Editor’s note for Monday, January 3, 2022

My thoughts today:

Happy new year! Now back to reality:

“The day Hong Kong press freedom died” is what we called October 5, 2018. It was the date on which Hong Kong declined to renew the visa of Financial Times editor and vice president of the local foreign press club, Victor Mallet. Mallet had chaired a talk by a pro-independence activist the club in August that year, which China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had tried to block.

So, the New Year news of the closing of Stand News and Citizen News — two of the last serious independent news organizations in Hong Kong — is no surprise at all. We recently spiked a story about the future of independent media in Hong Kong because we could not honestly paint a sunny outlook without being disingenuous, and it seemed unfair to report on other media organizations that are dedicated to good journalism in a topic that is part of our beat at The China Project, but facing an extremely tough environment.

But unfortunately, the future is clear: all independent news media organizations will be crushed, or neutered as social forces, and this process is going to happen at an accelerating pace. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥 Lín Zhèng Yuè’é) explained the situation perfectly clearly in a statement last week:

These actions are law enforcement actions. These actions have nothing to do with so-called suppression of press freedom or suppression of democracy, as some will put it. I would say that nobody should associate law enforcement actions by the Police department with the freedom of the press.

As anyone who has been reading Chinese Foreign Ministry statements regularly will tell you (and I’ve been reading them since the mid-1990s), Carrie Lam has mastered the language of Beijing. What the above means is that there will be no mercy for any media organization that dares to do the wrong kind of journalism.

Sadly, the best anyone can hope for is that my prediction in The China Project’s 2022 Red Paper does not come true: “The Hong Kong government will begin erecting a version of the Great Firewall to censor the internet.” But I’ll stand by the prediction.

Sorry to be so gloomy on our first newsletter of the year, so let me conclude by offering you my cheeriest smile and most bullish wishes for the coming Year of the Tiger!

Our words of the day are:

• Citizen News (眾新聞 zhòng xīnwén or zung3 san1 man4 in Cantonese)
• Stand News (立場新聞 lìchǎng xīnwén or lap6 coeng4 san1 man4)

Looking for funding for a social or philanthropic initiative addressing climate and the environment and connected to the U.S. and China? The China Institute-Serica U.S.-China Next-Gen Leaders Circle is awarding grants of up to $10,000 for suitable projects: Download the application form here, and email USChinaNGLC@gmail.com with any questions. The application deadline is this Friday, January 7, 2022.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief