Stephen Vines | |||||||
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| Born | 1949 or 1950 (age 74–75)[1] | ||||||
| Political party | Civic Party | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 韋安仕 | ||||||
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| Website | stephenvines-author | ||||||
Stephen Vines is a British journalist, writer, broadcaster and restaurateur, who was based inHong Kong from 1987 to 2021.[2]
Vines first moved to Hong Kong in 1987 as a south-east Asia correspondent forThe Observer, with the intent of staying for a few years.[1][3] He then went on to work as a correspondent for theBBC,The Daily Telegraph,The Guardian,The Independent andAsia Times. Vines was the founding editor ofEastern Express, and the founder and publisher ofSpike, a political and business weekly magazine.[4] Both theEastern Express andSpike failed shortly after their launch.[5][6] He was involved with the start-up ofHong Kong Free Press.[7] He once served as the president of theForeign Correspondents' Club.[8]
Vines also hostedThe Pulse, a current affairs TV programme onRTHK. The programme was terminated in July 2021 amid a shakedown at the "embattled" public broadcaster.[2][8][9]
Apart from journalism, he operated companies in the food and beverage sector. He was also a founding member of theCivic Party.[7][10]
Vines has been a repeated critic of both theChinese Central Government and theChinese government of Hong Kong ever since thehandover. Already in 1997, Vines compared the handling of the media by the government of Hong Kong's firstChief ExecutiveTung Chee-Hwa unfavorably to Hong Kong's last British governorChris Patten, whom he called "very media-savvy and media-friendly."[11] Vines described Tung's administration as "staggeringly incompetent."[12] More recently, he has again compared the years before the handover under colonial rule favorably to the post-1997 period.[13] He has generally criticized Hong Kong's Chief Executives as supposedly being too loyal to the Chinese central government, for example describing the administration ofCarrie Lam as"quislings."[14][15][16] He has lamented that "[a]fter 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.[17]
In August 2021, Vines announced he left Hong Kong for the UK in fear of "white terror" under theHong Kong national security law. In an email to his friends and colleagues, he wrote, "[t]he white terror sweeping through Hong Kong is far from over and the near-term prospects of things getting better are simply non-existent".[18][19] He told theFinancial Times that he had been targeted by pro-Beijing people. He said, "[t]hey 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. [The person] said quite aggressively... 'you better watch your step, we are coming for you.'"[8] Reflecting inHong Kong Free Press on his departure, Vines wrote that "loving Hong Kong has become a suspect activity".[20]
Vines, along with several other former Hong Kong residents, ultimately settled in the English town ofSt. Albans.[1]
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