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In Hong Kong, force majeure means political pressure
Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s final remaining major opposition party announced its decision to disband, after 30 years of operation. According to a Reuters report, senior Hong Kong Democratic Party members had previously been approached by Chinese officials or “middlemen” who warned them to disband or “face severe consequences”.
It’s a move that comes after years of security crackdowns, not just for the Hong Kong Democratic Party, but for countless liberal voices.
In late April 2024, the Hong Kong Journalists Association – which has come under immense pressure from the Hong Kong government to disband in recent years – suddenly cancelled its live fundraising concert just four days before its scheduled date, citing force majeure. The event instead moved online. Ronson Chan, the then head of the union, explained on his Facebook page without giving a clear reason: “I really want to say that we’ve all tried our best. But alas, in this world, trying our best isn’t enough.”
A month later, the student press of Lingnan University scrapped a call for articles about the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. The reason given was, again, force majeure, without any further comment.
Following the enactment of the National Security Law in June 2020, anyone hosting public events in Hong Kong has faced censorship or self-censorship, as state security has been elevated above all other considerations. Data compiled from news reports shows that at least 50 public events in Hong Kong have been cancelled since 2021 for clear political reasons or for reasons plausibly linked to the political stance of event organisers. Among them, 11 cited force majeure, and the use of this justification has been on the rise.
Under normal circumstances, force majeure refers to a legal clause used by event organisers to cancel activities due to natural disasters, riots or technical issues. In mainland China and Hong Kong, however, the term carries a different connotation since 2020.
“Usually, the Hong Kong government or those who pass on messages for the government would not allow their identities or the threats to be revealed,” said Chung Kim-wah, a former assistant professor of social science at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “The targeted people have no choice but to agree to the demands, or face immeasurable legal and political consequences.”
He added: “The authorities have the military, the police, the national security and the legal system behind them. There is no normal or formal way for those targeted to resist, and thus it is force majeure.”
The first known case of political force majeure occurred in March 2023, when a screening of the British independent horror movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was cancelled. Winnie the Pooh is often used to satirise Chinese leader Xi Jinping. When announcing the cancellation, the organiser, Moviematic, initially wrote on Instagram: “I believe you understand that in Hong Kong nowadays, many things are force majeure.” This line was later removed and replaced with “technical reasons.”
In 2024, four event cancellations cited force majeure. This year, six cancelled events have used the same reason. In some cases, the political link was more obscure. Last month, Japanese duo Yuzu cancelled concerts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei scheduled for December due to unavoidable circumstances. While the group itself is not in any way political, the cancellations may have been related to heightened tensions between China and Japan following remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in early November regarding the use of force in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Since Takaichi’s remarks, yet more events by Japanese entertainers in mainland China have been abruptly cancelled, all citing force majeure. Similarly, an event by the Korean girl group Le Sserafim in Shanghai was cancelled for the same reason, possibly because the group includes two Japanese members. The pressure has even extended beyond China’s borders. Hong Kong singer Ekin Cheng was scheduled to perform in Tokyo on December 5, but the concert was cancelled 10 days beforehand, again with the same explanation.
“For Beijing, slapping force majeure on Yuzu and other Japanese acts is a low‑cost way to signal displeasure with Tokyo’s Taiwan stance, quietly punishing Japanese cultural exports while preserving deniability about overt political retaliation, turning cross‑border art and entertainment into a barometer of Beijing’s grievances rather than a neutral space for exchange,” said Athena Tong, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo.
The use of the term has also expanded beyond event cancellations. Following a massive fire at a housing estate in Tai Po on 26 November, University of Hong Kong journalism student Ellie Yuen gained significant attention on social media for reporting on the cause of the fire and speaking to international media outlets. A week later, she posted that she would no longer provide comments or undertake further work related to the incident “for obvious reasons”. In the Chinese version of the post, she used the term force majeure.
“This is a use of dark forces by the authorities, no different from that of a mafia,” said social scientist Chung. “It is an abuse of power that overrides constitutional and administrative authority.”
When organisers cite force majeure, it at least serves as a clear signal that politics may be involved. In other cases, however, the public is left to speculate.
This summer, Hong Kong’s largest LGBTQ+ event, Pink Dot, announced the cancellation of its October event, after its venue in the West Kowloon Cultural District withdrew without providing an explanation. In some instances, venues have offered implausible justifications. Before it disbanded this month, the Hong Kong Democratic Party has been forced to postpone its fundraising dinner six times since 2023 due to venue cancellations, with reasons ranging from urgent gas pipe maintenance to broken windows.
Private companies and venues have to face the public, and they have to come up with reasons, even if they are unjustifiable, Chung said. The authorities, however, do not have to face public pressure and do not even have to give a reason when forcing an event to be cancelled.
Benson Wong, a former assistant professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University, explained that in the current political climate, some people and groups in Hong Kong are seen as “untouchables,” from whom service providers and the broader society are pressured to “disconnect”.
“The weird excuses are a way of reflecting how twisted Hong Kong society is,” he said.
But groups have found new ways to avoid censorship, such as booking venues in a personal capacity and not announcing events beforehand, according to Wong. According to him, guerrilla events may be on the rise.
In memory of Sir Tom Stoppard, a visionary dramatist and fierce champion of free expression
Tom Stoppard’s path to literary success is a story that would be worthy of the stage. Born in Czechoslovakia (as it was then known) as Tomás Straüssler in 1937, he endured a turbulent childhood before rising to fame as one of the great playwrights of his time. Known for his intelligent wordplay and intellectual prowess, Stoppard’s career spanned more than 60 years, across stage, screen and radio.
As well as being a literary great, he was also a staunch advocate for free speech. Although he often suggested that his works were not politically motivated, much of his writing centred around themes of censorship and human rights.
Stoppard joined the advisory board of Index on Censorship in 1978 and made several contributions to the magazine in defence of free speech, declaring in one interview that “free expression was what made all the other freedoms possible, so it was everything.”
Stoppard first rose to fame in 1967 with his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a tragicomedy revolving around the actions of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which brought overnight success after its London debut at the Old Vic. The play was responsible for the first of his five Tony award wins for Best Play, a record unmatched by any other playwright. Other works to earn this accolade include his 1974 comedy Travesties, 1982 drama The Real Thing and his 2002 drama The Coast of Utopia.
The 1990s signalled a decade of unparalleled success for Stoppard. His services to literature were acknowledged with a knighthood in 1997, and he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his 1998 film Shakespeare in Love.
Age proved no barrier to the writer, who continued his work well into his 80s with his last play Leopoldstadt, a drama centred around a Jewish family in Vienna, which earned him his final Tony award for Best Play in 2023.
His achievements are perhaps even more impressive considering the challenges he faced in early life. Soon after he was born, his family, who were non-practising Jews, were forced to flee Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazis. After four years in Singapore, Stoppard once again found himself fleeing conflict. An invasion by Japan caused him to move to India with his mother and brother, while his father stayed behind and was killed at sea by a bomb dropped by Japanese forces. In 1946, Stoppard’s mother married a British army major who gave the family his name and moved them over to England.
These roots influenced his later role as an advocate for free speech. The authoritarian regime that engulfed his homeland of Czechoslovakia in the years between the Soviet Union invasion in 1968 until the fall of communism there in 1989 helped to shape his opposition to totalitarianism and media repression. After reading about Victor Fainberg’s experience of being detained in the USSR in an issue of Index on Censorship in 1975, Stoppard was inspired to write Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a drama set in a Soviet mental hospital. He dedicated the play to Fainberg and Vladimir Bukovsky, another incarcerated dissident, and an excerpt was published in the magazine in 1978.
Stoppard worked as a journalist prior to his transition to the world of theatre. His early career influenced some of his later causes. For example, he voiced his support for Hacked Off’s campaign for a free and accountable press due to his belief that “free expression in the context of British journalism seemed to me to be about as important a subject for any kind of writing, including plays, as you would find.”
In his final interview with Index in 2021, he warned against the modern culture of intolerance, identity politics and cancel culture, declaring that “the danger to society of actual censorship has probably never been greater”. A year later he wrote playfully but seriously on identity politics.
Such talents as Stoppard come few and far between, and his contributions to both literature and the fight for free speech will be sorely missed.
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