A Hong Kong-based reporter for the Wall Street Journal was terminated by the newspaper soon after she was elected as chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
The HKJA, a press advocacy association, has been accused in recent weeks by state-backed and state-run media outlets in Hong Kong and China of destabilizing the city.
Selina Cheng, the reporter, said in a news conference Wednesday that she believes the termination is related to her role as chair of the organization. She said she came under pressure from her employer to quit the association.
The day before the HKJA election, Cheng said, her supervisors directed her to withdraw her candidacy and to leave HKJA’s board, of which she has been a member since 2021. She declined their requests.
“[I] was immediately told it would be incompatible with my job,” said Cheng. “The editor said employees of the Journal should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, even though they can in Western countries, where it is already established.”
The HKJA is considered a trade union, and under Hong Kong law, it is legal to be an officer of a union, a right guaranteed by the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.
In an emailed response, a spokesman for Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, confirmed it made “personnel changes” on Wednesday but said it could not comment on specific individuals.
“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” the spokesman added.
The termination, if linked to Cheng’s position at HKJA, would be the latest indication of how even large, well-resourced international media organizations are wary about the risks of operating in Hong Kong, a once-freewheeling city that has increasingly come to resemble mainland China in its suppression of civil liberties, including press freedom.
In the wake of mass protests in 2019, Beijing passed a national security law in Hong Kong that established punishments of up to life imprisonment for vaguely described crimes, such as subversion of state power and colluding with foreign forces.
These laws, alongside a new set of domestically focused national security laws passed this year, have had the effect of altering every institution in Hong Kong, from the courts to universities and newsrooms. After the passage of the national security law, the New York Times relocated its Hong Kong digital operation to Seoul, saying there was “a lot of uncertainty” about what the changes would mean for its operations and journalism.
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal said it was shifting its Asia headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore and laid off a number of Hong Kong-based reporters. Cheng’s role was not affected at the time, and she continued to be based in and employed in the city. Cheng, 32, covers the Chinese auto industry, which the Journal has said is one of its priority coverage areas. In terminating her on Wednesday, editors cited restructuring, she said.
In a statement, the HKJA said the Journal is “not alone” in taking this stance and that other elected board members have been “pressured by their employers to stand down.” Previously, the Journal’s management in Hong Kong told one of its now-former reporters, technology reporter Dan Strumpf, not to run for president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, citing risks to the company.
The HKJA remains a vocal group advocating for journalists in Hong Kong, both local and foreign. In a piece earlier this month, the Global Times, a Chinese state mouthpiece, said it had a “spotty history of colluding with separatist politicians and instigating riots in Hong Kong” and was “by no means a professional organization representing the Hong Kong media.”
The Global Times highlighted Cheng’s reporting for the Journal, which it said attacked the national security law, and the reporting of two other board members: James Griffiths, a correspondent for the Canadian-based Globe and Mail, and Theodora Yu, a freelancer who was a former employee of The Washington Post.
Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung has also attacked the HKJA, saying it had stood with the “black-clad violent mob” during the 2019 protests.
In its statement, the HKJA called on all media outlets working in China “to allow their employees to freely advocate for press freedom and better working conditions in solidarity with fellow journalists in Hong Kong and China.”
