The reporter, Selina Chen, said at a press conference on Wednesday that she believed her dismissal was related to her role as president of the organization, and that she had been pressured by her employer to leave the association.
Cheng said that the day before the Hong Kong Association election, her superiors instructed her to withdraw her candidacy and step down from the Hong Kong Association’s board, a position she has held since 2021. She rejected the request.
“[I] “I was immediately told that it was incompatible with my job,” Cheng said. “My editors said that we could do that in Western countries where press freedom is already established, but in a place like Hong Kong, WSJ employees cannot be seen to be advocating for press freedom.”
The HKJA is considered a trade union and under Hong Kong law, being a union official is legal and a right guaranteed by the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.
In an emailed response, a spokesman for The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, confirmed that the company made “personnel changes” on Wednesday but said it could not comment on specific individuals.
“The Wall Street Journal has been and will continue to be a vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” the spokesperson added.
If the firing is related to Cheng’s position at the HKJA, it would be the latest sign that even large, well-funded international media organisations are wary of the risks of operating in Hong Kong as the once-free-spirited city increasingly resembles mainland China in its suppression of civil liberties, including press freedom.
Following mass protests in 2019, the Chinese government passed a national security law in Hong Kong that imposes up to life imprisonment for vague crimes such as subversion of state power and collusion with foreign forces.
These laws, along with a series of domestically focused national security laws passed this year, have had transformative effects on every institution in Hong Kong, from the courts to universities to the media. The New York Times has relocated its Hong Kong digital operations The spokesman said there was “a great deal of uncertainty” about how the change would affect the company’s operations and journalism, leading to its decision to move to Seoul.
The Wall Street Journal announced earlier this year that it was moving its Asia headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore and laying off several Hong Kong-based reporters. Chen’s role was unaffected at the time and he continued to be based and work in Hong Kong. Chen, 32, covers China’s auto industry, one of the paper’s priority areas of coverage. Chen said the editorial team cited restructuring as the reason for his firing on Wednesday.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association said in a statement that “The Wall Street Journal is not alone” in this stance, and that other elected directors have also “been pressured by their employers to resign.” Previously, The Wall Street Journal’s Hong Kong management had told one of its former reporters, technology reporter Dan Strampe, not to run for chairman of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Association, citing risks to the company.
The HKJA has been a vocal advocate for Hong Kong journalists both at home and abroad. In an article earlier this month, China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper said the group has “a checkered history of colluding with separatist politicians and inciting riots in Hong Kong” and that it is “by no means a professional organization representing Hong Kong media.”
The Global Times cited reporting by Chen in The Wall Street Journal about his alleged attacks on the national security law, as well as reporting by two other board members, James Griffiths, a reporter for Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, and Theodora Yu, a former Washington Post employee and freelancer.
Hong Kong’s top security official, Chris Tang Ping-keung, also attacked the Hong Kong Daily, saying it sided with “violent rioters in black” during the 2019 protests.
In a statement, the Hong Kong Journalists Association called on all media outlets operating in China to “stand in solidarity with fellow journalists in Hong Kong and China, and enable their employees to freely advocate for press freedom and improved working conditions.”
