Western media's favorite Hong Kong 'freedom struggle writer' is American
ex-Amnesty staffer in yellowface
A prominent Hong Kong pundit and anti-China activist named Kong Tsung-gan
has become a go-to source for Western media. An investigation by The
Grayzone confirms Kong as a fake identity employed by an American teacher
who's a ubiquitous figure at local protests.
By Max Blumenthal
An American man with ties to Amnesty International and key Hong Kong
separatist figures has been posing online as a Hong Kong native named Kong
Tsung-gan. Routinely cited as a grassroots activist and writer by major
media organizations and published in English-language media, the fictitious
character Kong appears to have been concocted to disseminate anti-China
propaganda behind the cover of yellowface.
Through Kong Tsung-gan's prolific digital presence and uninterrogated
reputation in mainstream Western media, he disseminates a constant stream of
content hyping up the Hong Kong "freedom struggle" while clamoring for the
US to turn up the heat on China.
Whispers about Kong's true identity have been circulating on social media
among Hong Kong residents, and was even mentioned in a brief account last
December by The Standard.
The Grayzone spoke to several locals outraged by a deceptive stunt they
considered not only unethical, but racist. They said they have kept their
views to themselves due to the atmosphere of intimidation looming over the
city, where self-styled "freedom fighters" harass and target seemingly
anyone who speaks out publicly against them.
In this investigation, The Grayzone connected the dots between Kong and an
American man who has become a major presence in Western media and at
protests around Hong Kong. Our research indicates that Kong's editors and
prominent protest cheerleaders were likely aware of the deceptive ploy.
Kong Tsung-gan bursts onto Hong Kong Twitter scene, becomes go-to source for
anti-China content
The Twitter user Kong Tsung-gan (@KongTsungGan) first appeared in March
2015. Kong Tsung-gan's earliest tweets featured commentary about Tibet and
the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement.
At some point, Kong changed his Twitter avatar to a black-and-white headshot
of an unknown Asian person. A search of the Wayback Machine internet archive
shows that this photo remained up until sometime in late 2019.
Kong Tsung-gan Twitter yellowface photo Brian Kern
Later, Kong changed his Twitter avatar to an image depicting Liu Xia, the
wife of the late Nobel Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo was a
right-wing ideologue who celebrated the US wars on Vietnam, Afghanistan, and
Iraq, and was rewarded with the 2014 Democracy Award by the National
Endowment for Democracy - the favorite meddling machine of the US
government.
As of August 2020, Kong Tsung-gan's Twitter account boasts more than 32,000
followers. He live-tweets during protests, posts incendiary commentary about
the Communist Party of China (CPC), likens the Hong Kong "struggle" to Tibet
and Xinjiang, begs the United States to ram through sanction bills like the
Hong Kong Safe Harbor and Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Acts, urges
NBA star Lebron James to "find out about our freedom struggle," retweets
Nancy Pelosi and other US politicians, promotes his books, maintains an
ongoing tally of arrests in his regular "#HK CRACKDOWN WATCH UPDATE," and
disseminates images of protest posters.
At around the time he created his Twitter account, Kong Tsung-gan published
his first Medium post. He has since filled his Medium feed with protest
timelines, lists of recommended human rights books and journalism (including
a link to the questionable China "expert" Adrian Zenz), and "first-hand
accounts" of his protest experiences on the ground. In one account, Kong
Tsung-gan claimed he attended a Band 1 government school, implying he was a
native Hong Kong resident.
Kong's work has been amplified by Joshua Wong, the Hong Kong protest
poster-boy who has enjoyed photo-ops with neoconservative Republican
senators like Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton.
Thanks to his continual stream of content on Twitter and Medium, and his
platform on the website Hong Kong Free Press, Kong Tsung-gan has become one
of mainstream Western media's go-to sources for soundbites.
Kong Tsung-gan: Darling of the Western press
Since bursting onto the Hong Kong Twitter scene, Kong Tsung-gan has been
quoted by a who's who of Western corporate media outlets. He has been
described as an "author" (CNN, Globe and Mail, Time), "writer and activist"
(New York Times, Washington Post), "activist and author" (LA
Times),"activist" (AFP, Al Jazeera), "writer, educator and activist"
(Guardian), "political writer" (Foreign Policy), "writer" (Vice), and "Hong
Kong writer and activist" in an op-ed posted by the Nikkei Asian Review.
Kong has also been cited as a "Hong Kong journalist and rights activist" by
Radio Free Asia and as a "rights activist and author" by Voice of America,
two subsidiaries of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Tasked with a
mission to "be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the
United States," the USAGM budgeted around $2 million to support protests in
Hong Kong in 2020.
When he is not churning out commentary on Twitter and Medium accounts, Kong
Tsung-gan is a columnist at Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) and publishes books
about the Hong Kong "freedom struggle," whose proceeds go directly to HKFP.
Hong Kong Free Press describes itself as an "impartial non-profit media
outlet" and "completely independent." The outlet also boasted that it "gets
full marks" from a supposed journalism ethics verification initiative called
News Guard, which happens to be overseen by a collection of former US
government national security and law enforcement officials.
HKFP editor-in-chief Tom Grundy has boasted of rejecting article pitches
from deceptive figures operating behind false identities. At the same time,
Grundy has provided a regular home for Kong's commentary.
The Grayzone emailed HKFP to request a comment on Kong's identity, but
received no reply.
The distinctly American voice of Kong Tsung-gan
To burnish his reputation as a reliable source, Kong Tsung-gan has furnished
audio interviews to Western outlets. In July 2019, Kong Tsung-gan was
featured on Louisa Lim's Little Red Podcast alongside National Endowment for
Democracy fellow Johnson Yeung, lawmaker Eddie Chu Hoi-Dick, and former Hong
Kong Chief Secretary Anson Chan.
Around the same time, an American man in Hong Kong named Brian Kern spoke to
RTHK at a march commemorating the Tiananmen anniversary.
A close listen to both audio clips, along with an interview Kong furnished
to an Italian interviewer, demonstrates that Kong Tsung-gan and Brian Kern
are the same person.
Listen for yourself here, or in the video embedded at the top of this
article: