Uploaded November 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
6) Fill in the blanks based on what you listen:
The people of Hong Kong are out in the streets.
Hundreds of thousands are demonstrating against a deeply unpopular bill.
But this is about a _____________ lot more than a bill. It’s about the status of Hong Kong and the power China has over it. It’s a fight to preserve the freedoms people have here. And it all started with a ____________________.
On February 8, 2018, a young couple, Chan Tong Kai and Poon Hiu-Wing, went from their home in Hong Kong to Taiwan for a vacation. They stayed at the Purple Garden Hotel in Taipei for nine days. But on February 17th only one of them returned to Hong Kong. There, one month later, Chan confessed to murdering his girlfriend, who was ______________ at the time.
But there was a problem. Hong Kong authorities couldn’t _______________ him for murder, because he did it in Taiwan. And they couldn’t send him back to Taiwan to be charged, because Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t have an extradition agreement. So in 2019, Hong Kong’s government proposed one: it would let them transfer suspects to Taiwan so they could be tried for their crimes. But the same bill would also allow extradition to mainland China.
‘Where there's no fair trial, there's no humane punishment, and there's completely no separation of powers’. And that's what __________________ these protests.
China and Hong Kong are two very different places with a very complex political relationship. And the extradition bill ___________________ to give China more power over Hong Kong. See, Hong Kong is technically a part of China. But it operates as a semi-autonomous region. It all began in the late 1800s, when China lost a series of wars to Britain and ended up ceding Hong Kong for a period of 99 years. Hong Kong remained a British colony until 1997, when Britain gave it back to China, under a special agreement. It was called, “One Country, Two Systems.”
It made Hong Kong a part of China, but it also said that Hong Kong would retain "a high degree of autonomy,” as well as democratic freedoms like the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, of assembly. And that made Hong Kong very different from mainland China, which is authoritarian: Citizens there don’t have the same freedoms. Its legal system is often used to arrest, punish, and silence people who ____________ ______ against the state.
But according to the agreement, ‘One Country, Two Systems’ wouldn’t last forever. In 2047, Hong Kong is expected to fully become a part of China. The problem is, China isn’t waiting for the deal to __________________. Under the rule of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, pro-democracy leaders have already been arrested in Hong Kong. And mysterious abductions of booksellers have created a threat to free speech. But Hong Kong has been pushing back. In 2003, half a million Hong Kongers successfully fought legislation that would have punished speaking out against China. And in 2014, tens of thousands of protesters occupied the city for weeks to protest China’s influence over Hong Kong’s elections.
Now, Hong Kongers are fighting the extradition bill, because the bill is widely seen as the next step in China’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s autonomy.
6) Fill in the blanks based on what you listen:
The people of Hong Kong are out in the streets.
Hundreds of thousands are demonstrating against a deeply unpopular bill.
But this is about a _____________ lot more than a bill. It’s about the status of Hong Kong and the power China has over it. It’s a fight to preserve the freedoms people have here. And it all started with a ____________________.
On February 8, 2018, a young couple, Chan Tong Kai and Poon Hiu-Wing, went from their home in Hong Kong to Taiwan for a vacation. They stayed at the Purple Garden Hotel in Taipei for nine days. But on February 17th only one of them returned to Hong Kong. There, one month later, Chan confessed to murdering his girlfriend, who was ______________ at the time.
But there was a problem. Hong Kong authorities couldn’t _______________ him for murder, because he did it in Taiwan. And they couldn’t send him back to Taiwan to be charged, because Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t have an extradition agreement. So in 2019, Hong Kong’s government proposed one: it would let them transfer suspects to Taiwan so they could be tried for their crimes. But the same bill would also allow extradition to mainland China.
‘Where there's no fair trial, there's no humane punishment, and there's completely no separation of powers’. And that's what __________________ these protests.
China and Hong Kong are two very different places with a very complex political relationship. And the extradition bill ___________________ to give China more power over Hong Kong. See, Hong Kong is technically a part of China. But it operates as a semi-autonomous region. It all began in the late 1800s, when China lost a series of wars to Britain and ended up ceding Hong Kong for a period of 99 years. Hong Kong remained a British colony until 1997, when Britain gave it back to China, under a special agreement. It was called, “One Country, Two Systems.”
It made Hong Kong a part of China, but it also said that Hong Kong would retain "a high degree of autonomy,” as well as democratic freedoms like the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, of assembly. And that made Hong Kong very different from mainland China, which is authoritarian: Citizens there don’t have the same freedoms. Its legal system is often used to arrest, punish, and silence people who ____________ ______ against the state.
But according to the agreement, ‘One Country, Two Systems’ wouldn’t last forever. In 2047, Hong Kong is expected to fully become a part of China. The problem is, China isn’t waiting for the deal to __________________. Under the rule of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, pro-democracy leaders have already been arrested in Hong Kong. And mysterious abductions of booksellers have created a threat to free speech. But Hong Kong has been pushing back. In 2003, half a million Hong Kongers successfully fought legislation that would have punished speaking out against China. And in 2014, tens of thousands of protesters occupied the city for weeks to protest China’s influence over Hong Kong’s elections.
Now, Hong Kongers are fighting the extradition bill, because the bill is widely seen as the next step in China’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s autonomy.
