Joshua Wong Sentenced to 10 Years for Colluding With Foreign Forces

Joshua Wong, the 30-year-old Hong Kong democracy activist, was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces, his second conviction under Beijing’s national security law. The term runs concurrently with the sentence he is already serving, so he now faces about a decade in prison rather than the January 2027 release he had been due to reach.

Wong pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, a charge filed in 2025.

Judge Tam’s 13-year starting point

High Court Judge William Tam called the offence grave in nature and rejected the defence argument that Wong’s role was limited. The judge said he had weighed a 13-year prison term as a starting point before reducing it because of the guilty plea, which can typically shorten a sentence. He ruled that the two prison terms would run concurrently, and since Wong has only about two months left on his previous national security conviction, the new 10-year sentence is the one that will keep him incarcerated.

Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 years in prison

Wong, wearing a dark blue shirt and thick-rimmed spectacles, looked calm, thanked his supporters and nodded and bowed as they waved before he left the court. Dozens of people had queued outside the building since Tuesday to secure seats, amid a heavy police presence, and a group of international diplomats attended the hearing. Tiffany Chin, a former member of the now-disbanded Scholarism that Wong once led, was in tears; activist Lui Yuk-lin held a piece of paper carrying Wong’s name in the queue.

The 2016 agreement with Nathan Law at the heart of the case

The prosecution alleged that Wong and exiled activist Nathan Law agreed in or around 2016 to lobby internationally for democratic self-determination, pointing to Wong’s meetings with U.S. politicians Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio in 2016 and 2019. Before the security law was introduced, the pair had called for sanctions and other adverse measures against Hong Kong and China; after it was enacted, Law and others advanced the work abroad while Wong supported it from Hong Kong through foreign media and social media, urging foreign countries to draw attention to requests for sanctions, blockade or other hostile measures. Tam said Wong’s role was to supply his underground support and arouse the attention of foreign countries to bolster the cause, describing the conduct as part of a scheme to collude with foreign governments.

Activist Joshua Wong, 30, who became the international face of Hong Kong's democracy movement, was sentenced to 10 years in jail on a charge of collusion with foreign entities under the city's national security law https://t.co/RDnJGCXyt9

— https://x.com/Reuters/status/2118182311178977332

Under the national security law, which came into force on June 30, 2020, four wide-ranging offences are punishable — subversion of state power, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces — with life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for each. Hong Kong authorities have defended the law as crucial for the city’s stability following the 2019 protests, saying enforcement actions were evidence-based.

Critics condemn further punishment

After the ruling, Law said in a statement:

Joshua Wong Sentenced to 10 Years for Colluding With Foreign Forces — Photo: lethbridgenewsnow.com

It’s incredibly sad to see my friend Joshua Wong suffer another sentencing over his peaceful advocacy work for Hong Kong’s democracy. The signal the sentencing sent to the world is that [China] is determined to quash any hopes for freedom and democracy on its soil.

Amnesty International’s deputy regional director, Sarah Brooks, said: Today’s sentence is another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s national security law has become a tool to punish dissent rather than to genuinely protect national security.

BREAKING: Joshua Wong Sentenced to 10 Years in Hong Kong | Neon Bulletin Nov 4, 2026

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, warned that NSL charges can be repeatedly weaponized to keep a specific political prisoner in jail, if the government deems necessary. Resident ET Wong, watching the proceedings, said that as a teenager Wong possessed big-picture thinking that some adults might not even have, adding: At least in my heart, he should not have spent a single day in wrongful imprisonment.

From ‘The Face of Protest’ to the only activist tried twice under the NSL

His lawyer, Derek Chan, had urged the court to impose a sentence that would give his client some hope, noting that Wong wishes to care for his parents after his release. Wong is the only activist in Hong Kong prosecuted twice under the national security law. While imprisoned, he has continued to worry the pro-Beijing camp: in September, a pro-Beijing newspaper attacked a 2017 Netflix documentary about Wong for beautifying his crimes, and the security bureau said the government was taking follow-up action — yet the documentary afterwards rose to the top of Netflix’s popular chart in Hong Kong.

Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 years in prison for his second conviction under a Beijing-imposed national security law. https://t.co/ZXysvJNqKr

— https://x.com/AP/status/2118184328693711005