Editor’s note for Thursday, July 2, 2020

Dear Access member,

We are taking tomorrow off for the long American weekend holiday marking Independence Day, and will not send a newsletter unless there is important breaking news.  

Some notes on today’s news:

Will China offer citizenship to 3 million Britons? Reacting to Boris Johnson’s offer to take in up to 3 million Hongkongers after the passage of the new national security law (see our second story below), China’s Foreign Ministry threatened retaliation. Or will China simply stop Hongkongers from flying to the U.K.?  

Forced renunciation of foreign citizenship? The Globe and Mail reports that a “Chinese court has sentenced a Falun Gong practitioner who held a Canadian passport to eight years in prison for belonging to a spiritual movement that Beijing calls a ‘cult.’”

The woman “also renounced her Canadian citizenship in the process — a move her supporters say she made under duress and torture.” This recalls the “renunciation” of Swedish citizenship by Hong Kong bookseller Guì Mǐnhǎi 桂敏海 in February this year when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on spurious national security charges.

Our word of the day is hair extension (接发 jiēfà) — see our top story below.

As always, just reply to this email if you’d like to reach my inbox directly. Have a great weekend.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief