Members Area Logout

Nominees for the Election of the Board of Governors 2024-2025

Dear Members,

Here are the nominations for the FCC Board of Governors 2024-2025. Below are links to each nominee’s bio and policy statement. Please read them before voting.

 

Notes:    
  a. Please indicate your vote by putting a “✓” in the appropriate bracket. Any mark other than a “✓” shall invalidate this Ballot paper.  
  b. If vote(s) casted exceed(s) the number allowed in respective capacity, this Ballot paper shall be invalid.  
  c. Bio & policy statements of the candidates are available at the FCC website <www.fcchk.org>.  
  d. The completed Ballot paper must be received by the Club, either by mail or in the Ballot box, not later than 3pm on Thursday, 23 May 2024.  
     

CANDIDATES


PRESIDENT
(The position of President can be voted by Correspondent members only)
(Vote for not more than one)
1. Lee WILLIAMSON – SCMP
     

FIRST VICE PRESIDENT
(The position of First Vice President can be voted by Correspondent members only)
(Vote for not more than one)

2. Morgan DAVIS – IFR Asia
     

SECOND VICE PRESIDENT
(The position of Second Vice President can be voted by Correspondent, Journalist or Associate members)
(Vote for not more than one)

3. Tim HUXLEY – Mandarin Shipping
     

CORRESPONDENT MEMBER GOVERNORS
(The position of Correspondent Governor can be voted by Correspondent members only)
(Vote for not more than eight)

4. Karly COX – Tatler Asia
5. Jennifer JETT – Asia Digital Editor, NBC News
6. Karen KOH – Freelance broadcast journalist
7. Kari Soo LINDBERG– Bloomberg News
8. Kristie LU STOUT – CNN International
9. Connor MYCROFT – SCMP
10. Dean NAPOLITANO – The New York Times International Edition
11. Peter PARKS – AFP
12. Stephanie Barrio THORN – The New York Times
13. Laura WESTBROOK – Feature Story News
14. William ZHENG – SCMP
     

JOURNALIST MEMBER GOVERNORS
(The position of Journalist Governor can be voted by Correspondent or Journalist members)
(Vote for not more than two)

15. Zela CHIN – TVB
16. HO Man Kit Raymond – Metro Broadcast Corp. Ltd.
17. Joe PAN – NFTMetta News
     

ASSOCIATE MEMBER GOVERNORS
(The position of Associate Governor can be voted by Correspondent, Journalist or Associate members)
(Vote for not more than four)

18. CHAN Nap Kee Joseph – Oriental Patron Financial Group
19. LIU Kin-ming – KM & Associates
20. Lynne MULHOLLAND – The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels
21. Christopher SLAUGHTER – AIA Group
22. Barbara YU LARSSON – PAKT Limited
23. Alexandra YUNG – Creasians Company Ltd

FCC Statement on border entry denial of Reporters Without Borders representative

    
 
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is concerned that a representative of global press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been denied entry to Hong Kong by the city’s immigration officials.
 
Aleksandra Bielakowska travelled to Hong Kong twice in 2023 without incident, both times in her professional capacity as an Advocacy Officer at RSF, but was denied entry on this trip. Her colleague Cédric Alviani, who was travelling with Ms Bielakowska on April 10, was granted entry to Hong Kong.
 
The FCC has reached out to the Immigration Department to ask why Ms Bielakowska was denied entry.
 
While we appreciate that the Immigration Department does not normally comment on individual cases, we respectfully request an explanation in order to improve the transparency of the system, and so that the public may better understand the reasons behind the decision.
 
 

An Unlikely WWII Hero in the ‘Asian Casablanca’

Less than an hour away from Hong Kong, by either boat or bus, is Macau – a much smaller, yet equally as interesting Special Administrative Region that, unlike Hong Kong, was formerly colonized by Portugal instead of the British. The city’s streets, architecture, and cuisine still bear resemblance to its former colonizer, and Portuguese remains an official language alongside Cantonese.

Also unlike Hong Kong, Macau remained untouched by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Portugal declared neutrality, which allowed the city to become what author Peter Rose described as an “Asian Casablanca” while war raged just across the border in mainland China and in nearby Hong Kong.

Rose, while living in Hong Kong from 1997 to 2003, took frequent trips to Macau and soon thereafter found the inspiration for his newly published book – John Reeves, the British Consul of neutral Macau during World War II. Through research he conducted in libraries and archives in Asia, North America, and Europe – and even the former Consul’s personal manuscript – he was able to write The Good War of Consul Reeves, a fictional yet historically accurate account of Reeves’s life.

Rose spoke about his book at the FCC alongside First Vice President Jennifer Jett, the moderator of the talk. Joining the event were FCC members and their guests, as well as members and staff of Club Lusitano, Hong Kong’s private club exclusive to the city’s small Portuguese community.

Reeves arrived in Macau in June of 1941 to balance the recent arrival of Japan’s Consul. Thinking that Macau would be a simple role, Reeves soon found himself as the only senior Allied representative in Asia when Japan formally entered World War II the following December.

Reeves ran spy rings, developed medical services for the public and helped evacuate war refugees, accurately accounting for almost every penny of £1.7 million in British government funding at the end of the war.

Despite all his contributions to Macau, Reeves was disliked by the UK’s Foreign Office for a variety of reasons. He insisted on writing Hong Kong as one word – “Hongkong”; he ignored the Foreign Office’s requests for him to abolish his spy network; he drunkenly spilled secret codes at dinner parties. On top of all these “surprises” he gave the Foreign Office, one of his most daring efforts involved how Hong Kong should be structured after the war. He laid out his plan for everything from streets to government infrastructure – which had the British Foreign Office above all other public administration.

When World War II ended, Reeves’s wife and daughter left Macau to return to the UK – Reeves never saw them again. The former Consul was then stationed in Rome and eventually Surabaya, the latter being an “impossible assignment,” Rose said, after the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch which resulted in Indonesia declaring independence in 1949.

After his assignment in Surabaya, Reeves left the UK’s Foreign Service and moved to South Africa. He became what Rose described as a “complete eccentric”, wearing Chinese robes and long hair tied back in a ponytail.

He was never formally recognised for his efforts in Macau, which he lamented in his manuscript that was published posthumously by the Royal Asiatic Society.

“From 700 miles west to Chunking, 1,800 miles north to Vladivostok, 5,000 miles east to Honolulu, and 3,000 miles south to Australia, mine was the lone flag,” Reeves wrote.

In the audience Q&A session, Peter Rose was asked if there would ever be a statue to commemorate Reeves in Macau. While he initially joked that a statue would never be placed in front of the British Foreign Office, Rose did express support for such an idea.

“It’d be nice if he was recognised somewhere in Macau,” Rose said.

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below:

Hong Kong’s History Is No Tale of Two Cities

According to the Hong Kong government’s 2021 census, 91.6% of people in the city are ethnically Chinese. The remaining 8.4% of the population descend from Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and various Western nations.

Were Hong Kong’s racial demographics always this way? Or did different ethnic groups pave the road for the future of Hong Kong’s diverse society?

In her book Fortune’s Bazaar, former journalist and FCC member Vaudine England makes the argument that without Armenians, Parsis, Jews, Portuguese, and Eurasians, Hong Kong could not have become well known as a thriving port city — especially after World War II, when society focused on rebuilding itself following the end of Japanese occupation.

England spoke about her book at the FCC alongside First Vice President Jennifer Jett, the moderator of the discussion. She first spoke about her writing and research process, which she found to be somewhat similar to her former work as a journalist.

“You start a book because there’s a story that you know is there, but it’s untold,” she said. “It’s been ignored, it hasn’t been written about. It’s sort of a ‘scoop’, except it’s on a historical timeframe.”

In total, it took her 10 years to finish researching for Fortune’s Bazaar. Through this process, she found herself contradicting other well-known historians, including James Hayes, a Hong Kong civil servant who published numerous books and articles on the city’s demographic history.

Hayes’s primary claim was that Hong Kong’s success story was a “tale of two cities” in which British people and Chinese people may have interacted in public, but lived completely separate family and personal lives from each other. 

“A whole lot of them [British and Chinese] were sleeping together most nights. So, he kind of missed that,” England said, reiterating her point that Eurasian families played a massive role in Hong Kong’s development.

During the audience question and answer session, England also gave her recommendations on how the HKSAR government can continue to improve its status as an international city.

With tourism campaigns like “Hello Hong Kong” following three years of strict pandemic travel restrictions, an exodus of foreign and local talent, and increasing concern over the city’s new national security legislation, Hong Kong’s title of “Asia’s World City” has come into question by the rest of the international community.

“If you want your city to be a functioning, living community port city… you need to be the kind of place that is open to people of different faiths, of different skin color – let’s be blunt – of different cultures. And they need to be able to, I mean not only ‘go ye forth and multiply’, but actually live rich, diverse lives,” England said.

England was also asked about how anyone with an interest in Hong Kong’s history should go about researching and learning more about this place. She gave two answers, books and cemeteries, both of which she finds to be rather revealing about a place’s culture and people.

Her final piece of advice touched upon how current people who find themselves moving to and living in Hong Kong aren’t too different from past generations who made the exact same migration. Many people end up staying in Hong Kong for a lifetime, which is why England insists that more people explore more of the city’s rich history.

“The fact is, all of us here now are connected to these stories of these people before us, and a lot of us came here for similar reasons. If you’re feeling you’re a part of Hong Kong, which is a place that is different to its neighbors – and why is it different? Well, I think it’s worth looking at that and finding out more about it,” she concluded.

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below:

We measure site performance with cookies to improve performance.