Why does the Hong Kong National Party rile Beijing so much, and just who is Andy Chan Ho-tin?
In two years, Chan has navigated the city’s politics into uncharted waters, not once but twice. But why are the authorities acting now and what has alarmed them?
Long before he was caught in the political maelstrom of the moment, Andy Chan Ho-tin spent his Saturdays trying to outdo the singing aunties of Mong Kok.
But the young graduate was jostling with the boisterous buskers in the area’s famous pedestrian zone to the beat of his own ideological drum.
If the aunties were off-key in their melodies, as was often the case, Chan was low-key in his methods.
Some time between 2015 and 2016, Chan and his clutch of 10 friends distributed leaflets to the crowds each Saturday evening and took turns speaking into their portable microphones, their voices drowned out by the din. But they were undeterred.