Joshua Wong confesses: What is the second national security case against a Hong Kong activist?

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a case in which he was accused of colluding with foreign forces to threaten national security.

The lawsuit against him was brought under a law imposed by Beijing that has stifled Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Wong, a pro-democracy activist, was serving a prison sentence of four years and eight months when this second conviction was announced.

While some critics say his second conviction shows Beijing is jailing dissidents to suppress their activism, the Chinese government views Wong and other dissidents like him as anti-China figures who support Hong Kong independence.

What was the second case about?

Wong was charged with conspiring to trigger foreign sanctions against China and Hong in 2020.

According to prosecutors, Wong and his co-conspirators lobbied for a U.S. law that would allow sanctions against Hong Kong and China using social media campaigns, as well as meetings with U.S. politicians such as Marco Rubio (then a senator) as well as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Prosecutors also said the plan they created was called “International Battlefront” and was in action even after the National Security Act was passed.

They said Wong shared an online petition by fellow activist Nathan Law (who currently lives in exile in London) in which Law urged digital forensics companies not to cooperate with the police. This petition was shared after the Security Act 2020 came into effect.

A Hong Kong government spokesman said of the case and international criticism of the prosecution of Wong and other activists: “The lawful exercise of freedom of expression must not be conflated with actions to collude with a foreign country to impose ‘sanctions’ to harm one’s own country.”

Wong first rose to prominence during a 2012 student protest in which he led students against the introduction of national education in Hong Kong schools. It later gained prominence during the Occupy Movement of 2014.

He founded a political party called Demosisto in 2016 and helped seek overseas support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement during the 2019 protests. The party disbanded after the introduction of security laws in 2020.