HONG KONG: Some 15 years ago, then-high school student Joshua Wong was a rising political star in Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Now 30, he has been sentenced for the second time under a Beijing-imposed national security law that effectively crushed the movement he once championed.
Critics say Wong’s imprisonment reflects the authorities’ determination to keep prominent dissidents behind bars. But Beijing views him as an anti-China figure supporting Hong Kong independence.
Here is what to know about the activist.
He won his first political fight as a high school student
Wong became a household name in the city as a teenage activist in 2012 when he and his now-dissolved group, Scholarism, protested against the introduction of national education in schools. Thousands of people gathered outside the government headquarters, some launching hunger strikes.
Wong, then 15, already spoke like an experienced politician.
Louis Lee, a former Scholarism member, recalled sleeping on the streets for days as a high school student during their protests, fearing that their demonstrations might end like the deadly crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square student-led movement in Beijing, which involved hunger strikes.
But the Hong Kong government eventually shelved its plans, and Lee felt their efforts made things a little better.
Lee described Wong as a demanding leader who kept a close eye on the group’s work. He still remembers Wong’s phone number because Wong had called him too often.
“Back then, the Scholarism members always joked that he was a merciless boss,” Lee said.
Wong became the poster boy for a 2014 movement
Wong was a poster boy of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, in which protesters used umbrellas to fend off police pepper spray. During the protests, also known as Occupy Central, demonstrators occupied major thoroughfares for 79 days in an ultimately unsuccessful push for direct election for the city’s leader.
Scholar Chan Kin-man, a leader of the 2014 movement, had mixed feelings about Wong back then.
Although he wasn’t a key decision-maker in the movement, Wong’s speeches stirred crowds with a political energy rare for his age, and his activism was viewed as “David taking on Goliath,” Chan said.
Chan also felt Wong acted on his beliefs, though sometimes without telling others in advance. Wong stormed into a fenced-off forecourt in front of government headquarters days before the planned start of the Occupy protest, without first informing Chan. The turnout swelled beyond what Chan had planned.
Another student group was also caught off guard when Wong and other Scholarism members launched a hunger strike near the end of the movement, Chan said. Some were concerned at the time about Wong's political calculations, he said.
Wong formed a party and advocated for sanctions
When Beijing didn't budge during the 2014 movement, some young activists began advocating for Hong Kong’s independence.
Wong took a different path and co-founded a political party called Demosisto in 2016, advocating for self-determination and striving for a referendum on the city's political future.
But later, a Chinese official said “self-determination” equates to Hong Kong independence.
During the leaderless anti-government protests in 2019, Wong played a less prominent role on the streets but worked on seeking overseas support. He urged U.S. politicians to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.
Beijing criticized him for “begging for interference."
As the national security law loomed, he urged the U.S. to sanction China. But Demosisto disbanded when the law took effect.
Beijing said the law was necessary for the city’s stability.
The young activist has spent years behind bars
Wong has been arrested and jailed repeatedly for his activism over the years. In 2024, he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for a separate national security case over his role in an unofficial primary in 2020.
On Thursday, he received a prison term of 10 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security.
Chan said Wong once asked him to send “Letters to Olga,” a collection of letters Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote to his wife from prison before becoming president. Wong told him in a letter that he reflected on being not just a politician, but a better person, including a better son.
“He was a political machine,” Chan said. “But through our correspondence later, I feel he is someone who is very reflective, and an increasingly mature politician."
Lee, Wong's former Scholarism colleague, visits him regularly in prison and exchanges letters with him. He said Wong kept reading books, taking university courses and teaching himself guitar, always striving to improve himself. The two grew closer, with Wong softening behind bars, caring more about others’ personal lives and sending Lee cards on special occasions.
Before his arrest for the collusion-related offense in June 2025, Wong had been expected to be freed in January next year.
“The message he gave me is that the most important thing is to not forget why you first stepped forward," Lee said, relaying what Wong told him in 2021. "He also believes that what we learned in the organization will continue to be useful today and will keep helping us grow."
Although Scholarism ended a decade ago, Lee still keeps a book about the group. In it, Wong, then 16, wrote to his future self.
“I truly believe that having space as a student to participate in social movements and to contribute a little more to Hong Kong, I can at least tell everyone that I have lived vibrantly and meaningfully,” he wrote.
