Joshua Wong receives 10-year term in Hong Kong security case
The 30-year-old activist will serve his new sentence concurrently with an existing term, reducing the time he remains behind bars.
By Harper Collins ·
Joshua Wong was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for a second conviction under Hong Kong's national security law. The judge permitted Wong to serve this new term concurrently with his existing sentence, meaning he will not add a full decade to his current time behind bars.
Wong pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security. He was originally charged with this offense in 2025. The conviction follows a previous case stemming from an unofficial primary election, for which he is already serving a four-year, eight-month term.
Before this latest prosecution, Wong was scheduled for release in January 2027. With the concurrent sentencing, he has approximately two months remaining on his previous term. Judge William Tam stated that he considered a 13-year sentence as a starting point but reduced the term due to Wong's guilty plea. The judge described the offense as grave and rejected the argument that Wong's role was limited.
The prosecution alleged that Wong and fellow activist Nathan Law agreed around 2016 to lobby internationally for democratic self-determination. Authorities pointed to meetings between Wong and U.S. politicians, including Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio, in 2016 and 2019. The state argued that after the security law was enacted, the pair continued to advance their work abroad while Wong supported the effort from within Hong Kong using foreign media and social platforms.
Defense attorney Derek Chan asked the court to impose a sentence that would offer some hope, noting that Wong intends to care for his parents after his release. Friends described how Wong spent his nearly six years in prison reading, exercising, and learning guitar. They noted that he matured in his thinking during his detention.
Observers view the sentencing as a signal of the authorities' determination to keep prominent activists incarcerated. Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, stated that national security charges can be repeatedly used to keep specific political prisoners in jail if the government deems it necessary. Beijing regards Wong as an anti-China figure who supports Hong Kong independence, a stance that crosses a key red line for the central government.
Wong appeared calm during the hearing and thanked his supporters before leaving the court. Tiffany Chin, a former member of the now-disbanded Scholarism movement that Wong once led, was in tears. Resident ET Wong, a supporter, said Wong possessed big-picture thinking as a teenager and walked a difficult path for the student movement. She stated that in her heart, he should not have spent a single day in wrongful imprisonment.
