Ho-yeung Yiu
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Dec 15 2025
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Travelling by way of metro within the night of twenty sixth November, the blaze caught all passengers eyes in disbelief close to the Tai Po Market Station. The sheer scale of the hearth had by no means been anticipated. After getting off the metro on the station, individuals who had been strangers instantly fashioned a volunteer group. They rushed to the closest supermarkets, shopping for residing requirements and carrying them to Wang Fuk Court. It had been simply a few hours for the reason that fireplace broke out, however the residential space had been flooded with volunteers and neighbors arriving in vehicles, automobiles, and even bicycles. Soon, on-line platforms corresponding to WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook pages grew to become the headquarters of catastrophe aid (Hawkins 2025); alleys, streets, small companies, church buildings, and authorities buildings had been woven right into a complete community of provide stations. This spontaneous, grassroots response exemplifies how a non-partisan disaster can quickly revive civic solidarity in a context of political repression, exposing the bounds of the NSL in totally extinguishing communal company and mutual assist networks that echo pre-2020 protest dynamics (Kobayashi, Song, and P. Chan 2021). This article combines the authors observations and the event of how a non-partisan outpouring of communal solidarity provoked the nerves of nationwide safety. It argues that it has uncovered the fragility of the National Security Law (NSL)-imposed political dormancy, the place the heavy repressive equipment put in place since 2020 meets its problem of public anger attributable to authorities failure.
Without a doubt, this was one of many greatest public mobilisation for the reason that implementation of the National Security Law (NSL) in July 2020. When the hearth was extinguished after 43 hours of burning, the folks of Hong Kong turned their focus to investigating how the worst fireplace in a century broke out in Hong Kong (Luk 2025; Tse 2025a). Debunking the official declare that bamboo scaffolding was accountable to the devastating fireplace, native communities, particularly residents of Wang Fuk Court, unleashed their fury in the direction of the institutional failure: contractors corner-cutting use of supplies; fireplace alarm had been allegedly unplugged for comfort; the suspicious conspiracy between district councilor, Peggy Wong, and the previous proprietor cooperation committee; and the governments ineffective surveillance regardless of residents formal complaints to the Hong Kong Labour Department concerning the threat of fireside (Power, 2025; A. Li 2025; Y. Li 2025; Wu 2025b; Bloomberg News 2025). These revelations of systemic negligence don’t merely gasoline anger; they tear holes within the governments rigorously maintained faade of competence and stability, displaying that when failure is that this blatant, the enforced political silence of the NSL period begins to crack, as common security grievances slip previous the legal guidelines ideological filters (Zhu 2023). By centering man-made blame on ignored warnings, residents inadvertently spotlight how NSL securitization diverts assets from regulatory oversight, making on a regular basis hazards the brand new frontlines of dissent.
Unlike the hearth alarm of Wang Fuk Court, the hearth of fury amongst survivors and residents of Hong Kong quickly triggered the political alarm of Hong Kong officers. What started as an outpouring of communal solidarity quickly morphed into the most important wave of public mobilisation for the reason that NSL was imposed, and the authorities responded by treating grief, questions, and requires accountability as threats to stability itself. On twenty ninth November, three days after the hearth broke out, Wen Wei Po=revealed a particular report, stating that the National Security Department is extremely involved to stop the black-clad rioters from hijacking the catastrophe aid exercise to hold out anti-PRC and pro-chaos conspiracies (Xiao 2025). This preemptive framing of assist efforts as potential subversion highlights the NSLs expansive securitization of on a regular basis civic actions, revealing the regimes nervousness over non-ideological occasions that might erode its management and provoke unintended dissent (Chopra and Pils 2022; Karmazin 2023).
This particular report not solely serves as an unofficial warning to potential dissenting voices but additionally as a response to actions of public mobilisation that had been as soon as thought of recurring in Hong Kong. In the times following the blaze, a 24-year-old scholar from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Miles Kwan, launched an internet petition outlining 4 calls for together with advocacy of a complete assessment of building oversight regulation and investigation of potential corruption which emphasises that the catastrophe was not a mere accident however a man-made tragedy rooted in systemic negligence (Hong Kong Democracy Council 2025a). One day after the launch of the web petition, nationwide safety police arrested Kwan for seditious intention, and the petition was promptly deleted from on-line platforms (Hong Kong Democracy Council 2025a). Along with Kwan, former district councilor Kenneth Cheung was detained the subsequent day for comparable advocacy (Leung 2025). These swift arrests show how the NSL conflates reliable requires accountability with sedition, thereby exposing the legal guidelines fragility when confronted with public calls for that transcend partisan strains and instantly confront governmental incompetence (Kobayashi, Song, and P. Chan 2021). When peculiar calls for for security and accountability sound nearly similar to the previous protest slogans, the regime has no language left besides sedition, blurring the road between livelihood critique and political menace (Fu 2023; Lin and Fei 2023). In deleting petitions in a single day, authorities solely amplify the very fragility they search to cover, as swift repression turns remoted voices into symbols of broader, ungovernable public outrage.
On the identical day, authorities additionally intervened decisively on the community of native help, which was thought of a revival of 2019s mutual assist ethos. Volunteers had been ordered to vacate the makeshift provide station at Kwong Fuk Estate and authorities buildings such because the Tung Cheong Street Sports Centre, on the grounds of restoring their public makes use of and alleged complaints of noise at evening (TBS News Dig 2025). However, experiences counsel underlying securitisation: pro-Beijing care groups threatened expenses of unlawful meeting, and nationwide safety police, together with senior superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah, visited websites to observe for black violence infiltrators code for perceived anti-government parts (Xiao 2025). This closure not solely disrupted assist flows however symbolised NSLs growth, recasting natural solidarity as potential unrest and subordinating neighborhood resilience to state management. By dismantling these networks, the authorities inadvertently underscore the NSLs incapability to totally suppress natural civic responses, as such interventions threat amplifying public perceptions of overreach and additional eroding belief within the post-2020 repressive framework: repressing empathy solely deepens the disaster of confidence in a system that views neighbors serving to neighbors as a safety threat. (Baehr 2022).
After the closure of main provide stations and volunteer assist turned discreet, public mourning rituals grew to become one other flashpoint beneath NSL scrutiny. Memorials positioned on the Kwong Fuk Sitting-out Area drew 1000’s, with lengthy queues snaking by means of parks, bridges, and to the river sidewalk, the place folks laid flowers, handwritten notes, and incense choices (Khalil 2025). Vigils marked thehead-seven day (, tau4 cat1) on December 2, together with worldwide gatherings in Tokyo, London, and Taipei, whereas native condolence books had been arrange throughout 18 districts (Kwok et al. 2025). The persistence of those communal rituals amid heavy surveillance reveals how non-partisan expressions of grief can problem the NSLs chilling impact, reworking non-public loss right into a delicate type of collective resistance in opposition to imposed political silence (M. Wang 2024). The realisation that the mutual-aid networks of 2019 can nonetheless be switched on in hours, and that the NSL toolbox has no actual reply for real neighborhood resilience (Baehr 2022; Kwak 2024): from catastrophe aid, grieve to calls for of accountability, the NSL may solely extends its attain when communitys actions instantly pointed to the federal government, whereas leaving public expressions of feelings into speculations and sometimes whimsical assumptions.
Police maintained a heavy presence at memorial websites, monitoring crowds by way of public order and potential dissident voices: pavilions stacked by handwritten notes have been cleared out each day. Police indiscriminately eliminated all messages whether or not mourning or expressions of anger echoing NSLs broader chilling impact (Rahn 2025; Pearson 2025). This securitised mourning the place empathy dangers being labeled incitement highlights how the regulation extends to control even non-public expressions of loss, reworking communal therapeutic right into a policed efficiency. Since day certainly one of mourning, the authors statement has it that police presence intensifies every day: sentinel stations prolonged from the vicinities of memorial websites into subways, metro stations, and bridges. Unlike 2019, police presence doesn’t provoke public sentiment or bodily conflicts however as an alternative serves purely to take care of public order and surveillance to stop doable demonstrations. This exhibits the police forces and the NSL have a transparent division of labor: police forces preserve public order and turn into the watcher, whereas the NSLs chilling impact has taken over the position of suppression as now we have seen within the 2019 Movement a type of controlocracy that Stein Ringen (2016, 138) has prophesied that it controls very strictly what’s now allowed, utilizing presence over dictations to be simpler than easy use of brute pressure.
However, this controlocracy in Hong Kong by means of division of labor between NSL and police forces has left a gray zone the place residents expressed dissent and advocacy for accountability extra discreetly and cryptically. Authors statement has it that, residents queueing as much as convey condolences had been in full silence with flowers of their fingers, projecting their eyesight to the once-populated ruins of Wang Fuk Court, whereas nonetheless leaving nameless handwritten notes corresponding to man-made tragedy and unjust system in pavilions (Melimopoulos 2025; Tse 2025b; Y. Wang 2025). In the silent queues and cleared-away notes we see the quiet defiance that the NSL most dreads: mourning that refuses to remain purely non-public, grief that retains slipping into accusation, turning even empathy right into a delicate act of resistance (Hou and Peng 2023; M. Wang 2024). This policing of grief not solely stifles therapeutic but additionally exposes the NSLs overextension, because it struggles to include common human responses that inadvertently spotlight the regimes governance failures and provoke broader societal reflection, turning pavilions into unintended archives of quiet fury (Zhu 2023).
In a parallel escalation of interference and discourse management, a deliberate press convention by civic teams and neighborhood figures who supposed to debate restore coverage laws and security lapses uncovered by the tragedy in Tai Po was cancelled abruptly when public mourning was at its apex. National safety police approached and talked to solicitor Bruce Liu, one of many organisers, who was subsequently taken away for questioning (Hong Kong Democracy Council 2025b). The press convention that was aimed toward addressing systemic points like constructing upkeep, corruption, and authorities oversight failures was thereby framed as a possible safety threat by way of sedition by the National Security Department. Such cancellations illustrate the NSLs position in preempting important discourse, but in addition they reveal its vulnerability when public anger over tangible failures like security oversights challenges the narrative of unassailable stability (Chopra and Pils 2022).
With the variety of casualties not being confirmed (156 deaths as of 4 p.m., 2nd December), and the cauldron of public fury continues to blaze, the general public motion of catastrophe aid is regularly turning from a self-motivating mutual help among the many neighborhood right into a political livelihood difficulty past the political spectrum of yellow or blue. Terminologies used to label, distract, and diverge dissent voices for the reason that Anti-ELAB motion in 2019 are now not appropriate to the present state of affairs, the place livelihood points turn into a conduit of disaster of confidence and the slippery slope of political dissent. Even pro-Beijing activist Anna Chan Ching-sum (2025) was anguished by the Wen Wei Pos report, questioning whether or not anybody sporting a black masks and placing up a tent have to be a remnant of the 2019 black-riot thugs or a yellow-ribbon supporter? As a once-to-be radical consultant of the pro-government faction, Chans dissent uncovered the fissure from inside: a disagreement and rejection of faction-framing rhetoric, whereas pointing fingers on to the governments incompetence, turning peace and stability, which as soon as to was a pro-government vocabulary, right into a weapon of criticism throughout factions and colours. In a state of affairs the place fireplace hazard is a quintessential public security disaster, and the governments incapability to supply regulatory oversight renders conventional NSL ways of labeling and separation ineffective. Unlike ideologically charged protests such because the Anti-ELAB motion, the Tai Po fires common affect on housing security, emergency response, and the governments favoritism of discourse management impacts all folks of Hong Kong indiscriminately. This, in flip, exposes the regimes incapability to deflect blame by means of partisan framing and divisive rhetoric. The transcendence of conventional divides on this disaster underscores the fragility of NSL-enforced dormancy, as livelihood-based dissent proves more durable to partisanise and suppress, doubtlessly signaling a brand new section of resistance rooted in on a regular basis governance failures (Hou and Peng 2023).
In response to the altering actuality and the challenges of public anger, each nationwide safety and public discourse invent new political vocabularies in Hong Kong. In response to the rising requires accountability, the National Security Department and pro-Beijing press have coined or marketed the time period (utilizing catastrophe to disrupt Hong Kong), portraying any criticism of presidency dealing with as orchestrated makes an attempt to sabotage and undermine stability, thereby justifying arrests beneath sedition clauses (Cheng and Yu 2025). To keep away from the allegations, the folks of Hong Kong, studying from netizens in mainland China, make use of euphemistic vocabularies, coded or impartial languages to keep away from surveillance. This renavigation of the NSLs pink strains, whereas nonetheless voicing discontent, is a linguistic evolution that echoes the self-censorship seen in post-2019 discourse, turning the invention of vocabularies from passive adaptation to a extra proactive expression of dissatisfaction in on a regular basis crises. This adaptive linguistic shift not solely sustains dissent beneath repression but additionally exposes the NSLs incomplete dominance over public expression, as residents innovate methods to articulate grievances that problem the regimes management narrative (Hou and Peng 2023). The start of and the moment flip to coded language amongst peculiar residents present either side adapting without delay the state inventing new crimes, the folks inventing new methods to talk reality a linguistic arms race that proves the NSL has not managed to silence dissent, solely to pressure it underground and make it sharper.
While the reinvigoration of civic consciousness after the dormancy brought on by NSL is seemingly unquenchable, there’s a potential concern about whether or not the federal government of Hong Kong and the National Security Department would escalate the degrees of oppression as time passes by. John Lee, the present Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR, had proven his no-mercy, non-negotiable, heavy-handed ways when he was the Secretary of Security throughout the Anti-ELAB Movement. With NSL and laws of Article 23, the federal government of Hong Kong had even ready its geared up arsenal in opposition to public dissent. On the opposite hand, no apparent indicators are signaling that the general public sentiment would fade in a brief time period. The collision between advocacy of reality and accountability by the general public and morbidly usual pursuit of public management by the Hong Kong authorities would seemingly end in one more political disaster. As of ninth December, 2025, the variety of casualties has risen to 160 confirmed deaths (Wu 2025a). Amid this sorrow, because the creator predicted, the measure of suppression in Hong Kong intensifies. Predominant netizens, like activist Ellie Yuen, had been detained on third December for seditious social media posts questioning regulatory lapses, together with her social media account suspended. Data journalist Hailey Cheng confronted police interrogation and a pressured website takedown. Even Anna Chan, probably beneath strain from her faction, deletes all her posts since 2023. These silencing echoes, if not strengthening the heavy-handed NSL grasp, proceed to erode Hong Kongs civic cloth. Although the arsenal of public management would possibly forestall one other massive-scale protest much like the Anti-ELAB Movement, the buildup of dissatisfaction attributable to governance failure would possibly ignite one other blaze in Hong Kong. John Lees arsenal could forestall one other million-person march, however each contemporary arrest for mourning or questioning solely provides extra gasoline to the slow-burning resentment. The political dormancy which has been imposed since 2020 appears more and more brittle: one plain governance failure is all it takes for the embers of civic consciousness to flare up once more.
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About The Author(s)
Ho-yeung Yiuis a PhD candidate on the University of Technology Sydney. His thesis examines the position of house, place, and reminiscence in Hong Kongs 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, exploring how spatial practices formed narratives of id and belonging beneath the One Country, Two Systems framework. He is presently based mostly in Hong Kong conducting analysis.
Editorial Credit(s)
Ka Hang Wong
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Hong KongNational Security Law