max is tipped off about a protest at an upmarket shopping mall. ♪♪♪ bill: some hong kongers are still prepared to risk jail through extraordinary acts of defiance. bill: just one man, with what now is an illegal message. bill: it's a far cry from the millions of protestors who once took to the streets. with max and a friend recording on phones, heavily armed riot police move in. max: most protests are organized online. the police having the same internet access that we do, they can then preemptively plan and preemptively strike on potential protesters. so it's become a lot harder to organize anything,

because the police will already be there. bill: police insist "nothing to see here," demanding that shoppers leave to comply with covid social distancing rules. [speaking foreign language] bill: but the banner conveys the real threat, warning protestors they may be committing acts of secession or subversion under the new national security law. plainclothes mainland security agents, now based in hong kong, help police investigate these political crimes. anyone charged under the new national security law can now be tried in mainland china. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

bill: hong kong's struggle is splitting many families along generational lines. max: some members of my family would say that this is me throwing my life away. i know that my family doesn't necessarily support the views that i have. i've never tried to convert them, and the only thing that i ask is that they shouldn't interfere or try to convert me either. bill: max says his father and grandparents support the government. at times, he fears them more than the police. like many in the older generation, they abhor the protestor tactics, placing peace and prosperity ahead of political freedoms. max: i am the problem, it's that people like me, my generation, is the problem of hong kong. we're trying to secede hong kong from china, we are riotous, we are brainwashed by the west. we are terrorists, basically, to them.

so i've been storing my protest equipment at home. and those kind of things is risky to have around me, and i've always been living on the edge, thinking that my fily might somehow find it and then turn me into the police. and this fear was confirmed very early on, when my brother used to tell me that my father would, in my absence, talk about how he would arrest me, and how i would do betteif i spend ten years behind bars, things like that. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ bill: max feels trapped. covid has now shut down nearly all international flights.

by talking to us, max risks arrest and jail under the national security law. we agree to help him get a seat on the increasingly scarce flights out of hong kong. max: this is the only thing i think about now, this couple of weeks, is whether or not i'll be able to leave hong kong before something goes down, before it's too late. bill: on the dawn of max's departure, the net dramatically tightens, as beijing takes down the remaining leadership of the pro-democracy movement. female: police arrested more than 50 people in a sweeping crackdown on pro-democracy figures in the city for allegedly violating the national security law. male: [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] bill: hong kong's government, on beijing's orders, sends a

thousand police officers on raids across the city. male: [speaking foreign language] male: [speaking foreign language] bill: former politician claudia mo is taken away along with her three ex-legco colleagues we filmed on the day she packed up her office: all of them uer investition for the new crime of political subversion. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ bill: with the leadership gone, max fears he's now in beijing's sights. he knows he has to leave fast. max: my top emotions are fear and lots of stress.

i'm scared, regardless, because of the arrests this morning. it's also fear of leaving this place, leaving everything behind. just looking at myself, i think there's a fair bit of survivor's guilt. i shouldn't be the one to be able to get away, and i'm not qualified enough to carry this onwards. it's foolish of me to think that i am the only one who's bearing this burden: me and, i know now, many others like me, and for as long as there are hong kongers, there will be more people like me. bill: max vows to continue the fight, and accepts he may never see his home city again. max: people that decide to go on this road have given up 20, 30 years of their life in exchange for this one shot at trying to save our homeland. bill: max will now have to make a life in australia, away from his family.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ max: i can't say for sure what i'm gonna feel when i land. i think there's a--rather than hope or rather than relief, there's a lot more pressure. worst decision in my lifee this that i could have possibly made. bill: but he's made his choice: a one-way ticket to a life of exile, from a hong kong he now barely recognizes. [airplane taking off] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪