Ben Bland is a research fellow at the Lowy Institute and the author of "Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China's Shadow."
After she quit the Occupy protests in 2014 because of pressure on her family, student Agnes Chow told me that she would never again be cowed by intimidation from Beijing. But this week she and fellow democracy campaigners Joshua Wong and Nathan Law disbanded their political organisation, Demosisto, and Law fled Hong Kong after Beijing introduced a national security law that was far more repressive than feared.