Anti-extradition law and beyond: the role of media and communication in the crisis of Hong Kong—introduction to the special issue

Abstract

The year 2019 witnessed an unprecedented paradigm shift to post-handover Hong Kong. On a political level, massive, enduring, and violent street conflicts surrounding the unpopular extradition law that enables transferring fugitives from Hong Kong to jurisdictions with no extradition agreements with the city, including mainland China, followed by the demand for political reforms and disbanding the Hong Kong police, triggered powerful responses from the state power of China. China introduced the National Security Law to Hong Kong in June 2020, which effectively keeps defiant voices out of the media and renders civil society silent. The election methods for the Chief Executive and Legislative Council were also modified to ensure that the government of Hong Kong would remain safely in the hands of “patriots.” Socially, Hong Kong has witnessed multiple waves of emigration since those eventful days in 2019. For those who remain, prosecutions of those arrested in the protests and related activities have slowly unfolded, capturing citywide and even global attention. Internationally, exchanges of unpleasant diplomatic rhetoric between China and other nations over Hong Kong have become frequent. Overseas media commentaries have discussed the future of the city as its once well-known social freedoms are curbed (see, e.g., McLaughlin, 2021; Yip, 2021). State-society relations and the political economy of Hong Kong are unequivocally facing a highly unpredictable process of change. While it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the paradigm shift in post-handover Hong Kong, the anti-extradition law amendment bill (AntiELAB) protests in 2019 deserve a proper review. The most pressing question is also the most basic: what happened? Millions of people packed the streets, clashed with the police, used a wide range of social media channels