Chloe Cheung — Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom Is Not Over | Geneva Summit 2026

You hear chanting, "Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong." The sound echoes through the street. Thousands of voices rising together. Then suddenly a sharp bang. Then another. The sky fills with smoke. Tear gas. Your eyes burn. Your throat closes. You taste chemicals in the air. Your chest tightens. Instinct takes over. Run. Everyone's running, but no one knows where to run. You hear coughing, screaming. Someone shouts for water. Someone falls. A young girl is crying. Her hands shaking as she tries to pull on the mask. Rubber bullets crack through the air. The sound is sharp, unnatural, terrifying. This is not a theater performance. This was my home. This was Hong Kong in 2019. I was only 14 years old at my first protest in Hong Kong. I remember wearing my school uniform and going with my friends at an age intended for jokes, unfinished homeworks, and the luxurious ignorance of how the world truly works. That summer didn't politicize us. It conscripted us. We marched because our government proposed an extradition bill that would permit the transfer of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China for trial into a judicial system answerable not to law but to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party. A system where verdicts are known before a trial even begun. A place where dissidence is dangerous.