Asia’s foreign press clubs recalibrate amid regional political changes

Jan. 15 (UPI) -- For decades, Asia's foreign correspondent clubs were the region's off-duty newsrooms -- the late-night debating halls where journalists compared notes on wars, coups, trade deals, democratic uprisings and China's rise. Now those storied institutions, once synonymous with a freewheeling press culture, are confronting a slow sunset. No club illustrates this more clearly than the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong . Long considered the spiritual home of Asia's foreign press corps, the club is navigating a transformed political landscape, a radically shrinking media industry and a shifting geography of global news coverage. Its evolution has become a case study in how Asia's information order is changing -- and what the future of foreign reporting may look like. A club built for a Hong Kong that no longer exists The clubhouse in a colonial-era icehouse on Lower Albert Road remains visually unchanged. Photographs of Vietnam War correspondents still line the walls. The bar still hums with conversation. The dining room still hosts diplomats, academics, business executives and the occasional visiting author. But beneath that surface, the club's role -- and the city around it -- have changed drastically. "I remain a member and a regular at the Foreign Correspondents' Club," said Philip Bowring, 83, a former deputy editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and co-founder of Asian Sentinel . He added that while the club still survives as a social club; it is necessarily very cautious about the topics discussed. Since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in 2020, Hong Kong's once-vaunted press freedoms have tightened. Apple Daily was shut, journalists have been arrested or moved abroad and prominent foreign correspondents have relocated to more predictable bases, such as Seoul or Taipei. Events once taken for granted -- open forums with dissidents, academics or activists -- now carry political sensitivities. The club's suspension of the Human Rights Press Awards in 2022 signaled the depth of this pressure. Membership has also shifted: Once dominated by working correspondents from the Asian Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, AP, Reuters, UPI and major American newspapers, the club now leans more heavily toward academics, non-governmental organization workers, corporate members and public relations professionals. "The most profound impact of Article 23 has been on the climate in which journalists operate," said Morgan Davis, president of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club. "Vague definitions and legal uncertainty have left reporters unsure about what can safely be covered. That uncertainty has not required direct enforcement to be effective -- it has already fostered self-censorship." Collapse of publications that sustained the club The foreign correspondent club model was born in a different era -- one where well-funded international bureaus were standard practice. Asia's clubs thrived because Asia's foreign press corps thrived. But over the last two decades, the scaffolding that supported them has steadily eroded. Asia's once dominant foreign press institutions have steadily receded. The Far Eastern Economic Review folded in 2009, the Asian Wall Street Journal, a training ground for generations of...

Preview: ~500 words