Hong Kong Paper Hires Chinese ‘Consultant’

As concerns grow over China’s intrusion into Hong Kong’s way of life, the territory’s leading English-language newspaper, The South China Morning Post, has quietly hired a senior Chinese editor and installed him in an office across from the editor’s, in a position some at the paper describe as “political commissar.”

The arrival of the Chinese journalist, Feng Xiliang, founder of China’s official English-language paper, The China Daily, comes at a time of increasing concern among journalists and many in Hong Kong over the independence of Hong Kong’s press and the growing practice of self-censorship in some papers.

“We have little idea what Mr. Feng is going to do,” said a senior editor at the paper. “Is he pulling strings behind the scenes, screening stories, changing headlines?” The paper’s editor, Jonathan Fenby, described Feng as a consultant.