Student Union
Protester Faces Uphill Battle to Promote Hong Kong Awareness
Alex Lee has embarked on a cross-country bike trip — beginning in Los Angeles, California, and headed to Boston, Massachusetts — in hopes of inspiring the next generation of pro-democracy advocates in China.
He is spreading his message in the U.S., Lee noted, because the free press is likely to report on his journey, and there are many Chinese people in America. He also wants to show Americans there are Chinese people like him who do not stand with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said.
Lee, 36, grew up in a small coastal city near Beijing, with limited free access to information in China. At the age of 24, he found a chat room where discussions were unfiltered.
Arguing with people abroad, he defended with patriotic fervor the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) until, he said, he dove deeper into its history and found a different story than what he was taught.
"Liberals and conservatives were arguing with each other every day," Lee said about what he was witnessing online when he used the platform from 2009 to 2010.
"Like current Americans," he added, referring to heated political debates.
He studied sociology in Japan in 2016, but three years later, left for Hong Kong to join the pro-democracy protests and to make public speeches because it was less restrictive than in mainland China, he said.
"I thought, as a sociologist, that I knew I could do something for the protest because we support democracy and freedom," he said.
On the 100-year anniversary of the CCP this month, VOA reported similar disappointments among people from Hong Kong. While university students in the 1990s were inspired to run for public office, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese authority in 1997 after British rule since 1839. Pro-democracy advocates say open representation in government has become a distant dream.
Students on front lines
Student involvement in protests had grown dramatically until last year when a controversial national security law significantly curtailed democratic freedoms, critics said.
"Young people were wearing masks before COVID to conceal their identity and gave pseudonyms," shared Paul Greaney, who attended Fudan University in Shanghai and reported on the student protests in Hong Kong in 2019 for NTD Television.
"Everyone on the front lines were young people, and the majority of them were educated and very intelligent," he said.
Social media — like the Telegram app — were key to communicating protests, explained Greaney, as students and young people pushed back on authoritarian rule.
"Many older people I spoke with supported the young people because they couldn't go to the front lines," said Greaney. "They were really brave, they were prepared to get arrested, but still went there."
The crackdown has been met with resistance. This week, nine people were arrested on suspected terrorism charges, the youngest being 15 years old.
VOA reported in January that under a recent national security law, pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, 24, was charged with subversion.
And in Chinese-occupied Tibet, three Tibetan teenagers went missing and another was hospitalized with two broken legs after reportedly failing to register a WeChat text group chat with local authorities, according to a Tibetan advocacy group. China has occupied Tibet and imposed pro-China authoritarian rule since 1950.
Fear of speaking out
"During the height of the protests, there was definitely a lot of student activity on social media about the protests," according to an international student from Hong Kong attending New York University in New York City, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.
"Some people were worried about posting, especially since in China, people are aware of phone surveillance, but a lot did post. Majority that I had seen were in support of Hong Kong, but some students with wealthier families whose parents benefit from China's involvement did post pro-China content," this person said.
Being an international student, this person said it was difficult to discuss the protests with other students who might report them to the CCP.
"While I do think some people are aware that there's something going on in Hong Kong, I don't think a lot of people really know the intensity of the situation and the reasons behind the protests," the international student said about American awareness of politics in Asia.
When last in Hong Kong in 2019 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the student reported having great difficulty getting around the city.
"I was staying by the waterfront in Wan Chai, one of the main sites for the protests, and the roads were blocked, police were everywhere and sometimes it was difficult to access the subway, get taxis, and to access certain major areas of the city. I haven't been back since, so I'm not sure if that's still the case."
Not an easy ride
Lee, most recently in the Mojave Desert that stretches across California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona in the Southwest U.S., said he nearly perished in the 110-degree heat as he pushed his bike along sandy streets that made riding impossible.
But he said he intends to persevere after being helped along the way by average Americans.
"Idealists are people who still have the courage and faith to pursue the light in the dark night," he texted.
"I'm not the first person to cross America from coast to coast, but I might be the first person to do that in order to support Hong Kong protests and democracy."
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U.S. universities are welcoming international students as the academic year begins. But while the total number of foreign students is steadily growing, the top sending country, China, is showing signs of leveling out or shrinking.
Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.
The number of foreign students studying in the U.S. in 2022-23 passed 1 million for the first time since the COVID pandemic, said Open Doors, an information resource on international students and scholars.
While the U.S. saw a nearly 12% total increase year-on-year for that period, the number of international students from China, its top source, fell by 0.2% to 289,526.
That’s 600 fewer students than the 2021-22 academic year, when their numbers dropped by nearly 9%. The COVID pandemic saw Chinese student numbers drop in 2020-21 by nearly 15%, in line with the world total drop.
While it’s not yet clear if the drop is a leveling out or a fluctuating decline, analysts say China’s struggling economy and the high cost of studying in the U.S. are the main reasons for the fall in student numbers.
Vincent Chen, a Chinese study abroad consultant based in Shanghai, said although most of his clients are still interested in studying in the U.S., there is a clear downward trend, while applicants for Anglophone universities in Australia and Britain have been increasing.
"If you just want to go abroad, a one-year master's degree in the U.K. is much cheaper,” Chen said. “Many people can't afford to study in the U.S., so they have to settle for the next best thing."
Data from the nonprofit U.S. group College Board Research shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, the average tuition and fees for a U.S. private college four-year education increased 4% to $41,540 compared with the previous academic year.
The British Council said three to four years of undergraduate tuition in Britain starts as low as $15,000.
The number of Chinese students in Britain was 154,260 in 2022-23, according to the U.K. Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, up from 121,145 in the 2018/19 academic year.
Australia’s Home Affairs office said in the 2023-24 program year, China was the top source foreign country for new student visa grants at 43,389, up slightly (1.5%) from the previous year.
Chen said Chinese state media's negative portrayal of the United States and concerns about discrimination have also contributed to the shift.
Bruce Zhang, a Chinese citizen who received his master's degree in Europe after studying in China, told VOA Mandarin he had such an incident occur to him after he was admitted to a U.S. university’s Ph.D. program.
When he entered Boston's Logan International Airport last year, Zhang said customs officers questioned him for more than an hour about his research, and if it had any links to the military, and took his computer and mobile phone for examination.
"Fortunately, I had heard that U.S. customs might be stringent in inspecting Chinese students, so I had relatively few study-related data and documents on my personal computer," he said.
Zhang was allowed to enter the U.S. for his studies in materials science, but the questioning left him so rattled that he has encouraged other Chinese to study elsewhere.
Cui Kai, a study abroad consultant in Massachusetts told VOA Mandarin that experiences like Zhang’s or worse happen for a reason.
"Students who were questioned or their visas were revoked at the customs are usually those who completed their undergraduate studies in China and come to the U.S. for a master's or doctoral degree in a sensitive major," said Cui.
Former President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10043 in June 2020, prohibiting visas for any Chinese student who “has been employed by, studied at, or conducted research at or on behalf of, an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC's “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The U.S. says China has been using students and scholars to gain access to key technology and, under Proclamation 10043, revoked more than 1,000 visas issued to Chinese nationals and has denied thousands more.
Critics say the policy is costly to the U.S. and is encouraging Chinese students to look to European and other universities.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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