I was a member of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) when I was in Hong Kong. Although I was not a journalist, my income from doing media work exceeded that from my job at school. That was why I was able to join.
I was oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before Hong Kong’s handover in 1997. I was even denied entry by China, which was recorded in the HKJA’s yearbook. The union voicing support for me was the reason why I have been keeping an eye on what has been happening to them despite having left the territory.
The CCP has always tried to suppress freedom of speech, with the HKJA being a thorn in its side. The Hong Kong Federation of Journalists (HKFJ) was established in 1996 by the CCP, with the aim of countering the HKJA.
Yet, the HKFJ’s first chairperson Chan Kin-ming (陳堅明) died in a hotel in Washington during a visit to the US in 1998. The federation has not wielded any significant influence even with the support of the CCP.
The CCP has since focused on suppressing the HKJA, especially since the anti-extradition bill protests in 2019, and smearing the union.
At least 15 journalists have been sent e-mails and letters with defamatory content from self-proclaimed “patriots” to their home addresses, workplaces and other venues, while their family members, and landlords, employers and organizations they are associated with have also received abuse, HKJA chair Selina Cheng (鄭嘉如) said at a news conference on Friday last week.
The harassment appeared to be systematic and coordinated, and Cheng was also one of the targets.
Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit organization that promotes freedom of information, urged the international community to take action to support Hong Kong journalists.
The intimidations made an explicit implication of loss of jobs and homes for the journalists and their families. What happened that made these “patriots” threaten the journalists and people around them by such underhanded means?
The HKJA voted in a new Executive Committee and chair in June.
Ever since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in 2020 and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance was enacted this year to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law, various political parties, groups and student unions have been disbanded under pressure, while others have not dared to take on official roles.
The HKJA has also faced similar problems. As a result, many of the candidates who ran in the re-election are employed by foreign media outlets, which are supposed to be less threatened by the increasing pressure from the tense political atmosphere.
Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang (鄧炳強) said he thought it was a “foreign journalist association” when he looked at the list of candidates.
Despite warnings of infiltration by law enforcement, voice recording and identity recognition, 12 candidates were elected on June 22 to be members of the HKJA board, many of whom were reporters from foreign media and freelance journalists.
Cheng, who worked for the Wall Street Journal when she was elected as head of the union, was fired by the newspaper on July 17.
The chief editor of the paper’s foreign desk, who is based in the UK, traveled to Hong Kong to deliver the message to her in person, Cheng said in a statement.
Dow Jones, the newspaper’s parent company, declined to comment on the sacking.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Cheng went to Sorbonne University in Paris to study philosophy and sociology. After graduating, she worked for The Associated Press when the “Umbrella movement” broke out in 2014. She went to Columbia University in the US for a master’s degree in journalism, furthering her studies in investigative reporting.
It was shocking that such a talent was fired by her US employer.
On the day of the HKJA’s election, two of the elected candidates resigned from the board, while two others later stepped down.
Despite losing her job, Cheng fought for Hong Kong’s press freedom alongside her board members.
It is important for Taiwanese to know that the HKJA is the only union that has not collapsed under the pressure of the National Security Law. It is also essential for journalists in Taiwan to learn a lesson from Hong Kong and cherish the press freedom they enjoy in their nation.
Members of the Taiwanese media should also encourage and support the HKJA more often.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Fion Khan
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not