For the first time, the Post has released its exhaustive documentary on last year’s anti-government protests in its complete, uninterrupted form.
In the first part of the South China Morning Post documentary on Hong Kong’s anti-government protests, we explore the origins of the city's biggest political crisis and social upheaval since its return from British to Chinese rule in 1997. It all begins in March 2019 with a plan by the Hong Kong government for an extradition law to allow the transfer of suspects for trial to Taiwan, Macau and, more controversially, the Chinese mainland. It sparks a massive public backlash, drawing millions of protesters onto the streets and piling pressure on Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, who refuses to back down. Thousands seeking to stop the passage of the law block roads leading to the legislature. It marks the beginning of violent clashes with police and a descent into unprecedented chaos.
China's Rebel City Part 2: Battle Lines Drawn, released on Nov 20, 2020
In the second part of the South China Morning Post documentary on Hong Kong’s anti-government protests, the gulf between the two opposing sides widens. With neither the government nor protesters willing to compromise, Hong Kong's worst political crisis since its return from British to Chinese rule in 1997 spirals out of control. Angry demonstrators surround, storm and vandalise the city’s legislature, the seat of elected authority. The police, using tear gas and firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowds, find themselves overwhelmed by public resentment and hatred. And it keeps getting worse.
China's Rebel City: Part 3 – Hong Kong on Fire released on November 23, 2020
A teenage boy is shot by police on China's National Day, as clashes intensify between hardcore Hong Kong protesters and police. The government gives in to a key protest demand and withdraws its extradition bill, but the protesters now have a list of other demands that Hong Kong's leader finds impossible to meet. University campuses become war zones, as student protesters and radicals occupy them. Police surround protesters holed up at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in a siege that lasts nearly two weeks before the last holdouts abandon the campus.
China's Rebel City: Part 4 – Protests Muzzled released on November 26, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic brings a halt to most anti-government protests, and Beijing is determined not to allow a repeat of the past year’s chaos. It imposes a far-reaching national security law on Hong Kong, banning acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces. The new legal regime is instantly effective, almost entirely wiping out the protests. But society remains fractured, the old resentments run deep, and the future is uncertain.
