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In August 2021, Vines announced he left Hong Kong for the UK in fear of "
Stephen Vines is a British journalist, writer, broadcaster and restaurateur, who was based in
, ''Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
from 1987 to 2021.
Career
Vines first moved to Hong Kong in 1987 as a south-east Asia correspondent for ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', with the intent of staying for a few years. He then went on to work as a correspondent for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
, The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' and ''Asia Times
''Asia Times'' (), formerly known as ''Asia Times Online'', is a Hong Kong-based English language news media publishing group, covering politics, economics, business, and culture from an Asian perspective. ''Asia Times'' publishes in English and ...
''. Vines was the founding editor of ''Eastern Express
The Eastern Express ( tr, Doğu Ekspresi) is an overnight passenger train operated by the Turkish State Railways. The train runs from Ankara Railway Station to Kars Railway Station in Kars. The train was the first overnight service east of Anka ...
'', and the founder and publisher of ''Spike'', a political and business weekly magazine. Both the ''Eastern Express'' and ''Spike'' failed shortly after their launch. He was involved with the start-up of Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) is a free, non-profit news website based in Hong Kong. It was co-founded in 2015 by Tom Grundy, who believed that the territory's press freedom was in decline, to provide an alternative to the dominant English-language ...
. He once served as the president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club.
Vines also hosted ''The Pulse'', a current affairs TV programme on RTHK
Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econo ...
. The programme was terminated in July 2021 amid a shakedown at the "embattled" public broadcaster.
Apart from journalism, he operated companies in the food and beverage sector. He was also a founding member of the Civic Party
The Civic Party (CP) is a pro-democracy liberal political party in Hong Kong. It is currently chaired by barrister Alan Leong.
The party was formed in 2006 on the basis of the Basic Law Article 45 Concern Group, which was derived from the ...
.
Political views
Criticism of the central Chinese and Hong Kong governments
Vines has been a repeated critic of both theChinese Central Government
The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the p ...
and the Chinese government of Hong Kong ever since the handover
In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transfe ...
. Already in 1997, Vines compared the handling of the media by the government of Hong Kong's first Chief Executive
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
Tung Chee-Hwa
Tung Chee-hwa (; born 7 July 1937) is a Hong Kong businessman and politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July. He is currently a vice-chairman of the Chin ...
unfavorably to Hong Kong's last British governor Chris Patten, whom he called "very media-savvy and media-friendly." Vines described Tung's administration as "staggeringly incompetent." More recently, he has again compared the years before the handover under colonial rule favorably to the post-1997 period. He has generally criticized Hong Kong's Chief Executives as supposedly being too loyal to the Chinese central government, for example describing the administration of Carrie Lam
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor ( Cheng; ; born 13 May 1957) is a retired Hong Kong politician who served as the 4th Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022. She served as Chief Secretary for Administration between 2012 and 2017 and Sec ...
as "quislings." He has lamented that " ter the handover there was a frenzy of tearing down structural reminders of British colonial rule" and claims that the Chinese central government has repeatedly "undermined" Hong Kong's autonomy since 1997.
Departure from Hong Kong
In August 2021, Vines announced he left Hong Kong for the UK in fear of "white terror
White Terror is the name of several episodes of mass violence in history, carried out against anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, revolutionaries, or other opponents by conservative or nationalist groups. It is sometimes contrasted wit ...
" under the Hong Kong national security law
The Hong Kong national security law, officially the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a piece of national security legislation concerning Hong Kong. It ...
. In an email to his friends and colleagues, he wrote, " e white terror sweeping through Hong Kong is far from over and the near-term prospects of things getting better are simply non-existent". He told the ''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...
'' that he had been targeted by pro-Beijing people. He said, " ey have this band of people who are not officially sanctioned... who go around threatening anybody who has, so called, stepped out of line. Unfortunately, I was one of those. he person
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
said quite aggressively... 'you better watch your step, we are coming for you.'" Reflecting in ''Hong Kong Free Press'' on his departure, Vines wrote that "loving Hong Kong has become a suspect activity".
Vines, along with several other former Hong Kong residents, ultimately settled in the English town of St. Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman r ...
.
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vines, Steve Hong Kong journalists BBC newsreaders and journalists The Independent people The Guardian people The Observer people Year of birth missing (living people) Living people