For Hong Kong journalists, there is absolutely no room for old habits, even if they die hard.
The city’s second national security law passed swiftly last week has widened the scope of what constitutes a breach of national security. It has also raised the risk of news reporting which has already increased since the Beijing-imposed first law came in 2020 and China increasingly encroached on the city.
“What had been habitually acceptable, normal practice before, is no longer the case,” said a veteran journalist who declined to be named. “Journalists have to relearn and recalibrate.”
This means throwing to the wind best practices in journalism. In their place, the most experienced practitioners are learning by reviewing daily how government officials posture and how courts rule, the veteran journalist told Radio Free Asia.
Another seasoned journalist who also spoke on condition of anonymity said that while the immediate effects of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance have yet to be seen, the editorial process – from a journalist reporting the news to editors editing the story for publication – has become much more complex.
“For instance, if you have a scoop on a new government policy, would you report and publish that or would it be a breach of law? We don’t know what is considered lawful or what can become questionable,” the seasoned journalist explained, echoing the veteran journalist’s view of the unease that has been clouding the media since 2020.
The change in journalistic practices started nearly four years ago, after China’s parliament passed the National Security Law. However, the introduction of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance last week, also referred to as Article 23 based on a clause in Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the Basic Law – has intensified the concerns and uncertainties that Hong Kong journalists have faced over the past few years.
While there is some overlap with the first law, Article 23 has also created new offenses, increased punishment for offenders and granted the government sweeping new powers to crack down on all forms of dissent on the grounds of treason, insurrection, sabotage that endangers national security, external interference in Hong Kong’s affairs, and espionage and theft of state secrets.
"National security" as defined in Article 23 is identical to the first law, using China's expansive definition, which journalists and critics says is vague and heightens uncertainties.
In both laws, national security refers to “the status in which the state’s political regime, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, the welfare of the people, sustainable economic and social development, and other major interests of the state are relatively free from danger and internal or external threats, and the capability to maintain a sustained status of security.”
Under Article 23, insurrection and sabotage can be punished with life imprisonment. Jail terms for sedition are increased from two years to seven, or 10 if alleged perpetrators are found to have colluded with a foreign force.
The law also lengthens the detention period without charge from 48 hours to two weeks, and expands the British colonial-era offense of “sedition” to include inciting hatred against the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Hong Kong government had not responded to Radio Free Asia’s request for comment on Article 23’s effect on journalists at the time of publication.
When uncertain, self censor
Journalists who remained in the field observed that self censorship is now second nature in the profession and increasing in Hong Kong, once Asia’s bastion of free media and expression, liberties that helped make the city an international financial center.
“Before, you just reported the news, as balanced as you can be, after getting all sides of the issue. Now, you would think twice and more times, whether to even report. It’s become a collective decision involving more editors and often lawyers,” said the seasoned journalist. “Or you simply don’t report.”
Article 23 can also apply to actions that take place outside Hong Kong – by both residents and businesses – a move critics describe as China’s “long arm” to hunt down overseas pro-democracy activists and “anti-China elements.”
“It also makes reporting about overseas protests as journalists previously did risky because you might be seen as providing a platform to these organizations abroad,” said the veteran journalist, adding that these days, the approach is to wait for an official line from the Hong Kong government before publication of such types of news.
Indeed, Hong Kong media outlets were sparing in coverage of overseas protests against the first day of Article 23’s implementation on Saturday. When they did, their angle was to convey the annoyance of citizens of foreign cities unsettled by the chaos created by the demonstrations.
A case in point: HK01, an online news portal in Hong Kong, reported Saturday on disgruntled Taiwanese people who told protesters, many of whom were immigrants from Hong Kong, at a Taipei rally to "go back to Hong Kong" and not to mess up Taiwan.
At the same event in Taipei's bustling Ximen district, demonstrators were joined by Robert Tsao, founder of chip-making giant United Microelectronics Corporation and former Hong Kong resident, who blasted the Chinese Communist Party for upholding authoritarianism in the guise of national security and applying the “laughable” concept of “subverting the nation” when the country and regime should be separate notions.
“The CCP has tied the political regime with the country, which is a scam and extremely absurd,” Tsao said, as he warned that if Taiwan isn’t cautious, it could become the next Hong Kong.
Sea change
Hong Kong’s stifling media environment is part of the sea change to a suppressed political environment where political organizations, civil society and media outlets have been shuttered, and journalists, former lawmakers and academics self-exiled. All of this happened under the shadow of the first national security law.
Among these are the high-profile closure of Apple Daily in June 2021 and the ongoing trial of its founder Jimmy Lai, accused of colluding with foreign forces and publishing seditious articles, as well as the court cases of Chung Pui-luen and Patrick Lam, former editors of the shuttered digital media outlet Stand News.
Apple Daily, which represented the public's voice of democracy, had been ostracized by Beijing long before the 2019-2020 protests across the city. Those protests were triggered by the Hong Kong government's proposed extradition bill to establish a mechanism for transfers of fugitives in Taiwan, Macau and mainland China.. The demonstrations picked up traction as the public saw the proposed bill challenging the bottom line for their basic rights – the rule of law.
Adherence to the rule of law under a predictable common law framework was what the over seven million Hong Kong people were familiar with, and the major feature that separated the former British colony from China.
Lai and Apple Daily came under Beijing's intensified wrath amid the mass demonstrations of 2019 against the CCP's growing encroachment despite the "one country, two systems" principle that promised to leave Hong Kong's self governance, except in the areas of defense and diplomacy, intact until 2047.
Rawest nerve
The veteran journalist believes that out of all of the CCP’s national security fears over Hong Kong, the biggest is “collusion with external forces to pressure China,” given the city’s Westernized system and history of foreign engagement..
“The party is looking at it from the conspiratorial perspective to national interests. If it’s just local Hong Kong politics and the government, it’s relatively safe. But it can’t discount the possibilities at a national level,” the journalist said.
In the same vein, it will also become harder for foreign journalists to work in Hong Kong, according to former CNN China correspondent Mike Chinoy.
“There was always a lot of suspicion about Hong Kong because it was so Westernized and it was so separate,” Chinoy said in a recent interview with RFA.
My sense is that they saw in Hong Kong a rebellious peripheral area heavily influenced by foreigners that was challenging the central government, and I think that must have absolutely terrified them.”
Over the past few years, many foreign journalists have relocated to nearby Taiwan and South Korea's capital, Seoul, to report on China from these cities, which while fee and safe, do not permit crucial on-the-ground reporting.
International city, backstory
U.K. Foreign Minister David Cameron warned that the broad definitions of national security and external interference of Article 23 fail to provide certainty for international organizations operating in the city.
"It will entrench the culture of self-censorship which now dominates Hong Kong's social and political landscape, and enable the continuing erosion of freedoms of speech, of assembly, and of the media," Cameron said in a statement on March 19.
On the same day, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – an international alliance of parliamentarians from democratic nations working on relations with the CCP – said Article 23 was “eye watering in the repression it allows and the chilling effect it will create."
"Now, four years later [after the 2020 national security law], legislation has been enacted which effectively harmonizes Hong Kong and China's national security systems, making Hong Kong one of the most dangerous places in the world to disagree with the government," the group said in a statement.
Risks to the free flow of information
Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, said it is too early to assess the impact of Article 23 on journalism and the media, and in turn businesses for which the free flow of information is critical.
“It may take several test cases of journalists writing on issues the Hong Kong government disagrees with and intends to take legal action, as well as the Hong Kong courts’ responses to such action for anyone to know with greater clarity.”
However, he said it is also a question of whether journalists and news organizations will engage in such tests or accept self-censorship.
“The result may affect the degree to which businesses believe they can still receive reliable enough information and reporting for them to understand issues and risks to make commercial decisions with sufficient due diligence,” Chong added.
Already, Hong Kong citizens are feeling the pressure from the tightened control on free speech and civil liberties, despite government assurances otherwise.
“It reminds me of the Cultural Revolution, when your friend or family member reports on what you say and do,” a former journalist said.
On Sunday, a day after Article 23 became effective, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice Paul Lam warned in a televised interview that posting and sharing criticisms of the law could be in breach of the legislation.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.