It is always sad when a juvenile delinquent develops into a hardened recidivist, and Joshua Wong Chi-fung is no exception. From an early age, he exhibited criminal traits, and those propensities proliferated over time. A born grandstander, he reveled in the attention his antics attracted, particularly in China-hostile circles abroad.  

Before his latest conviction for “foreign collusion” on Nov 5, he was, as Justice William Tam Yiu-ho explained at sentencing, “not a stranger to the courts”. Aged 30, he had amassed six previous convictions, with eight offenses recorded.

In his school days, where he sought, through his “Scholarism” movement, to demonize patriotic values and demean his country, Wong’s antics were designed to destabilize the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A willing tool of foreign forces, he was indoctrinated into believing that undermining the “one country, two systems” policy would somehow benefit the SAR (it would certainly benefit China’s antagonists).

When it suited him, Wong was not averse to violence. This made his nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize by a bipartisan group of United States lawmakers in 2018 all the more bizarre. His depredations were anything but peaceful, as the awards committee that rejected his nomination realized.

On Sept 26, 2014, Wong, together with Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang, was involved in an unlawful assembly at “Civic Square” outside the government headquarters in Central. To trigger an occupation of the surrounding area, they forced their way into the premises, a restricted area, and encouraged others to do likewise. In the melee, 10 security guards were injured, one seriously.

The Court of Appeal branded Wong’s behavior as “a large-scale unlawful assembly, involving violence”. Although his guilt was as plain as a pikestaff, his foreign backers were incensed. For example, Paddy Ashdown, a Hong Kong Watch patron and British parliamentarian, co-signed a letter to the Guardian saying the three lawbreakers should be “honored”, and accusing the judges of “an outrageous miscarriage of justice”.

Not surprisingly, therefore, when Wong, in his capacity as the (since disbanded) Demosisto secretary general, visited Washington DC in November 2016, he was red carpeted by the ultraconservative elite. They ushered him in to meet then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican senators Tom Cotton and then-senator Marco Rubio. By doing so, he was following in the footsteps of two other Beijing-hostile SAR politicians, Anson Chan Fang On-sang and Martin Lee Chu-ming, increasingly seen as old guard. Everybody could see that Wong was now Washington’s “blue-eyed boy”, and it was undoubtedly hoped he would help to implement its Hong Kong agenda.

Indeed, during his visit, the Wall Street Journal not only ran an opinion piece authored by Wong (advocating “Hong Kong independence”), but also wrote an editorial titled “US Solidarity for Hong Kong”, which urged the US Congress to sanction Chinese officials for allegedly suppressing Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms. The US clearly invested heavily in Wong, and it paid off as events unfolded.

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Wong played a key role in the “black-clad” violence that gripped Hong Kong in 2019-20. As the violence raged, he (together with Law) was discovered meeting at a local hotel with the then US political counselor Julie Eadeh. Although the instructions she gave them were never disclosed, the US made no secret of its support for those involved in trying to wreck the “one country, two systems” policy (US Senator Ted Cruz even arrived in Hong Kong in black attire to demonstrate his solidarity with the rioters). Once the insurrection was over, Wong again faced justice. In December 2020, for example, he was sentenced to 13.5 months’ imprisonment for his role in besieging the Wan Chai Police Headquarters the previous year.

After the Hong Kong SAR National Security Law (NSL) was enacted on June 30, 2020, everything changed. While Law fled to the United Kingdom, where British authorities greeted him with open arms, Wong chose to remain (he told the Financial Times he was one of the “facilitators in this movement”). Since then, he has made history as the first defendant convicted in two separate NSL trials.

On Nov 5, Justice Tam sentenced Wong to 10 years’ imprisonment for colluding with foreign countries or external elements to endanger national security. All but two months and two days of the sentence will be served consecutively to the sentence of four years and eight months’ imprisonment he received earlier for the attempts by the “Hong Kong 47” to paralyze the legislature and subvert State power (for which he had been due for release on Jan 7, 2027). In both trials, he received sentencing discounts for pleading guilty (in the latest, the starting point of 13 years’ imprisonment was cut to 10 years).  

The prosecution argued that Wong was part of a global campaign to instigate sanctions and other hostile measures against Chinese mainland and Hong Kong officials, intended to undermine national security. Justice Tam described Wong and Law as “advocates at the forefront colluding with foreign forces”. They and their confederates had promoted foreign interference when Hong Kong faced “very high risks to national security and the rule of law” in the aftermath of the insurrection.

Tam acknowledged that he was imposing “a very heavy sentence”. However, he said it was necessary to “express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts together with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security, and to serve the imperative of general deterrence”.  When the survival of the nation is at stake, such sentiments are entirely legitimate.

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Although the 10-year sentence may seem harsh, it was the minimum available for someone convicted of an offense of foreign collusion “of a grave nature” (10 years to life imprisonment being the sentencing band).  

The NSL is not retroactive, and Wong’s guilty pleas showed exactly why he had not followed Law into exile. He was intimately involved locally in two distinct criminal enterprises, one internal and the other external. It beggars belief that he thought he could get away with them, and he must have underestimated the authorities’ determination to protect the “one country, two systems” framework.

As previously, Wong’s foreign backers bemoaned his fate. Whereas, for example, Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, condemned a “cruel and unjust” sentence, Francis Hui, US-based advocacy manager for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (headed by Mark Clifford, a Jimmy Lai Chee-ying acolyte), who has herself advocated sanctions against Hong Kong in the US Congress, claimed to be “heartbroken” and “outraged”.  However, these were crocodile tears shed by people who have been compelled to accept that foreign conspiracies are doomed to fail, and that, with Beijing’s unwavering support, the SAR is going from strength to strength.  

With Wong’s sentencing complete and with many of his confederates either imprisoned or in exile, the SAR can breathe a sigh of relief. Although there is no room for complacency, the “one country, two systems” framework is now far more secure than previously. If, moreover, Wong constructively uses his time in custody (as his lawyers assured Justice Tam he was already doing), there is no reason to suppose he will not emerge as a model citizen in due course.  

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.