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The Morning Newsletter

China’s Crackdown on Hong Kong

Vivian Wang, who covers Hong Kong for The Times, updates us on the situation.

Supporters of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who have been charged under the national security law during a court hearing last month.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

In the year since China passed a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong, the mainland government has steadily tightened its grip on the city, quashing the pro-democracy movement.

Officials said they would censor Hong Kong films that they considered a threat to Beijing’s sovereignty, a sharp slap to the city’s artistic spirit. In March, Pro-Beijing lawmakers called for work by the dissident artist Ai Weiwei to be barred from a museum. Courts have sentenced pro-democracy activists to prison. And last week, the police raided Apple Daily, the biggest openly pro-democracy newspaper in the city, arrested its top editors and froze its bank accounts. Today, the newspaper said it would close this week.

Vivian Wang, who covers Hong Kong for The Times, updates us on the situation.

Claire: Last time we talked with you about Hong Kong in this newsletter was in March. What’s happened since?

Vivian: A lot has changed, but all in line with a general trend: increasingly harsh, and overt, suppression of the rights that made Hong Kong different from mainland China. An annual vigil on June 4, to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre against pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, was banned.

Tell us about China’s involvement in Hong Kong’s elections.

China has overhauled Hong Kong’s election system. Before anyone can run for office, they will have to pass a screening committee set up by Beijing. The central government had gotten worried that pro-democracy residents were going to try to sweep the upcoming legislative elections. So Beijing passed another top-down order, as it had with the security law.

There are a few major changes. Only “patriots,” defined by a screening committee, will be allowed to run for office.

Also, in the past, half of the seats in the legislature were directly elected (the other half were reserved for representatives of industry groups, often dominated by pro-Beijing candidates). Now, less than a quarter will be directly elected.

Many pro-democracy leaders are in prison. What does that mean for the movement?

Those sentenced range from some of the most veteran pro-democracy leaders to people in their 20s who had been considered the next generation. The government is sending a message: Anyone who becomes too prominent, or too vocal, is putting themselves at risk. These figures were definitely important in boosting public morale and giving people someone to rally around.

On a logistical level, this may not change much. There basically haven’t been any protests or organized pro-democracy events in the past year, and the pro-democracy political parties are limited in what they can do, especially with the new election system.

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A billboard promoting the police force.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

You mentioned censorship. What does that mean for pop culture in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong has historically had a strong film industry, and it’s been trying to turn itself into an arts hub. But with the new rules around movie censorship, and other recent attempts to get artwork banned from museums, it’s hard to imagine how the city could keep up the reputation it wants.

There are still attempts to keep Hong Kong’s cultural world alive, notably through independent bookstores. But the mainland Chinese market is so big that many creators, especially in the corporate world, don’t want to alienate it. That will probably mean a shrinking space for anything critical.

What’s the mood inside the pro-democracy movement?

It’s still bleak. Some people say protesters will come out again when the pandemic fully ends and social distancing rules can’t be used anymore to ban public assembly. But many people I talk to say they are really scared.

For more: A 23-year-old protester is the first person charged under the security law to stand trial. He could face life in prison.

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Eric Adams at his election night party.Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times
  • With almost all in-person ballots counted, Eric Adams was leading in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. Maya Wiley was second.

  • Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, conceded.

  • These results are not final, and we may not know the winner for weeks. The city still has to count absentee ballots, as well as the ranked-choice votes. (New Yorkers could rank up to five candidates in order of preference.)

  • For more: A detailed map of how people voted, takeaways and the latest vote count.

Amazon bills its annual Prime Day as a “holiday.” For many of the company’s workers, it’s miserable, Alex Press writes in Jacobin.

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A quest to crack the Zodiac killer’s ciphers.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

Cryptology: An engineer says he cracked the Zodiac killer’s code.

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Britney Spears, right, and her father, Jamie Spears, in 2008.Credit...X17

The case surrounding Britney Spears’s conservatorship is back in court today, and The Times has obtained court records that provide a rare view of her perspective. Spears will address the court directly, although it’s unclear if she will make her remarks in public.

The conservatorship, which started in 2008, restricts Spears’s rights, prohibiting her from making most decisions. Her father, Jamie Spears, is the steward of her roughly $60 million fortune. Among the findings in the records: Spears, now 39, could not make friends or restain her kitchen cabinets without the approval of her father.

Conservatorships are supposed to be a last resort for people who cannot take care of themselves, such as older people with dementia. Spears’s case has drawn public scrutiny in part because she has regularly performed over the past decade.

Spears’s father and others involved in the conservatorship have maintained that it is a smooth-running machine that rescued the star after public struggles and concerns about her mental health. But the court records tell a different story: Spears has pushed for years to end the conservatorship. It “comes with a lot of fear,” she said.

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Credit...Linda Xiao for The New York Times

Try making sweet and sour pork, and read about the new generation of chefs celebrating American Chinese food.

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The hosts talked about Matthew Calamari, Donald Trump’s former bodyguard.

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The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was billboard. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: [::] [::] (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.


Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. The word “pseudonormalcy” — from an Opinion essay about pandemic reopenings — appeared for the first time in The Times this week.

Here’s today’s print front page.

The Daily” is about the voting rights bill. On “The Argument,” a debate about America’s falling birthrate.

Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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Claire Moses is a writer for The Morning based in London. Before joining The Times in 2017, she worked at BuzzFeed News and other news outlets. She is originally from the Netherlands. More about Claire Moses

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: China’s Crackdown on Hong Kong. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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