Will be interesting to see precisely which articles/content were found to be seditious: some articles cited by prosecution were factual (interviews with dissidents) or op-eds alleged to be “unbalanced”. This will set new red lines for what is & isn’t acceptable to publish in HK.

Stand News' editors were defending the entire profession of journalism in Hong Kong when they pled not guilty. They pushed back against charges that op-eds, features and articles were anything other than normal journalism. Their guilty verdict will have profound implications.

"...our biggest opponent is the regime..." Chung Pui-Kuen, former chief editor of Stand News who was convicted today of sedition in Hong Kong, gave an unfortunately prescient response to an academic when asked about the media environment in Hong Kong in 2019.

2-year-long farcical prosecution ended with a predicted conviction. It's not just a travesty of justice, the impact of the case will reverberate across the HK news media: Who can you still write/talk about? Whose opinions can you still publish/broadcast?

‘During ⁦David Rennie 任大伟⁩’s current posting, the New York Times went from 10 foreign correspondents in mainland China to 2 at present, the Wall Street Journal from 15 to 3, and the Washington Post from 2 to zero.’ Depressing stat. economist.com/china/2024/08/… from The Economist

Welcome back to school, kids

Friends in Taipei - this looks excellent Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 New Bloom Magazine

How China extended its repression into an American city through pro-CCP diaspora group leaders and PRC officials. A deep look at the violence surrounding Xi's visit to San Francisco during APEC last November. wapo.st/4e8r4qd

Incisive piece on how Beijing mobilized diaspora groups to support Xi and assault anti-CCP protesters. Happy to have contributed research to document these activities. The moves are not new but the audacity and scale of violence on US soil is deeply alarming

Excellent FT piece on the phenomenon of “Singapore-washing”, where Chinese companies are avoiding tariffs and scrutiny by positioning themselves as though they are domiciled in the city-state ft.com/content/5583db…

How did Shein so quickly come to dominate American retail? Timothy McLaughlin investigates the fast-fashion company’s staggering growth—and its unusually anonymous CEO. theatlantic.com/international/…

New piece on Shein, the sort of Singaporean, but really Chinese, fast fashion company that is everywhere but no one knows much about. How the exceedingly opaque company and its billionaire founder became a Chinese success story realized in America: theatlantic.com/international/…

Shein has variously claimed it was founded in 2008 in North Brunswick, NJ, by a small group, or by an American born Chinese graduate of Washington University. Not a word of that is true. The inside story of the rise of the fast-fashion behemoth: theatlantic.com/international/…