... captures how much has been wrested from Hong Kong’s people—a measure of how far Beijing is willing to go to destroy liberal institutions and democratic norms and ensure its tight lock on the power of the Chinese Communist Party ... Mr. Clifford aptly concludes by wondering whether 'Hong Kong can be both a global financial center and a city that holds political prisoners.'

... a journalistic book in the traditional sense, offering readers a rapid-fire recounting of the key events from the Occupy movement to the arrests of prominent politicians and journalists in 2020 and 2021. He also takes time to delve into the history of the handover negotiations between Britain and China, as well as the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, which plunged Hong Kong into crisis and prompted a wave of emigration ... Clifford is angry and unsparing in his criticisms of China’s communist leaders and Hong Kong’s local officials ... Clifford lived in Hong Kong long enough to gain status as a permanent resident with voting rights. But he still at times writes about the city as an expatriate outside observer looking in. He sprinkles his chapters with a few characters — his barber, a financial professional, an art gallery owner and his Cantonese teacher, whose goal was to compile the first dictionary of Cantonese. But these characters are rarely fully developed beyond a few pages, and most quickly disappear...He also devotes surprisingly scant attention to the protests that erupted in early June 2019 and continued into early 2020.

Clifford’s authoritative reportage makes for gripping reading. But the book gets bogged down in repetition and starts to feel like a long-form magazine feature stretched across 300 pages. His assertion that China’s ambition is to suppress free thought the world over feels underbaked, despite numerous examples of China pulling levers of intimidation beyond its borders. Like Russian disinformation campaigns, it’s hard to know the scale and reach of China’s harassment methods abroad, and unfortunately, Clifford fails to shed much more light than what has already been reported in the mainstream media.

Pertinent, mournful reflections on how mainland China continues to tighten its grip on the freedoms held so dear by the Hong Kong community ... In addition to a potent personal narrative, Clifford widens his scope to encompass the larger-scale, nefarious intentions of Beijing to maintain control over its satellites ... An agile observer and diligent journalist, Clifford leads us through Hong Kong’s fraught modern history in relation to the striving for democratic freedoms, and he reveals many stark consequences brought about by the suppression of its spirit ... An intimate, eye-opening chronicle that should serve as an alarm to fragile democratic republics around the world.

Making a convincing case that the personal freedoms and legal protections established under British colonial rule helped make Hong Kong 'one of the freest and most prosperous places in the world,' Clifford explains how the influx of mainland Chinese tourists and property buyers in recent years have contributed to staggering income disparities that helped fuel the 2019 protest movement, which was sparked by the legislature’s consideration of a bill (since withdrawn) that would have allowed for the extradition of suspected criminals to China ... Though Clifford’s argument that China is on a campaign to 'extinguish free thought' around the world borders on the hyperbolic, he makes an impassioned case that “anyone who believes in democracy” should support the protest movement. This cri de coeur rings true.