Slide from 18th to 140th
Hong Kong’s slide from a global symbol of press openness to one of the most constrained media environments in the world is not a matter of rankings alone. It is a lesson in how freedom erodes when power decides that scrutiny is an inconvenience rather than a necessity. Two decades ago, the city ranked among the freest places for journalists anywhere. Today, it sits near the bottom of international indices. That fall did not happen because reporters suddenly lost professionalism or audiences lost interest. It happened because the rules governing speech were fundamentally altered, and once those rules changed, behaviour followed. For Indian readers, this is not an abstract foreign-policy story. It is a reminder that press freedom is not self-sustaining; it survives only as long as those in authority tolerate discomfort.
For much of its post-1997 history, Hong Kong functioned as a political anomaly. It was part of China, yet operated under a system that allowed a vigorous press, sharp commentary, and investigative journalism that often embarrassed those in power. Journalists questioned officials aggressively, newspapers ran exposes, and columnists took ideological positions without fear of prison. Even media owners who were sympathetic to Beijing largely allowed editorial independence because the boundaries were understood. That equilibrium began to unravel after the mass protests of 2019, when the central government concluded that dissent itself was a security threat. The national security law imposed in 2020 was the decisive break. Its significance lay not only in what it banned, but in how loosely it defined offences such as sedition, collusion, and threats to national security. When the law is elastic, enforcement becomes political, and uncertainty becomes the most effective tool of control.
The closure of Apple Daily and Stand News marked a turning point. These were not marginal publications; they were influential, widely read, and emblematic of Hong Kong’s plural media culture. Raids on newsrooms, arrests of senior editors, asset freezes, and eventual convictions demonstrated that media organisations could be dismantled financially and legally without ever declaring journalism itself illegal. Once that message was absorbed, self-censorship spread rapidly. Newsrooms recalibrated. Editors weighed not just facts and public interest, but risk exposure. Reporters learned that certain lines, once crossed casually, now carried severe consequences. The result has not been the disappearance of journalism, but its transformation into something narrower, more cautious, and constantly defensive.
What makes the present moment particularly corrosive is that repression has become subtle. Press conferences are still held, newspapers still publish, and broadcasters still report daily events. Yet the range of permissible inquiry has shrunk. Sensitive topics are softened or avoided. Balance is often pursued not as a journalistic principle but as legal insulation. Even routine stories are filtered through an unspoken risk assessment: who might be offended, how authorities might interpret intent, and whether consequences could follow months later. This environment shapes not only what is written, but how journalists think. When uncertainty becomes permanent, caution becomes habit, and censorship no longer needs to be loudly enforced.
The chilling effect extends well beyond the newsroom. Sources who once spoke freely now decline interviews. Civil society organisations that provided data, critique, and alternative perspectives have shut down or fallen silent. Opposition politicians and activists are in prison or under legal shadow. Ordinary citizens who might once have shared experiences with reporters now weigh personal risk before speaking. The recent deadly fire in a Hong Kong housing complex revealed this shift starkly. Initial coverage was thorough and questioning, reflecting old instincts. Then came warnings, arrests of online commentators, and official denunciations of “misinformation”. Planned briefings were cancelled, posts deleted, and voices withdrawn. The story did not vanish, but it thinned. What the public received was less than what existed, and no one could clearly say where the invisible line had been crossed.
Beijing insists that these developments have nothing to do with press freedom and everything to do with law, order, and stability. That argument is unconvincing. Stability that depends on silencing scrutiny is inherently brittle. A free press is not a Western affectation or a colonial leftover; it is a practical mechanism through which societies correct mistakes, expose negligence, and prevent the concentration of unchecked power. When that mechanism weakens, failures do not disappear. They accumulate quietly until they surface in more damaging ways. Hong Kong’s experience shows how quickly a culture of questioning can be replaced by a culture of restraint, even while the outward forms of normalcy remain intact.
For India, the relevance is uncomfortable but unavoidable. Our political system and constitutional protections are different, but the pressures facing journalism are increasingly familiar: legal intimidation, economic vulnerability, advertiser influence, and the normalisation of self-censorship. The lesson from Hong Kong is not that freedoms vanish overnight, but that they can be managed into irrelevance through fatigue and fear. Once journalists internalise limits, restoration becomes far harder than defence. Hong Kong still has reporters trying to find space, adapt language, and push gently at boundaries. That resilience matters. But resilience is not freedom. And when silence begins to feel like prudence, societies pay a long-term price in accountability, trust, and truth.
