South China Morning Post (SCMP) veteran military journalist Minnie Chan has been missing for more than a month. Chan was last seen in Beijing, where she attended the Xiangshan Security Forum, which was attended by senior Chinese military officials. She never returned from her business trip to Hong Kong. Her last article is dated November 2nd.
Jochen Stahnke
Political correspondent for China, Taiwan and North Korea based in Beijing; previously correspondent in Israel.
Since then, there has been no news from Chan and his social media channels have remained silent. It wasn’t until November 11 that strangely compiled private photos of Chan, a mother of two, appeared on her Facebook profile. The reporter’s friends commented that she didn’t post it herself. Several companions suspect that she is in the custody of the Chinese security apparatus.
Association of journalists “deeply concerned”
Minnie Chan recently reported on China’s military strategy towards Taiwan and also reported on the disappearance of Defense Minister Li Shangfu. Apparently, the SCMP has been unable to speak to its reporter since then. In a statement released on Friday, the newspaper said it had been informed by Chan’s family that Chan was “on holiday in Beijing for personal reasons”. Chan “needs time to resolve a private matter,” the SCMP said. “Her family told us she is safe but asked us to respect her privacy.”
Journalist Minnie Chan in an undated photo from her profile on the X network, formerly Twitter: Image: min8chan/X
The Hong Kong Journalists Association said it was “deeply concerned” about the disappearance. The Asian chapter of Reporters Without Borders said on Monday that “it is now common practice for the Chinese regime to kidnap journalists and arbitrarily detain them for months in black prisons, where they are deprived of their rights and often tortured.” They called on Beijing to immediately disclose Minnie Chan’s whereabouts “and, if she is detained, ensure her immediate release.” When asked at the daily press conference in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said he was not aware of this.
She works for Hong Kong’s largest English-language newspaper
Journalists are constantly arrested in China. Australian Cheng Lei, for example, who worked for Chinese state television, was detained in Beijing in 2020, formally arrested in 2021 on suspicion of transmitting state secrets and was only released a few weeks ago. And Bloomberg reporter Haze Fan was taken from her apartment by security forces in 2020, and was only released on bail in 2022.
The missing Minnie Chan, in turn, has worked for SCMP, Hong Kong’s largest English-language newspaper, for 18 years. The SCMP has been owned by the Alibaba corporation since 2015 and has repeatedly published fairly in-depth reports on the People’s Liberation Army, at least compared to the mainland Chinese press. Chan previously worked for the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong, which was closed by authorities in the special administrative region two years ago. Since Hong Kong came under the draconian national security law passed in 2020, the SCMP’s reports have also lost criticism.
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Former South China Morning Post editor-in-chief Wang Xiangwei said on Network X that he was praying for Minnie Chan, “my friend and former colleague.”