Hong Kong Government Fixates on ‘Soft Resistance’

The Hong Kong authorities have a new favorite buzzword: “soft resistance.”

The phrase, which is used to describe anything seen as covertly subversive or insidiously defiant against the government, is showing up in news reports, speeches by top officials, and warnings from government departments. Officials and propaganda organs have warned of the threat of possible “soft resistance” in a book fair, music lyrics, a U.S. holiday celebration and environmental groups.

The term and its widespread official use reflect the political climate of a city that has been transformed since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020, after quashing mass pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.

Protests disappeared, and the political opposition was largely dismantled by the yearslong crackdown that followed. Now, with such “hard resistance” held at bay, the authorities appear to be targeting what they see as the next threat: subtler, inconspicuous expressions of discontent.

Officials have warned that Hong Kong continues to be threatened by foreign forces, led by the United States, that seek to destabilize Hong Kong in order to block China’s rise. To the authorities, “soft resistance” is nothing short of a national security threat, and at least a dozen senior officials have used the term in recent weeks. Warning signs include messaging that is deemed to be critical of the government or sympathetic to the opposition or to protesters, whom the authorities have described as rioters or terrorists.

Mr. Lee pointed to what he described as an attempt to turn public opinion in the city against organ donations, after Hong Kong and mainland China started exploring establishing a system for doing so across their border. In 2024, after thousands of people appeared to withdraw from the organ donation system, two people in Hong Kong were sentenced to prison, accused of using fake registrations and cancellations to create the illusion that there was widespread opposition to the system.

The term “soft resistance” is being used so widely that Hong Kong’s justice secretary, Paul Lam, felt the need to explain it officially for the first time, in late June. He told local media that it referred to using false or misleading information to incite the public, or to cause people to have a “wrong understanding” of the government. But he also said that the term was hard to define, and that “soft resistance” was not necessarily illegal.

The phrase was first coined by Beijing’s representative to Hong Kong in 2021. It was revived by another high-ranking Beijing official in June, at a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the imposition of the national security law.

As part of the term’s current resurgence, a major Hong Kong broadcaster aired a series of episodes that repeatedly warned against “soft resistance,” pointing to perceived threats like a children’s book that portrayed the police as wolves. The education secretary said that public schools had been warned against letting teachers and students participate in a U.S. Consulate Independence Day event, over concerns about “soft resistance.”

But even some within the pro-Beijing establishment are expressing concern that the government’s campaign risks stifling expression and hurting the economy.

Ronny Tong, a prominent legal figure and member of the Executive Council, a top advisory cabinet, said in an interview that the government’s response to the U.S. Consulate event appeared to be “overdoing it a little bit.”

Prominent business figures with ties to the government say that the repeated emphasis on perceived security threats is undercutting more urgent efforts to attract foreign investment and preserve the city’s image as a global hub.

“We, Hong Kong’s pro-establishment, must clearly understand what the top priority is — national security or the economy, that’s in itself contradictory,” David Tai Chong Lie-A-Cheong, a Hong Kong businessman and a member of an advisory body to Beijing, said in an interview.

“When officials are constantly saying that Hong Kong is not safe, would you invest here?” asked Mr. Lie-A-Cheong, a former chairman of the Hong Kong France Business Partnership, a semiofficial group that promoted trade with France. He said that foreign business groups were having a hard time understanding the direction of Hong Kong’s policies.

Mr. Lie-A-Cheong described the situation in Hong Kong as “heart-wrenching” and said: “As a pro-establishment member for decades, I feel we have failed our jobs.”

Instead, “they are focusing on opposing so-called ‘soft resistance’,” Mr. Lew said. The approach was fueling concerns among Hong Kongers about the future of “One Country, Two Systems,” he said, citing a policy meant to protect the city’s autonomy under Chinese rule, including the freedoms of speech, press and publication.

“Everyone is asking whether they’re trying to bring a Cultural Revolution approach to Hong Kong,” he added, referring to a movement in the 1960s and ’70s to purge elements deemed disloyal to Communist Party orthodoxy. (Mr. Lew said he himself had fled China during that period by swimming across to Hong Kong, which was then a British colony.)

That sense of ideological zeal appeared to be mirrored in Beijing-controlled media in Hong Kong, which have lauded crackdowns on what they portrayed as hidden threats.

In July, the Wen Wei Po newspaper published a front-page article that said an independent book fair was “full of ‘soft-resistance’ intentions,” pointing to “anti-China and destabilizing Hong Kong” books at the event.

Some even see environmental activism as a potential hotbed of political opposition.

The city’s development secretary, speaking to the Wen Wei Po in June, said that some criticism of government’s moves to dismantle environmental protections, in an effort to reclaim land around the city’s iconic Victoria Harbour, could be regarded as “soft resistance.” She accused one organization, which she did not name, of “deliberate provocations.”

Not long after, a 30-year-old group dedicated to protecting the harbor disbanded.