The same act, peaceful resistance to tyranny, can be divided into any number of separate crimes against the state. So the 30-year-old prodemocracy Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong, who has been incarcerated since 2020, is about to be slapped with another prison sentence, this one for “foreign collusion,” punishable by up to life in prison (Hong Kong Free Press, November 3, 2026).
High Court Judge William Tam is set to hand down the sentence for Wong’s conviction for foreign collusion at 9.30am on Thursday, according to a court diary updated on Tuesday. The procedure is due to last around 30 minutes.
Wong pleaded guilty two months ago to the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of life behind bars under the national security law imposed by Beijing in June 2020.
He was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others in 2020 to request that foreign countries impose sanctions and blockades or engage in other hostile activities directed against the governments of Hong Kong and mainland China.
Wong has been held by authorities since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised assembly outside police headquarters during the 2019 protests and unrest.
He is currently serving a sentence of four years and eight months for conspiracy to subvert state power in the landmark national security case known as the “Hong Kong 47,” in which he was among 45 prominent campaigners convicted and sentenced in 2024.
Wong’s lawyer, Derek Chan, has argued that whatever “foreign collusion” Wong committed is—in contrast to that of former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai—not so serious as to require a minimum sentence of ten years rather than the three to ten years imposed for less serious forms of the offense. Chan is asking for a sentence of no more than ten years that would then be reduced by a third in acknowledgement of the guilty plea, then reduced by two more years in acknowledgement of prosecutorial delays.
Lai versus Wong
Jimmy Lai got sentenced to twenty years for his “more severe” commission of “foreign collusion.” He thus avoided a life sentence. But since Lai is 78 and in failing health, those twenty more years are a de facto life sentence.
Even if Chan and Wong are granted all three of their sentence-moderating wishes, Wong will still end up serving four or five more years in prison.
Of course, like Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong is not guilty of doing anything wrong. He pleaded guilty to the latest fakecrime of which he has been accused in hopes of reducing his sentence. But he lacks the benefit of an explicit plea-bargain to which the court might feel bound. The gambit will pay off if the judge is perhaps only 70 percent indifferent to justice instead of 90 percent or 100 percent.
