The Wall Street Journal is the latest international media organization to leave Hong Kong as the United States newspaper’s Asia bureau office and staff will transfer to Singapore.
WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker announced the move in a letter to staff on Thursday, after other foreign news outlets have reconsidered their operations in China’s financial hub.
“We are shifting our center of gravity in the region from Hong Kong to Singapore, as many of the companies we cover have done,” Tucker said in the letter seen by Agence France-Presse.
“Consequently, some of our colleagues, mostly in Hong Kong, will be leaving us. It is difficult to say goodbye, and I want to thank them for the contributions they have made to the Journal,” she added.
The shift has already resulted in layoffs, with the newspaper’s union, IAPE, saying “eight reporters from the Hong Kong and Singapore offices have been laid off from the company.”
Tucker said a new business, finance and economics group would be created with a mandate to “break news and write ambitious and distinctive features, analysis and enterprise.”
The first female editor of the New York-based newspaper also said the WSJ was looking to appoint an editor to lead the group, with the position based in Singapore, alongside a number of other journalist roles in Singapore and Hong Kong.
US news outlet Radio Free Asia announced in March it had closed its Hong Kong office, citing concerns about staff safety as local authorities this year introduced a new national security law that prosecutes dissidents.
Journalists were among more than 290 prominent personalities who have been arrested since Beijing’s security law was enacted.
Authorities have also closed several local media outlets, including Stand News and Apple Daily.