Last week, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was hit with a new national security charge—conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment. This comes despite the fact that Wong has already been jailed for over four years on earlier protest-related charges. He was due for release in 2027. Now, the Hong Kong authorities appear determined to keep him behind bars indefinitely.

This development has sent a chilling message—not just to Hongkongers, but to dissidents across all the regions under Beijing's rule. For Southern Mongolians, the implications are clear: there is no limit to how far the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will go to silence those who resist assimilation, demand basic rights, or challenge the party line.

What is happening to Joshua Wong is not an isolated incident. It is part of a systematic campaign of repression that the CCP has refined over decades. The methods—whether in Hong Kong, Southern Mongolia, Tibet, or East Turkestan—are disturbingly similar.

In Hong Kong, laws like the 2020 National Security Law have been used to arrest and imprison nearly all visible leaders of the pro-democracy movement. In Southern Mongolia, the regime has long criminalised even the mildest forms of ethnic self-expression, labelling them separatist or illegal.

Just as the CCP moved to erase Cantonese and liberal education in Hong Kong, it has banned Mongolian-language instruction, shut down traditional herding practices, and promoted Han nationalist history in schools across Southern Mongolia. Speaking out against these policies can cost you your job, your freedom—or worse.

The vagueness of offences like “collusion with foreign forces” is not a flaw—it is the point. This language allows the state to interpret any contact with the outside world, any criticism online, or any attempt to organise across borders as a threat to national unity. Many Southern Mongolian activists—especially those in exile—now live with the same fear that Joshua Wong faces: that the state will never forget, and never forgive.

Joshua Wong is perhaps the most internationally recognisable face of Hong Kong’s movement. His image has appeared in newspapers, on posters, and at rallies across the world. And still, this has not protected him.

For Southern Mongolians involved in international activism, the lesson is sobering. Visibility does not guarantee safety—but invisibility guarantees silence. The CCP wants us to disappear. It wants our names forgotten, our languages erased, our identities dissolved into a single Han-centred narrative of loyalty and obedience.

We must resist that.

Governments that once supported Joshua Wong and condemned Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong have grown quieter. Some have economic interests to protect; others have shifted attention elsewhere. But this is not the time to look away.

What is being done to Joshua Wong today mirrors what has already been done to thousands of Southern Mongolians—teachers, students, herders, and activists—whose names never made international headlines.

When the world ignores one, it empowers the repression of many.

Joshua Wong is in prison because he dared to imagine a free Hong Kong. Southern Mongolians are targeted because we dare to imagine a future where our language, culture, and land survive.

The CCP does not fear violence—it fears ideas. It fears people who speak across borders, who refuse to forget, who insist on truth even when it is dangerous.

This is why solidarity matters. From Hong Kong to Southern Mongolia, our struggles are not separate—they are part of the same fight for dignity, identity, and freedom.

Reference:
Guardian News. (2025, 7 June). Jailed Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong hit with new charges.

Image: Joshua Wong in 2019. The new charges could see him given a life sentence if found guilty, Amnesty says. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP (via The Guardian)