Hong Kong has become a leading source of out bound refugees on a per capita basis, a new book claims.

The book, ‘When the Wind Blows: The Struggle for Freedom in Hong Kong’, by former Hong Kong politician Nathan Law says the city, once a safe haven for refugees, is now exporting increasing numbers of its own.

Mr Law says the ongoing crackdown on political dissent in Hong Kong has turned the city, where millions once took refuge from Chinese Communist Party rule, into an “exporter of refugees”.

The former legislator, who had his passport revoked recently, as a refugee who settled in Hong Kong after fleeing Communist Party rule in mainland China.

Now, Mr Law says in his book, the former British colony that once acted as a safe haven for millions of fleeing Chinese is seeing its own residents flee in the hundreds of thousands amid an ongoing crackdown on all forms of political opposition.

Mr Law told a book launch event in Taiwan on that under Chinese Communist Party rule, somewhere that was once a place of hope for all those who wanted to escape from China has become an exporter of its own refugees.

The youngest person to ever be elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, Mr Law said at the launch event: “This has seen a lot of people deprived of hope, sent to prison, and has forced many young people and people with ideals to leave”.

“It really shows how totalitarian rule can ruin somewhere that used to Law said he is launching his book in Taiwan because it’s no longer possible to have it published in Hong Kong.

“It shows how the entire political situation has collapsed in Hong Kong, where we have lost even the right to publish along with our freedom of expression,” he said, amid tight security at the event.

Mr Law said he hopes to focus attention in the Chinese-speaking world on the experience of exiled Hong Kongers, as well as reminding them of the plight of its political prisoners, who have been jailed in their thousands under public order charges in the wake of the 2019 protests, with hundreds of arrests under draconian laws that criminalise public criticism of the authorities.

Following the national security crackdown in July 2020, Mr Law left for London and began his self-exile. He was granted political asylum In April 2021.

Hong Kong police have ordered his arrest for inciting secession and collusion and issued a HK$1 million bounty for his capture in July 2023.

In March 2021, Mr Law was named a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in May 2022 and he received an honorary doctorate from the US’ Washington and Jefferson College.

Mr Law was born in July 1993 in Shenzhen, China, to a Hong Kong father and a Mainland mother. He moved to Hong Kong with his mother for a family reunion when he was around six years old. He and his siblings were raised almost single-handedly by their mother.