Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong pleads guilty in national security case

Prominent Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong has pleaded guilty to a charge of foreign collusion in a second national security case that could see him jailed for life.

Wong, 29, entered the plea at Hong Kong’s High Court in the district of Admiralty on Wednesday.

He is accused of asking foreign countries to “impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities” against China and Hong Kong in 2020, after Beijing imposed a national security law on the autonomous territory.

The offence is punishable by a prison term of three to 10 years, or up to life imprisonment if it is deemed to be “of a grave nature”.

Wong is already serving a nearly five-year sentence for subversion and was due to be released next year.

He emerged as one of the most internationally recognised faces of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement during the Umbrella Movement protests in 2014. The movement served as a catalyst for the 2019 protests that led to Beijing’s imposition of the national security law.

Wong also co-founded Demosisto, a pro-democracy political party that launched in 2016. The party disbanded in 2020 on the same day the national security law was enacted.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that Wong had written for newspapers and spoken to media outlets to call for international sanctions against China and Hong Kong after the security law took effect, and met with foreign politicians including former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio.