Jailed pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong pleaded guilty on September 2, 2026, at Hong Kong’s High Court to a charge of foreign collusion under Beijing’s national security law. The 29-year-old faces up to life in prison for coordinating international advocacy and sanctions campaigns aimed at central and local authorities.
Guilty Plea Entered at Hong Kong High Court
Wearing a dark blue shirt and black-rimmed glasses, the 29-year-old activist waved and nodded to people in the courtroom, inhaling deeply at intervals before confirming his plea aloud to the bench. Several Western diplomats attended the hearing.
The offense of collusion with foreign entities carries a prison term of three to 10 years, or up to life imprisonment if it is deemed to be of a grave nature
. Wong is already serving a nearly five-year sentence for subversion and was due to be released next year. A prison van, believed to be carrying the jailed activist, arrived at the High Court for the national security plea and sentencing hearing.
Sanctions and International Advocacy Timeline
The High Court heard on Wednesday that Wong had admitted instigating international sanctions against central and local authorities six years ago. Prosecution summaries detailed an extensive international lobbying effort directed by Wong and his associates, aiming to force Beijing to repeal the national security law and grant Hongkongers greater political freedom. Wong pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces before Mr Justice William Tam Yiu-ho, a former leading prosecutor who oversaw prosecutions of anti-government protesters in the aftermath of the 2019 social unrest.
The state alleged that Wong conspired with fugitive ex-lawmaker Nathan Law Kwun-chung, 33, and others to garner international support for their resistance campaign. Wong and Law were the secretary general and founding chairman of the now-defunct political group Demosisto, respectively, which was founded in 2016 and disbanded in 2020 on the same day the national security law was enacted. Prosecutors said on Wednesday that Wong had written for newspapers and spoken to media outlets to call for international action.
The conspiracy involved urging foreign businesses to avoid investment in mainland China, petitioning an Israeli forensic tech firm to terminate its services for the city’s police force, and asking foreign countries to impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities
against China and Hong Kong in 2020. Wong also visited the United States in November 2016 to drum up support for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would allow the country’s president to punish Hong Kong and mainland officials.
Existing Prison Sentence and Political History
Wong is already set to face additional years behind bars, having been sentenced to four years and eight months’ imprisonment for conspiring to subvert state power through his participation in an unofficial legislative primary election in July 2020. Rising to international prominence, Wong emerged as one of the most internationally recognised faces of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement during the Umbrella Movement protests in 2014, which served as a catalyst for the 2019 protests that led to Beijing’s imposition of the national security law.
Reflecting on his early activism, Frances Hui, the policy and advocacy manager at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, noted that when she first met Joshua Wong in 2013, he was 16 and had led a student movement that forced the Hong Kong government to shelve plans for Chinese nationalist education in their schools. Wong later told TIME in May that he lived with a constant fear of arrest, kidnapping, or extraordinary rendition, stating, No matter what, I am always targeted by Beijing.
Nathan Law also commented on the political situation, saying, No one wants to be constantly at the point of being stigmatized, being attacked, being prosecuted or being jailed… But the political situation in Hong Kong has evolved to the point where, as an activist, political persecution is inevitable.
