Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong pleads guilty to collusion with foreign entities

Prominent Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of collusion with foreign entities, a national security crime that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.



Wong rose to international prominence as a teenage democracy activist in Hong Kong, one of a group of youngsters whose protest efforts have now effectively been outlawed by a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing imposed on the Asian financial hub in 2020.



Wearing a dark blue shirt and black-rimmed glasses, Wong waved and nodded to people from the court's dock, inhaling deeply at times, before pleading guilty to a government-approved national security judge at Hong Kong's High Court in the district of Admiralty.



Several Western diplomats attended the hearing.



The prosecution highlighted what it said was an international media and political campaign by Demosisto, a now-disbanded political party that once backed a referendum on Hong Kong's sovereignty and counted Wong as one of its leaders, that sought to bring sanctions on Hong Kong and China in 2019 and 2020.

Wong is already in jail serving an existing sentence on an earlier national security charge of conspiracy to commit subversion after he was among a group of democratic activists who participated in an unofficial primary election in 2020. His current sentence is scheduled to end next year.