I was recently invited to take part in a panel discussion on press freedom in Hong Kong and was asked to specifically address the situation that local journalists are facing. …

This is a longer version of an article — with additional quotes — that I wrote for www.theconversation.com/uk and which you can read here. Hongkongers had barely dried their tears over the forced closure of Apple Daily, a populist, sometimes bawdy, always staunchly pro-democracy daily launched as the “Hong Kong…

This is an extended version of a piece I wrote for The Conversation UK, which you can see here: https://theconversation.com/hong-kongs-press-freedom-is-on-life-support-thanks-to-the-new-security-law-144458 When more than 200 police officers raided the headquarters of Hong Kong’s biggest — and only — pro-democracy mass-circulation newspaper, Apple Daily, on August 10, many people were quick to…

A couple of years ago, members of China’s Communist Party began receiving birthday cards. They weren’t to mark their actual birth date but arguably a more important one — the day they joined the party. …

A balm for hurting hearts Like many Hongkongers everywhere, I carry a heaviness* around these past days — a raging, aching, messy heaviness that is shaped like loss, but also feels like anger. And before anyone helpfully explains that I should have seen this coming — that it’s hardly a…

This was originally published in Huffington Post on 22 January 2014. I’m reposting a cached copy here because the page doesn’t seem to load anymore. …

This is a column I wrote for the now defunct Hong Kong daily, the iMail in 2001. I was reminded of it by a number of threads on #ChinaTwitter about the “usefulness” of learning Chinese in terms of the potential careers rewards compared to the investment of time and effort…

Today, Hong Kong Television Network, known as HKTV announced it would withdraw its second bid for a free-to-air television licence and cease its online TV broadcast service, almost five years after its first bid was rejected by the government. This is sad news for Hong Kong viewers who had once…

Two days before Macau’s legislative assembly election, on the last day campaigning was permitted, I travelled to Macau and talked to the enclave’s young democrats It had been more than 15 years since I’d last visited Macau and as we drove down the Cotai strip, I could see why this…