that somehow, the will of millions of hong kongers would prevail over the might of beijing. ♪♪♪ [singinge] [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 hope. 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

why, mr lee, do you think so many hong kongers now want to get the heck out of hong kong?, they are free to leave. it's good for them because the freedom to emigrate to other country is actually a right that's being protected by article 31 of our basic law. however, you know, the total number of people who have emigrated is far less than the 500,000 people that the british government speculated when they initiated the bno visa programme. and a lot of these people who have left hong kong are now regretting it and coming back to hong kong. just a few days ago, the hong kong census and statistics department actually announced... ..the mid—year population figures, and for the first time in three years, our population has actually stopped declining and started to increase again. do you think... the number rose for 152,000 people and that's a 2% increase. and what's more interesting, it's among this 152,000 people, actually, 143,000 of them are people who have previously emigrated abroad and are now returning to hong kong. so it comes to show you that, like, you know, even thoug

that still remains, and hong kongers care about that. ng downhill and that's why a lot of people left, especially those expats. and secondly... not as many left as you thought would. and, secondly, the most important thing in hong kong is definitely a just and a fair social system, including our political system. millions of hong kong people are marching down the streets, and you cannot omit the fact that they've done so much to make their voice heard, just for a better and just political system, and you cannot say that, "oh, because the demands were not met so that they abolish what they wanted." things don't happen that way. they still have that determination, but it's just the environment is so closed and whenever they speak up, they got persecuted. they were thrown to jail for years. so that it's seemingly like it's not going to be as vocal as before, but those are still the things that matter the most to hong kong people, and the cornerstone of one country, two system. but your message goes further than that. 0ver years, you have fli

that somehow, the will of millions of hong kongers would prevail over the might of beijing. ♪♪♪ [singinging in cantonese]

that somehow, the will of millions of hong kongers would prevail over the might of beijing. ♪♪♪ [singingntonese]

you've had a similar challenge and also some of the major pension fund providers have denied side hong kongerseaving hong kong access to their hard earned pension savings on the instruction of the hong kong authorities. yeah >> so what what would what would you want the british home secretary to do? benedict well, i would have wanted him to take a much more. >> i don't object necessarily to him going because i do agree that you can't just ignore one of the world's major superpowers . so the question is not do we engage?ifs . so the question is not do we engage? it's how to engage in what way and at what time. i question the timing of the visit coming just a month or so after eight exiled hong kong activists, three of whom live in this country , we were issued this country, we were issued with an arrest warrants and bounfies with an arrest warrants and bounties by the hong kong government. but nevertheless , i government. but nevertheless, i think if he was going to go, he should have been much more robust. he shouldn't have talked about a sensible, pragmatic working relationship. he should have

you've had a similar challenge and also some of the major pension fund providers have denied side hong kongerseaving hong kong access to their hard earned pension savings on the instruction of the hong kong authorities. yeah >> so what what would what would you want the british home secretary to do? benedict well, i would have wanted him to take a much more. >> i don't object necessarily to him going because i do agree that you can't just ignore one of the world's major superpowers . so the question is not do we engage?ifs . so the question is not do we engage? it's how to engage in what way and at what time. i question the timing of the visit coming just a month or so after eight exiled hong kong activists, three of whom live in this country , we were issued this country, we were issued with an arrest warrants and bounfies with an arrest warrants and bounties by the hong kong government. but nevertheless , i government. but nevertheless, i think if he was going to go, he should have been much more robust. he shouldn't have talked about a sensible, pragmatic working relationship. he should have

settled successful settlement settled payment with ukrainians, payment systems with ukrainians, hong kongersone quite considerably . and i do think we considerably. and i do think we owe these people all a duty of care , given that they were care, given that they were supporting us during the war. >> but the afghan resettlement scheme has been a huge success. we said yesterday, we've taken over 24,000 to the uk with more than met our obligations. yeah, i mean i mean, we did say 20,000 and you were right when you said yesterday, i think it was 23,000. >> that was the, was the amount that you mentioned. yes, we've taken than we said. and the taken more than we said. and the whole point is do have a whole point is we do have a moral responsible duty to actually how actually take more. we know how many america take, because i very much blame biden for that rapid evacuation out of afghanistan. >> i mean, he literally left the helicopters and just said, you can have well, we were caught short, and were. short, completely, and we were. biden have any idea biden did do we have any idea how many afgh