In the November 2024 FRONTLINE documentary China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping, exiled pro-democracy activist Anna Kwok described the price she had paid for opposing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on her native Hong Kong — including being unable to be in touch with her relatives there for their own safety.

“I think that’s the toughest strategy the regime has on people,” Kwok told correspondent Martin Smith at the time. “It’s about breaking up the trust and breaking up the human connections you have with each other so that you cannot have that power and that connection you need to keep fighting the fight.”

Kwok’s father and brother were recently arrested in Hong Kong, according to media reports. Local media reported that they were accused of allegedly dealing with Kwok’s finances, charges that could lead to a maximum seven years in prison, according to Reuters.

As an activist, Kwok helped run protest operations from outside Hong Kong in 2019, as people demonstrated against legislation allowing Beijing authorities to extradite Hong Kongers to China. The legislation was part of what international observers have described as an escalating effort by the Chinese Communist Party to increase control over Hong Kong. That effort included the passage of a controversial national security law in 2020 that gave China a broad legal framework to deal with protesters, and criminalized activities deemed as collusion, subversion and secession.

In the FRONTLINE documentary, Kwok, who is now based in the U.S., appeared near tears as she described being unable to talk with her family members in Hong Kong — a decision she made “for their best interest.” Hong Kong police in 2023 announced a bounty for Kwok’s arrest.

“At the end of the day, it’s about fighting for people you love, right?” Kwok said of her activism and the severed connection with her family. “And once that connection is gone, you lose that motivation. So I think that’s what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing, for decades, actually, to various communities that have been trying to fight for freedom.”

Directed by Smith and Marcela Gaviria, China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping examined the Chinese leader’s rise, his vision for China and the implications — including for Hong Kong, which was supposed to maintain “a high degree of autonomy” for a 50-year period under an agreement made in 1997 when Britain returned the city to China.

The promise, Kwok said, was “that we would have what is essentially called ‘one country, two systems,’ meaning that even though we are supposedly part of China, Hong Kong would have its own system, its own governance, its own autonomy, and the people of Hong Kong have their own way of living.”

Xi has made assurances about Hong Kong’s autonomy. But according to Matthew Pottinger, a deputy national security advisor during the first Trump presidency, “In 2020, Beijing subverted the 50-year guarantee it had made to honor Hong Kong’s, quote, ‘high degree of autonomy.’ It completely kneecapped that agreement.”

Said former Trump national security advisor John Bolton, “They abandoned the one country, two system policy. They began to suppress economic and political freedom. And they’re now obliterating the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China.”

For the full story, watch China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping. The documentary is available to stream at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

Patrice Taddonio, Senior Digital Writer, FRONTLINE

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@ptaddonio