The West’s double standards toward Hong Kong have reached a chilling new low.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently released its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, in which Hong Kong plummeted to 140th out of 180 countries and territories, marking a historic low and entering the “very serious” red zone for the first time. RSF highlighted that foreign media face entry bans, and local outlets endure tax investigations and other pressures, signaling a severe crackdown on press freedom.
Curious about the standards applied to other regions ranked above Hong Kong, I examined RSF’s assessments to see what lessons Hong Kong might draw for reference.
Taiwan, ranked 24th, presents a stark contrast. Under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the government has directly shut down media outlets it disfavors. In 2020, Taiwan refused to renew the license of CTi News, a pro-China cable channel, citing failures in internal controls and undue interference by its owner in editorial content. All these, according to the RSF’s standards, would have been deemed insufficient to justify the shutdown. This raises questions about RSF’s impartiality, as it appears to favor Taiwan’s pro-independence government and praises it to the sky.
The United States, ranked 57th, also faces significant challenges to press freedom. According to US thinktank “Press Freedom Tracker”, 2022 saw 128 violations of press freedom across the country, including 40 assaults on journalists and 15 arrests or prosecutions. In 2023, at least a dozen journalists were arrested or charged, some convicted criminally for routine reporting. Thus, the US is hardly more lenient in prosecuting journalists.
Press freedom deteriorated further under the Trump administration. Trump shut down Voice of America where many journalists had displeased him. He revoked press credentials from four media organizations critical of his administration. He was notably hostile to the Associated Press (AP), which refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of American.” Trump even banned AP from White House briefings for a time.
More gravely, journalists have been killed in the US military context, a frequent but underacknowledged occurrence. The most notorious case is the 2007 US Apache helicopter attack on civilians in Baghdad that killed Reuters cameraman Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver Saeed Chmagh. Despite video evidence, no military personnel were held accountable, nor were measures taken to prevent future incidents. RSF ranks the US relatively high, apparently regards journalists’ lives “don’t matter”.
Israel, ranked 112th, presents an even more troubling record. In 2023, Israeli airstrikes killed Palestinian TV journalist Mohammed Abu Hatab and 11 family members in Khan Younis, Gaza. His colleagues were devastated, witnessing the tragedy live on air.
Journalists being killed on camera has become tragically routine. On May 11, 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera’s renowned Palestinian journalist, was shot in the head by an Israeli bullet while reporting on a military raid in a refugee camp, dying instantly at age 51. Witnesses and media condemned the killing as deliberate, noting she wore a press vest at the time.
I ask RSF: Has Hong Kong ever killed a journalist? What is more important than a journalist’s life? How can countries that openly kill journalists rank so much higher than Hong Kong in press freedom? Had the dead journalists enjoyed freedom? When faced with authoritarian regimes, RSF remains silent. On what grounds does it point a finger at Hong Kong? If RSF is so committed, why not seek justice for the slain Palestinian journalists first?
Hong Kong’s Basic Law and National Security Law guarantee press freedom. But there are boundaries . There is no freedom to spread disinformation, incite riots, or accept foreign funding aimed at subverting the government. Hong Kong’s media remains professional but bears a painful history of political interference. The bitter lessons of 2019 must not be forgotten.
Wing-hung Lo
Bastille Commentary
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
In the escalating contest of soft power between China and the United States, the tables are turning in unexpected ways.
Donald Trump, in just 100 days back in office, has managed to deliver a string of unintended gifts to Beijing.
The recent Canadian election offers a vivid case in point. Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the ruling Liberal Party’s deference to Trump’s demands sent its approval ratings into a tailspin. But Mark Carney, Trudeau’s successor, seized a fraught moment – when Trump openly pressured Canada to become America’s “51st state” – and pushed back with rare resolve. The result: Canadians, galvanized by a sense of common cause against US bullying, rallied behind Carney and handed the Liberals a comeback victory.
This shift is reflected not just in politics but in everyday life. Canadians, bristling at Trump’s heavy-handed tactics, have rechristened “Americano coffee” as “Canadian coffee,” boycotted US streaming giants like Netflix and Disney, cancelled trips south of the border, and even off-loaded vacation homes in the States. Many now see the folly in following Washington’s lead -- especially the 100% import tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, which has backfired spectacularly.
The backlash against Trump’s trade war is starkly visible in global opinion polls. A recent IPSOS survey of 20,000 adults across 29 countries found that the share of respondents who believe the US “has a positive influence on world affairs” has plummeted from 59% six months ago to just 46% -- a drop of 13 percentage points. For the first time in the survey’s history, China overtook the US as having a positive effect on world affairs, a jump from 39% to 49% over the same period. Notably, the poll was conducted from March 21 to April 4, before the full global backlash to Trump’s latest tariffs took hold. Were it conducted today, China’s lead would likely be even greater.
The concept of “soft power”, the ability to win hearts and minds rather than coercion, was famously coined by American political scientist Joseph S. Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense. Nye argued that America’s true strength since the Cold War lay not just in military or economic might, but in its scientific innovation, celebrated cultural diversity, and the global allure of its pop culture. This, he said, was the real source of US leadership.
Yet in a matter of weeks, Trump has managed to unravel much of that legacy. America’s soft power is in retreat: its goods, services, and even its culture are being shunned, especially among traditional allies. The most striking drop in America’s global image is among its closest friends -- Britain, Italy, Ireland, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada -- all now registering less than 40% approval for the US as a positive force.
Trump’s approach to the tariff war has been nothing if not combative. He has summoned nations to the negotiating table with a “take it or leave it” attitude, wielding tariffs as blunt instruments of extortion. China, refusing to be cowed, has responded in kind-imposing its own sweeping tariffs, restricting rare earth exports, and blacklisting US firms. On April 29, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a bilingual video titled “China Won't Kneel Down!”-- a pointed declaration that Beijing will not bow to US pressure. The message: China won't back down, so the voices of the weak will be heard, bullying will be stopped, and justice will not disappear from the world.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking at the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, lambasted the US for using tariffs as bargaining chips and urged BRICS nations to unite against all forms of protectionism. China, now cast as the vanguard in resisting US tariff hegemony, has rallied much of the Global South to its side. Some European diplomats have even expressed grudging admiration for Beijing’s defiance, noting that only China has the nerve to stand up to Washington. Other countries, wary of angering the US, have adopted a wait-and-see approach, refusing to make concrete offers, thus rendering negotiations largely performative.
The international arena is now a jungle where both hard and soft power are in play -- not just national strength, but also the leadership of heads of state and the resilience of their peoples. In this opening round of the China–US showdown, the American bully appears hamstrung by China’s counterpunches and the Foreign Ministry’s “China Won't Kneel Down!” campaign. Even Trump, uncharacteristically, has stepped back from direct confrontation, leaving Treasury Secretary John Besant to trumpet dubious claims about the trade war costing China 10 million jobs -- a scare tactic that has lost its sting. China, for its part, seems determined to go head-to-head with the US, and in this bruising contest of soft power, Beijing has already seized the upper hand.
Lo Wing-hung
