I would note that when I lived in Hong Kong, it very much felt, as Professor Tung noted, like a safe city. I moved there in 2006. Things changed drastically when Xi Jinping came to power.
I would travel to mainland China, and when I came back to Hong Kong it felt like a place where one could be particularly free. That is not what Hong Kong is today. For example, on my last trip to Hong Kong, I was there with NDI's president, Derek Mitchell, and our regional director, Manpreet Anand. We were followed from their arrival at the airport. People took our pictures. They took our pictures as we were having meetings around the city and as NDI's president was meeting with other ambassadors and folks in the city. They would put those into mainly Beijing-run newspapers. It was done in an effort to scare and intimidate along with the sanctions that have been forced against us.
In addition, I do think that the environment in Hong Kong under the national security law, in terms of data and the presence of mainland security forces, is very difficult. It's quite scary. I myself, given the work I'm doing—even the fact of joining this meeting, which is illegal under the national security law and, I believe, prosecutable—do not feel safe going back to the city. I would fear what Beijing might do to target me.
Finally, on your question of Canadians in the city, I think we can't ignore the fact that the Chinese ambassador to Canada did overtly threaten the 300,000 Canadian citizens sitting in Hong Kong. We've seen that they have followed through with those threats in the past. If I were a Canadian company executive or a citizen sitting in Hong Kong, I would also be nervous.