Ten More Years: Hong Kong Jails Joshua Wong Until 2036

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison on a charge of colluding with foreign forces, in his second conviction under the Beijing-imposed national security law — a sentence that means the man once seen as the public face of the city's democracy movement will remain behind bars until late 2036, when he will be 40, instead of walking free in January 2027 as he had expected. The High Court sentence, handed down by Judge William Tam, was shorter than the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, but the judge ruled the offence was of a "grave nature" and said Wong had been a mastermind of the conspiracy. "The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime," Judge Tam told a packed courtroom.

Wong, 30, was charged in 2025 with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security. He pleaded guilty in September, a move that can typically reduce a sentence; Judge Tam said he had considered a 13-year term as a starting point before reducing it for the guilty plea and mitigation. Prosecutors accused Wong of conspiring with the self-exiled activist Nathan Law and other unnamed individuals between July and November 2020 to urge foreign governments, bodies and individuals to impose sanctions or blockades, or to engage in other hostile activities against the governments of Hong Kong and China. The judge said the offences took place at a time when Hong Kong faced a "very high risk" to national security and the rule of law, and that Wong's earlier meetings with US and European politicians provided relevant context, even though the law does not apply retroactively.

The arithmetic of the sentence is what makes it so severe. Wong is already serving a four-year, eight-month term imposed in November 2024 for "conspiracy to commit subversion" in the Hong Kong 47 case — the city's largest national security prosecution, over an unofficial primary election. Only about two months of that sentence remain, and they will run concurrently with the new term. He has been in detention since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to organising and inciting an unauthorised assembly during the 2019 protests, and he is the only activist in Hong Kong to have been prosecuted twice under the security law. Human Rights Watch said he faces imprisonment until late 2036; Hong Kong Watch counted more than 2,100 days already spent behind bars.

Rights groups condemned the sentence in the strongest terms. Human Rights Watch called the charges baseless, and Amnesty International's deputy regional director, Sarah Brooks, described it as a "cruel" sentence and "a grim reminder of the city's disdain for human rights". Hong Kong Watch called on governments to demand his immediate and unconditional release. Beijing, which imposed the national security law on the city in 2020 after sometimes violent demonstrations, says the legislation was necessary to restore stability following the unrest of 2019. The law covers secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with prison terms of three to 10 years for foreign collusion, or 10 years to life for offences deemed grave.

The case closes, for now, the story of a generation of Hong Kong activists. Wong rose to prominence as a teenage student leader, became the global face of the pro-democracy movement, and was among the young people whose protest efforts have effectively been outlawed by the sweeping security law. Many of his contemporaries fled into exile in Canada, Britain and elsewhere; Wong, who had no money or resources to escape, stayed — a point made repeatedly in the online reaction to the sentence. In a thread in r/worldnews on the sentencing, which drew more than 1,200 upvotes, the most-upvoted comment noted that he had already been in prison for six years since his initial arrest in 2020 and had been scheduled for release in 2027: Reddit discussion, r/worldnews

Whether the sentence draws a concrete response from Western governments remains to be seen. Wong appeared in court in a blue shirt and dark-framed glasses, accompanied by three guards, and nodded towards the public gallery before the judge announced the ruling. No appeal has been announced. For Hong Kong's once-thriving pro-democracy movement, the message of the day was unambiguous: its most recognisable figure will spend his thirties in prison, and the law under which he was convicted remains the instrument by which the city is governed.