HONG KONG — When the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong decided in late July to invite an obscure political activist to speak at the elegant 19th-century building that is its home, there was a vague sense among its board that the move might upset some people. Hong Kong expelled a prominent journalist after the club refused. And the backlash raised questions about the city’s future as a haven where rule of law and civil rights are better protected than elsewhere in Asia. “I would say it is the biggest mistake the Hong Kong government has ever made,” said Fu Hualing, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, of the decision to expel Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor of The Financial Times. I don’t know whether it was intended or not, but it has been felt everywhere.”

Source: New York Times November 02, 2018 16:10 UTC