30-year-old Joshua Wong has been campaigning for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong since his teens. Having been in prison for the past six years, he has just been sentenced to a further decade behind bars in a draconian crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party. We take a look at the Christian faith that motivates his activism
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Joshua Wong is one of the most inspiring and courageous young people I have ever met. He has spent the past six years in prison, simply for exercising his right to freedom of speech and assembly and peacefully calling for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. Last week, he was sentenced to a further ten years behind bars, charged with “conspiring to collude with foreign forces”.
His crime? Simply meeting foreign politicians, including the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and urging them to help defend Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Who is Joshua Wong?
The 30-year-old, whose story is told in the 2017 Netflix documentary Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower and the recently-released sequel, Prisoner vs Superpower, began his activism aged just 14. He founded a student movement against plans to impose a national education curriculum that promoted “patriotism” and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
He then turned his efforts to a broader struggle to defend democracy in Hong Kong, emerging as a key figure in mass protests in 2014 and 2019. In 2016, he co-founded a political party, Demosistō, to contest elections to the Legislative Council. The party won one seat – held by Wong’s friend, Nathan Law, until Law was disqualified and the party banned.
The rights and democratic principles that Wong and his friends seek to defend are rights which China pledged to uphold in Hong Kong as part of the hand-over deal from British rule in 1997. Instead, the CCP has made Hong Kong just as repressive as mainland China, imprisoning or silencing most of its critics.
Motivated by faith
Wong has been imprisoned for his peaceful political activities, not his religion, but he is also a devout Christian, deeply motivated by his faith. Raised in a Protestant Lutheran family, he was educated at the United Christian College in Kowloon and participated actively in church groups.
When I first met him about ten years ago, he told me he had been named after Joshua in the Bible, the prophet who succeeded Moses and led the Israelites to the promised land. In his book Unfree Speech: The threat to global democracy and why we must act now, Wong writes: “My Chinese name, Chi-fung, was inspired by the Bible. The characters mean ‘something sharp’, a reference to Psalm 45:5, which instructs, ‘Send your sharp arrows through enemy hearts and make all nations fall at your feet’. My parents didn’t want me to pierce anyone’s heart, but they did want me to speak the truth and wield it like a sword to cut through lies and injustice.”
He has done that to great effect, but at extraordinary personal cost.
Suffering for freedom
Wong is one of hundreds of political prisoners in Hong Kong today - and among several Christians who have played leading roles in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The 78-year-old media entrepreneur, Jimmy Lai, is a devout Catholic, and now serving a 20-year prison sentence for his peaceful activism, including lighting a candle to memorialise the Tiananmen Massacre.
Law professor, Benny Tai, is a devout Protestant. As a key organiser of the ‘Occupy’ movement, that led to the Umbrella Movement for democracy in 2019, he is now serving a ten-year prison sentence.
Clergy are self-censoring their sermons, no longer preaching on freedom, justice or human rights
Other prominent Christian activists include: jailed trade unionist and former legislator Lee Cheuk-yan, solicitor Albert Ho, the 88-year-old barrister Martin Lee (known as the ‘father’ of Hong Kong’s democracy movement), Baptist pastor Chu Yiu-ming and, of course, Hong Kong’s courageous 94-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, an outspoken voice for human rights.
None has ever engaged in any criminal or violent activity; all are peaceful activists trying to protect basic rights once guaranteed by China itself.
Crackdown on Christianity
The crackdown in Hong Kong has been particularly intense since the imposition of a draconian National Security Law in 2020. All of Hong Kong’s basic freedoms have been torn up, almost all independent media shut down, pro-democracy political parties and civil society groups closed.
Books and songs that even hint of freedom are banned. In Hong Kong today, you could be arrested for wearing a T-shirt that has a slogan or colour deemed to symbolise the democracy movement, or for posting (or even liking a post) on social media that is critical of the regime. Or for opening an umbrella or lighting a candle.
While freedom of worship – narrowly defined – remains, and people can still go to church, freedom of religion has been significantly undermined. Three years ago, I wrote a report for Hong Kong Watch that details how clergy are self-censoring their sermons, no longer preaching on freedom, justice or human rights. In some cases, they avoid passages of the Bible that might be contentious for the regime in Beijing. In the three years since, the situation has further deteriorated.
Wong’s sentencing last week is symbolic of the relentless assault on basic rights in Hong Kong over the past decade – in complete violation of promises made in the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The international community must demand the release of all political prisoners, and Christians should continue to pray for them daily.
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