HONG KONG — As the teams lined up before a rugby match between Hong Kong and South Korea in November, a well-known song associated with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement rang out around the stadium instead of the Chinese national anthem. Apparently, a young employee at the local organizing body had accidentally clicked on the song "Glory to Hong Kong" when he searched for the Chinese national anthem, "March of the Volunteers."

Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years. In 1997 the United Kingdom handed control back to China, which in turn guaranteed that the special administrative region would have political autonomy for 50 years. But this freedom has been steadily undermined since 2019, and Beijing is increasingly trying to bring Hong Kong under its control through crackdowns and a puppet government.

In 2019, up to 2 million people took to the streets to protest a proposed extradition bill and Beijing’s growing influence in Hong Kong. "Glory to Hong Kong" was often played at these protests.

The organizers of the November rugby match made an official apology to Beijing and Hong Kong, but the Communist Party called for an investigation into the incident. Although China’s influence in Hong Kong is growing, the formerly democratic island enjoys more freedoms than the Chinese mainland. A proposal to ban "Glory to Hong Kong" in the country was initially rejected by Hong Kong’s High Court. But the Communist Party will not let this "disobedience" go unpunished.

That’s not all. According to the Communist Party, the National Security Law passed in 2020, which in principle forbids all criticism of the People’s Republic, does not only apply to Hong Kong but to the entire world. That means even an American company such as Google could be charged under this law for having the wrong song as the top result on its search engine.