Hong Kong’s High Court on Thursday, November 5, sentenced democracy activist Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison for conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. The conduct at the centre of the case was asking foreign governments and politicians to put pressure on Hong Kong and China, including through sanctions.
Wong, 30, was due to walk free in January 2027 after roughly six years in custody on earlier convictions. The new sentence means he will now spend years longer behind bars.
The sentence
High Court Judge William Tam said he took 13 years as his starting point and cut it to 10 because Wong pleaded guilty and for mitigation, according to Al Jazeera and ABC News (Australia). Wong pleaded guilty in September. The offence can carry life imprisonment if a court finds it to be of a “serious nature,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported before the hearing.
“The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime,” Tam said. “It is also necessary for the court to express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security.”
ABC News reported that Wong had two months left on his previous term and will be allowed to serve the two sentences concurrently. The other outlets we reviewed did not report this, and none gave a new release date.
What he was convicted of doing
Prosecutors said Wong conspired with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or take other hostile action against the government, Al Jazeera reported. The charged period runs from July 1 to November 23, 2020, the first months after the law took effect, according to The Nation, a Thai newspaper.
Much of the background cited in court took place before the law existed. ABC News reported that prosecutors said Wong and Law agreed around 2016 to lobby internationally for democratic self-determination, and that the case cited meetings with Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio in 2016 and 2019. The Nation described a September hearing that set out an international media and lobbying campaign by Demosisto, the pro-democracy party Wong co-founded, including trips to Washington. Tam said Wong and Law had entered the “international battleground” before the law and then “deliberately adapted” their activities after it took effect.
In mitigation, Wong said, according to The Nation: “I have never advocated Hong Kong independence, nor have I ever promoted the ‘collapse of China’ or regime change.” He added: “I have also never received foreign funding or spent money to hire foreign political consultants.” His lawyer, Derek Chan, asked for a sentence that would give Wong “some hope,” ABC reported, saying his client wanted to care for his parents after release.
Reactions
The US consulate in Hong Kong said it “strongly condemns” the sentence and called for Wong’s immediate release. “Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,” a spokesperson said, according to ABC. Human Rights Watch Asia director Elaine Pearson called it “cruel and unjust.” Amnesty International called it “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent.” Taiwan’s top China policy body accused Beijing and the Hong Kong government of using “authoritarian tools” to “fabricate charges.”
Beijing rejected the criticism. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said: “Relevant parties should earnestly respect China’s sovereignty, respect Hong Kong’s legal system,” and should stop “making irresponsible remarks” about Hong Kong court cases, ABC reported. Steve Li, a chief superintendent in the Hong Kong police national security department, said Wong was not an “enemy” but needed to respect the law and “understand his own country,” The Nation reported.
Points of conflict in the reporting
- His earlier sentence. ABC says Wong has already served four years and eight months for subversion. AFP described “a nearly five-year jail term for subversion.” The Nation and Al Jazeera trace his custody to a 2020 guilty plea over an unauthorised 2019 protest. These accounts can both be true, since Wong has been convicted in more than one case, but the outlets do not set out the full sequence.
- When custody began. The US consulate statement says December 2020. The Nation says November 2020.
- Nathan Law’s status. Law lives abroad. The reports we reviewed do not say whether he is a co-defendant in this case.
Why it matters
The facts of the case are not in dispute: Wong admitted the charge. What the case shows is where Hong Kong now draws the line. The conduct charged, asking foreign governments and politicians to apply pressure on Hong Kong and China, including sanctions, is the kind of advocacy Americans would treat as ordinary politics. Under the 2020 law it brought a 10-year sentence, and the court treated earlier lobbying, including the meetings with Pelosi and Rubio, as background to the offence.
The sentence follows media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s 20-year sentence for collusion and sedition in February, The Nation reported. Whether Washington answers with anything beyond the consulate’s statement is not yet known.
Sources
- Al Jazeera, “Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 years in jail,” November 5, 2026: aljazeera.com
- ABC News (Australia), “Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 more years in prison,” November 5, 2026: abc.net.au
- The Nation (Thailand), “Hong Kong jails Joshua Wong for 10 years,” November 5, 2026: nationthailand.com
- The Star (Malaysia), via AFP, “Hong Kong to sentence activist Joshua Wong on Thursday,” November 3, 2026: thestar.com.my
Featured image: The High Court Building on Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong, March 2023. Photo by HASOMKWO 303 via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
