Thank you for that very provocative and incisive question. I'm sorry I did not hear the previous witness, but the red lines are expanding or narrowing, depending on one's perspective. They tend to include Tibet and the Dalai Lama, of course; Taiwan and any semblance of belief that it is an independent nation; increasingly, Xinjiang and the treatment of the Uighur Muslim majority there; Hong Kong itself; and the South China Sea.
These are what China regards as its core interest, but I think as the Ukraine invasion by Russia has gone on, we're seeing pressure in new areas. For example, three people get together with a Ukrainian flag, and they're arrested because they've violated the social distancing rules, which under the COVID regulations only allow two people to get together. Of course, hundreds of people can line up for a new watch, and that's no problem. We're seeing a narrowing of the “Hong Kong” mind and a broadening of these red lines.
I think that your previous witness, if I understood correctly, was quite perceptive in pointing out that the whole point of red lines is that they're not really red. They're up to you as the journalist to essentially self-censor and try to outguess the censor. Naturally, in avoiding trouble, people tend to be more and more cautious. There's effectively no pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong anymore, and the leading English language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, for which I was previously editor-in-chief, I think has become increasingly timid. It takes a huge toll on Hong Kong, and, of course, it takes a big toll on the journalists, so many of whom are in jail.