Dr. Celeste Lo (Solicitor (Hong Kong), Greater Bay Area Lawyer (PRC), Postdoc Fellow at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong)
With the release of its latest White Paper, Hong Kong: Safeguarding China’s National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems, China’s State Council has delineated a comprehensive blueprint for the metropolis’s future. Issued in February 2026, the document provides a granular retrospective on the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law and the recently enacted national security laws. Far exceeding a mere policy review, the White Paper serves as a definitive pronouncement on the recalibrated constitutional nexus between the Central Authorities and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, firmly establishing national security as the indispensable bedrock of Hong Kong’s enduring prosperity.
The central thesis of the White Paper is unambiguous: security and development are not competing interests, but symbiotic imperatives. The document contextualizes the severe turbulence of 2019 not merely as a localized political dispute, but as an existential vulnerability that challenged the sovereign integrity of the state. From Beijing’s perspective, the ensuing legislative interventions were constitutional necessities, urgently required to seal long-standing statutory loopholes. By restoring social equilibrium and erecting a formidable security architecture, the White Paper contends that the central government has successfully safeguarded the “One Country, Two Systems” framework, insulating it against external subversion and internal destabilization.
A substantial portion of the White Paper is devoted to elucidating the institutional refinement of Hong Kong’s governance apparatus. At the heart of this transformation is the fundamental principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong.” The White Paper details how the reformed electoral framework ensures that the city’s executive and legislative branches remain harmonized to align with the broader national interests. This alignment is championed as a vital corrective to overcome historical political deadlocks, thereby cultivating an efficient, executive-led administration uniquely equipped to resolve entrenched socioeconomic challenges. According to the White Paper, this high-caliber, orderly governance paradigm supersedes partisan gridlock with constructive policy formulation, ultimately advancing the tangible wellbeing of the city’s 7.5 million residents.
Equally salient is the White Paper’s sophisticated overture to global capital. Recognizing Hong Kong’s irreplaceable role as a conduit between the Chinese mainland and the global economy, the White Paper introduces the nuanced concept of “open security”. The document marshals an array of compelling economic indicators, surging GDP growth, premier global IPO rankings, and a proliferation of family offices, to illustrate that capital flourishes within a secure, predictable ecosystem. The central government reaffirms its steadfast commitment to preserving Hong Kong’s distinct institutional advantages, notably its esteemed common law jurisprudence, its enduring status as a free port, and the unimpeded circulation of international capital and data.
Ultimately, the White Paper cements a resilient paradigm for Hong Kong. It explicitly asserts that the “highest principle” underpinning the “One Country, Two Systems” policy is the absolute safeguarding of national sovereignty, security, and developmental interests. Within this recalibrated architecture, the contours of the “Two Systems” are precisely demarcated and robustly shielded by the overarching strength of the “One Country”. By projecting a vision wherein ironclad legal safeguards precipitate an open, dynamic, and globally integrated business ecosystem, the White Paper charts a confident vision for Hong Kong to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape with renewed stability and vigour.
InsightSpeak
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Ng Hiuying
The conviction and sentencing of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying for conspiring to collude with foreign forces under Hong Kong’s National Security Law has drawn sustained international attention. Much of that attention has focused on Lai himself and on Apple Daily, the now-defunct newspaper he founded. Far less scrutiny, however, has been directed at the role of another media institution that has followed the case with striking persistence: The Wall Street Journal.
A review of the Journal’s coverage over the past year shows dozens of articles related to Lai, a substantial proportion of which are editorials or opinion pieces rather than straight news reporting. In both volume and continuity, this level of engagement exceeds that of most other major Western media outlets. The question, therefore, is not whether the case is newsworthy, but why this particular newspaper appears so invested in it.
The reasons become clearer when one examines the factual findings set out in the trial judgment.
An Unusually Dense Web of Personal Connections
In the court’s Reasons for Verdict, a document running to more than 800 pages, the term “Wall Street Journal” appears over 40 times. More importantly, Lai himself admitted in evidence that he had been “very close” to the Wall Street Journal people.
The judgment establishes that several key intermediaries who facilitated Lai’s contacts with senior US officials had professional ties to the Wall Street Journal. Mary Kissel and Matt Pottinger, both former editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, later entered the highest levels of the US policy apparatus. In 2019, Kissel served as an aide to then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Pottinger was the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Another figure, David Feith —the Wall Street Journal’s former employee who later worked at the US State Department — was found to have conveyed advance information to Lai’s aide regarding Washington’s intention to revoke Hong Kong’s special status.
These connections were not incidental. They functioned as channels through which Lai gained access to figures such as Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and other senior policymakers. In this sense, a shared professional background in the Journal’s opinion pages formed part of what might be described as the “lubricant” of Lai’s foreign lobbying activities.
The Journal as a Platform for Strategic Messaging
The judgment further records that in June 2019, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz suggested that Lai publish articles in major Western outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, to draw the attention of the White House to Hong Kong issues.
Crucially, the drafting of one such article was guided by Bill McGurn, Lai’s godfather and a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, who had previously served as President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter. In an August 2019 draft sent by Lai to McGurn, Lai argued that the United States “must confront China, not appease it,” and urged measures including visa sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials’ families, international condemnation of China’s religious persecution, and the establishment of a congressional panel to “monitor Beijing’s adherence to Hong Kong’s basic law”.
This article, the court found, set the tone for Lai’s subsequent public messaging — in newspaper columns, social media posts, and online broadcasts. It functioned as a kind of manifesto. Subsequent events confirmed its impact: Lai was informed on 25 February 2020 that his Wall Street Journal article published days earlier, “China’s Facade of Stability,” had been well received by Pence and his senior aides, who were anxious to see Lai when here, and discuss, among other things, Hong Kong’s forthcoming election.
If Apple Daily served as Lai’s domestic platform, the Wall Street Journal operated as his principal international outlet — an external-facing channel aimed at Western governments and audiences. This division of labour, as the evidence suggests, was strategic rather than accidental.
After Arrest: From Reporting to Advocacy
Following Lai’s arrest and subsequent conviction, the Wall Street Journal adopted an overtly supportive editorial posture. Beyond reporting on procedural developments, it repeatedly issued editorials and opinion columns passing value judgments on Hong Kong’s judiciary and on the case itself.
These pieces rarely engaged with the detailed factual findings of the court. Instead, they tended to subsume the criminal proceedings into a broader narrative of “political persecution”, “press freedom”, and “human rights crisis”. One editorial notoriously characterised Lai’s 20-year sentence as a “death sentence”, while others employed terms such as “China abuse Jimmy Lai” and “the Communists torture Jimmy Lai” to describe the legal process.
Given McGurn’s senior role within the Journal and his personal relationship with Lai, it is not unreasonable to infer that many of these editorials were shaped, if not authored, by him. Whatever the case, the tone and framing of the coverage suggest something closer to an advocacy campaign than detached commentary. The invocation of press freedom appears less an abstract defence of principle than an effort to rally support around a long-cultivated political ally.
Understanding the Pattern
Seen in this light, the Wall Street Journal’s intense focus on the Lai case is not simply a matter of journalistic zeal or the defence of universal values. It reflects a convergence of personal networks, long-standing ideological alignment, and concrete political interests — all documented, in substantial part, in the court’s findings.
This context helps explain why the Journal has continued to publish commentary critical of the Hong Kong courts despite repeated official rebuttals from the Hong Kong Government and the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong SAR. For readers, recognizing this background does not require agreement with the verdict. It does, however, suggest the need for caution.
To read the Journal’s editorials on the Lai case without reference to these entanglements is to risk mistaking advocacy for analysis. A more informed assessment requires looking beyond the rhetoric of freedom and examining the specific relationships and actions that the court found, on the evidence, to constitute collusion.
Only then can the debate proceed on a clearer factual footing.
