Hong Kong court to hear former Stand News editor's appeal application against sedition conviction in Sept 2026
Hong Kong's Court of Appeal will hear the appeal application of a former senior editor at defunct media outlet Stand News against his sedition conviction in September next year.
The three-day hearing will begin on September 22, 2026, according to the Judiciary's court diary.
Patrick Lam, the former acting chief editor at Stand News, lodged the appeal to overturn his conviction in October last year, one month after he was sentenced alongside former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen at the District Court.
The pair were found guilty of 'conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications' in August. The parent company of Stand News was also found guilty of the colonial-era sedition charge.
Chung was sentenced to 21 months in jail, while Lam was handed a 14-month jail term. But Lam was released immediately after District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin determined that Lam would not have to serve extra time in jail after taking into account the 10 months Lam spent in pre-trial detention and his poor health.
The judgment marked the first sedition conviction of journalists in Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
'Tool to smear and vilify'
Stand News was forced to shutter in December 2021 after national security police raided its newsroom and froze its assets. The two editors and the outlet's parent company were later charged under the colonial-era sedition offence, punishable by up to two years in jail.
Judge Kwok ruled that the two editors were not conducting genuine journalism during the period of the offence, but instead 'participating in the so-called resistance.'
Kwok found that the news outlet had published 11 articles ruled to be seditious, 'at a time when over half of the Hong Kong society distrusted [Beijing] and [the local] government, the police, and the judiciary.'
The 11 articles, mostly opinion pieces critical of the authorities, caused 'potential detrimental consequences to national security,' the judge said.
Stand News 'became a tool to smear and vilify the [Beijing] Authorities and the [Hong Kong] Government' during the 2019 protests and unrest, Kwok wrote.
The homegrown national security law, known locally as Article 23, which came into effect in March 2024, raised the penalty for sedition to seven years in prison and 10 years if the offender is found to have colluded with a foreign element.
Separate from the 2020 Beijing-enacted security law, the homegrown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance targets treason, insurrection, sabotage, external interference, sedition, theft of state secrets and espionage. It allows for pre-charge detention of up to 16 days, and suspects' access to lawyers may be restricted, with penalties involving up to life in prison. Article 23 was shelved in 2003 amid mass protests, remaining taboo for years. But, on March 23, 2024, it was enacted having been fast-tracked and unanimously approved at the city's opposition-free legislature.
The law has been criticised by rights NGOs, Western states and the UN as vague, broad and 'regressive.' Authorities, however, cited perceived foreign interference and a constitutional duty to 'close loopholes' after the 2019 protests and unrest.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
HKFP
4 hours ago
- HKFP
China's top prosecutor vows crackdown on torture in rare admission
China's top prosecutor has issued a rare admission that torture and unlawful detention takes place in the country's justice system, vowing to crack down on illegal practices by law enforcement officials. China's opaque justice system has long been criticised over the disappearance of defendants, the targeting of dissidents and regularly forcing confessions through torture. The country's top prosecutorial body the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) has occasionally called out abuses while President Xi Jinping has vowed to reduce corruption and improve transparency in the legal system. The SPP announced Tuesday the creation of a new investigation department to target judicial officers who 'infringe on citizens' rights' through unlawful detention, illegal searches and torture to extract confessions. Its establishment 'reflects the high importance… attached to safeguarding judicial fairness, and a clear stance on severely punishing judicial corruption', the SPP said in a statement. China has frequently denied allegations of torture levelled at it by the United Nations and rights bodies, particularly accusations of ill-treatment of political dissidents and minorities. But several recent cases involving the mistreatment of suspects have drawn public ire despite China's strictly controlled media. A senior executive at a mobile gaming company in Beijing died in custody in April 2024, allegedly taking his own life, after public security officials detained him for more than four months in the northern region of Inner Mongolia. The man had been held under the residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) system, where suspects are detained incognito for long stretches without charge, access to lawyers and sometimes any contact with the outside world. Several public security officials were accused in court this month of torturing a suspect to death in 2022, including by using electric shocks and plastic pipes, while he was held under RSDL. The SPP also released details last year of a 2019 case in which several police officers were jailed for using starvation and sleep deprivation on a suspect and restricting his access to medical treatment. The suspect was eventually left in a 'vegetative state', the SPP said. Chinese law states that torture and using violence to force confessions are punishable by up to three years in prison, with more serious punishment if the torture causes injuries or the death of the victim.
South China Morning Post
8 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
China to private enterprises: invest in cross-border infrastructure like AIIB is doing
China will significantly encourage private enterprises to participate in infrastructure projects, including cross-border connectivity initiatives championed by the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Minister of Finance Lan Foan said at the lender's annual meeting. As the global economy slows and international development aid declines, developing countries are increasingly constrained by limited public resources for connectivity investments, Lan said at the meeting in Beijing on Wednesday. 'Mobilising the potential of private capital for cross-border infrastructure, and building sustainable financing mechanisms, have become pressing priorities,' he noted. China's Private Economy Promotion Law went into effect last month, encouraging private enterprises to invest in infrastructure, Lan said, noting that the country would continue to improve its systems and environment to welcome more private sector participation in cross-border connectivity projects. To ensure that the private sector remains confident and willing to invest, Lan also called for efforts to reduce lingering concerns about risks related to geopolitics and defaults, and to improve ratings and expected returns of infrastructure projects through coordination with other regional development institutions. And the further mobilisation of private capital could help overcome the bottleneck of insufficient public investment for infrastructure development, he said.
Asia Times
9 hours ago
- Asia Times
No mere shock absorber: ASEAN setting terms on China trade
China's manufacturing surge – dubbed by some as the 'Second China Shock' – has raised fears that a deluge of cheap Chinese imports could deindustrialize large swathes of Southeast Asia. Yet framing Southeast Asia as a victim , as the term 'shock' implies, reflects not only a misunderstanding of the region's historical autonomy and strategic agency but is also a misreading of China's intent. Historically, China's trade with the region has been asymmetrical but stable, often built on complementary strengths rather than competitive overlap. Historian Wang Gungwu's 'The Nanhai Trade: The Early History of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea', traces this dynamic from the Han dynasty (211 BCE) to the founding of the Song dynasty in 960 CE, highlighting both the economic foundations and imperial attitudes toward maritime commerce. During this period, kingdoms in the region such as Srivijaya and Ayutthaya exported spices, rice, metals and timber to China in exchange for ceramics, textiles and manufactured goods. The modern iteration of this relationship is governed by a more institutional framework. The 2002 CAFTA marked a structural shift from tributary privileges to rules-based trade, facilitating a surge in trade between China and Southeast Asia. In 2009, China overtook Japan as ASEAN's largest trading partner. Today, China–ASEAN trade is projected to reach US$1 trillion, surpassing the combined trade volumes of the United States and the European Union with China and making ASEAN China's largest trading partner. This new and multifaceted trade sheds light on the nature of China's trade surplus with Southeast Asia, which extends beyond conventional narratives of high-tech dominance or state-driven funneling of overcapacity into the region. Clearly, the nature of China-ASEAN trade has evolved, driven by the rising value of China's intermediate and finished goods relative to Southeast Asia's commodity exports. This shift, combined with the region's growing middle class and purchasing power, has contributed to the widening trade imbalance. Yet governments across Southeast Asia have increasingly learned to use access to their fast-growing markets as strategic leverage, positioning themselves not simply as recipients of investment and exports but as active participants capable of demanding reciprocity and shaping the terms of engagement. The clearest example of this strategic posture can be seen in the politically sensitive defense sector. In 2024, Thailand opted for Sweden's SAAB Gripen over a competing US bid, securing not just a fighter platform but also full operational control of its Link-T datalink and a 144% return on investment via industrial offsets. Indonesia followed suit in 2025 with its commitment to purchase 48 KAAN fifth-generation fighter jets from Turkey, securing terms for local assembly and capability transfer as part of the deal. ASEAN states are exercising similar leverage in civilian sectors by using market access to drive industrial upgrading through local content mandates, technology transfer and intellectual property (IP) enforcement. Thailand now requires EV makers that receive tax incentives to produce core components locally by 2026, prompting China's BYD and Changan to commit to 40%-90% local sourcing. It's part of a Thai policy that attracted over $3.5 billion in Chinese investment and is set to boost national EV output by 40% in 2025. Vietnam's revised 2025 feed-in tariffs favor projects with battery storage and locally processed polysilicon, aiming to cut $1 billion in import dependency and move up the solar value chain. Malaysia mandates regional design hubs for licensing China's Pop Mart's Labubu soft toy, encouraging local creative collaboration while strengthening IP enforcement. Southeast Asia has emerged as the Chinese company's largest and fastest-growing international market, with revenue in the region rising 619% year-on-year to $336 million, nearly half of Pop Mart's overseas earnings. These country cases all show that ASEAN states are not simply absorbing nor necessarily suffering a so-called 'Second China Shock'. Rather, in many instances, they are actively shaping the terms of their Chinese engagement – an approach that, in fact, aligns with China's own strategic interests. Global trends are making reliance on single-source manufacturing untenable. According to McKinsey's 2025 survey of 400 Chinese export firms, 58% now use a 'China+1' strategy, with ASEAN as their leading secondary production base. Overcapacity is another driver: Factory utilization rates for China's EVs fell below 50% (a significant gap from factories' 80% breakeven point) while its solar panel industry faces declining margins due to global supply saturation. Exporting this surplus into politically neutral, fast-growing ASEAN markets is thus a growing strategic necessity for China. Finally, amid rising geopolitical pressure and uncertainty, China sees stable ties with ASEAN as an important hedge. The 2024 China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) upgrade and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) underscore Beijing's commitment to trade frameworks that bolster ASEAN's role in global supply chains and their value to China. What threatens China-ASEAN interdependence today is not economic logic but growing domestic political pressures. In both, public opinion increasingly shapes the boundaries and directions of foreign policy. Thailand and Cambodia enjoy robust bilateral trade. But a bubbling border dispute has triggered political backlash in both countries, leading to the closure of lucrative border trades. In Indonesia, President Prabowo Subianto has made clear that economic ties with Israel hinge on Palestinian statehood, a position rooted in domestic sentiments. In the Philippines, nationalist outrage over maritime tensions with China has hardened Manila's stance on broad relations. Even China faces internal constraints, with domestic nationalism shaping its foreign policy on Taiwan as well as the South and East China Seas. These dynamics, while not all China-related, underscore that managing China-ASEAN ties requires mutual recognition of domestic political realities and the cultivation of political capital to sustain pragmatic diplomacy and commercial ties. This is why narratives like the 'Second China Shock,' which suggest ASEAN passivity or acquiescence, should be reconsidered. The shock, if it exists, may be real, but so is ASEAN's capacity to respond to it on its own sovereign and mutually beneficial terms. Marcus Loh is chairman of the Public Affairs Group at the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) Asia Pacific, which aims to strengthen engagement between industry, government, and civil society across the region. He also serves on the executive committee of SGTech's Digital Transformation Chapter, contributing to national conversations on AI, data infrastructure and digital policy.
