The new Hong Kong: Disappearing books, illegal words and arrests over blank white paper
A cartoon by Hong Kong artist Kit Man depicts protesters facing police with blank sheets of paper after the passage of a new national security law. (Kit Man) There were no slogans and no words, only blank white sheets of paper, quivering in the hands of a few dozen Hong Kong residents standing in a shopping mall, saying nothing at all. The police arrived in full riot gear, waving a flag that read: “You are in breach of the law.” They arrested eight people, searched others and dispersed the rest. Local artist Kit Man made a cartoon of the confrontation that drew a comment at once satirical and foreboding, distilling China's determination to crush even a whisper of dissent: “A state that can be subverted by a blank piece of paper — is it made of tofu?” Less than two weeks under a new national security law enacted by Beijing, Hong Kong residents already feel a curtain of control falling over a city that for so long had been a brash and defiant home to intellectuals, capitalists, artis...
