Hong Kong

| ASIA

The Hang Seng index is down by 13.22 per cent, its sharpest drop since 1997, in the wake of the trade war triggered by tariffs. Recession fears are also sinking Singaporean real estate companies. Massive interventions by a Chinese sovereign wealth fund contains losses on the Shanghai stock exchange.


The Pime missionary has been on a 24-hour sit-in in front of the government's central offices since yesterday to remember the at least one thousand young people who are still in prison due to the repression of pro-democracy movements. ‘With an amnesty they could restore credibility to this city’. The memory of Siu Ka Chun, one of the leaders of the 2014 ‘umbrella movement’ and later an activist for prisoners' rights, who died in recent days of cancer.

| 27/01/2025
| HONG KONG

The case of Wang Xing, a Chinese actor kidnapped in Thailand and moved to a centre in Myanmar, has put the spotlight back on the human trafficking of Chinese nationals in Southeast Asia. According to the team of experts who met with Thai representatives, 12 Hongkongers are to be released, but the timing remains unknown.

| 14/01/2025
| HONG KONG - THAILAND – MYANMAR

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing administration wants to introduce “smart ballot boxes” for next year’s legislative election, already restricted to “patriotic" candidates. Scanners would warn voters of any “error” in their ballot. The proposal was withdrawn after a few hours due to obvious objections to secrecy of the vote. 

| 17/12/2024
| HONG KONG

​From Mindong, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Milan’s Chinese community, various voices speak at a meeting sponsored by AsiaNews on the feast day of Saint Francis Xavier, grateful to the communities that have kept and passed on the faith amid many difficulties and new encounters, with questions about meaning in a changing world.

| 04/12/2024
| CHINA – ITALY
by Gwyneth Ho*

One of the 45 people given very harsh sentences yesterday for organising primary elections in Hong Kong was able to smuggle her thoughts out of prison. “We dared to confront the regime with the question,” she writes. “Will democracy ever be possible within such a structure? The answer was a complete crackdown on all fronts of society.” “Defend and repair your own democracy,” she says in an appeal to the world. “Give authoritarian dictators one less example of failed democracy to justify their rule, and give freedom fighters around the world one more inspiration to continue the struggle”.

| 20/11/2024
| HONG KONG – CHINA

The territory’s High Court convicted 45 activists for organising primary elections for the opposition in 2020. They include well-known people, like legal scholar Benny Tai and umbrella movement leader Joshua Wong. Many pleaded guilty to obtain a reduction in sentence, but none were sentenced to less than 4 years. Card Zen was in the courtroom for the verdict. Jimmy Lai’s trial resumes tomorrow.

| 19/11/2024
| HONG KONG
Editor's choices
 
A source talked to AsiaNews about how Chinese Catholics are coping with Francis’s death. Remarks and pictures abound on local social media. “Amid the sorrow and mourning, the joy of announcing love prevailed,” as “a spontaneous ...
| 24/04/2025
| RED LANTERNS
 
by sr. Mary Joseph *
From Calcutta, the superior of Mother Teresa's sisters remembers Pope Francis. ‘He made the Church refocus its attention on the marginalised’. Bergoglio wanted the Missionaries of Charity to open a new home in Bajo Flores, a slum ...
| 23/04/2025
| INDIA - VATICAN
 
by Gianni Criveller
Proclaiming the Gospel was his top priority: he reminded us that mission is about joy, that its territories are not defined by geography or people's religious affiliation. Through his life and teaching, he taught us that Jesus' missionaries ...
| 22/04/2025
| EDITORIAL
 
by Card Anthony Poola*
One of the great signs of the pontificate that ended this morning with the death of Pope Francis is his care for the peripheries of the world. The archbishop of Hyderabad, the first Dalit called to join the College of Cardinals in 2022, pays tribute ...
| 21/04/2025
| VATICAN - INDIA
 
by Gianni Criveller
From Myanmar to the Middle East, countless women, children and men in Asia, victims of pain and injustice, weep like Mary Magdalene who lost her Lord and friend. But with her, they believe that the Risen One changes the course of history and allows ...
| 19/04/2025
| EDITORIAL
 
by Andrew Law
The incident took place on 23 March in the Diocese of Lüliang, but the authorities tried to hush it up. The intervention of special forces attracted other Catholics from the nearby village of Xinli, home to an old Catholic community. An officer ...
| 16/04/2025
| CHINA
 
by Fady Noun
An appeal on the anniversary of a conflict that has a starting date, but still no end date. The Maronite Church is ready to form a committee of elders called upon to overcome ‘conflicts and amnesia’. A warning also present in the ...
| 16/04/2025
| LEBANON
 
by Gianni Criveller
The PIME missionary died just before his 100th birthday. He was a pioneer in establishing contact with Catholics in China after the Cultural Revolution and founder of the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong, for decades the most documented ...
| 15/04/2025
| ITALY - CHINA
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”