‘Beijing only wants to control Hong Kong, not kill it’ – veteran editor’s parting message as he leaves for New York

“For the past 35 years, I have not left my post writing about China,” says Jin Zhong, chief editor of Open Magazine, which he co-founded in 1987.

Quoting from the Scriptures, he says of his departure for New York this week: “I have made a good fight.”

A technical designer by training, Jin, a Hunan native, became a freelance investigative writer in Kunming, Yunnan province, where he was transferred after the Cultural Revolution. From there he relocated to Hong Kong in 1980 and joined the burgeoning China-watching business. In 1987 he and his associates founded what is now known as Open Magazine.

“I still remember the reception for the magazine’s launch was on 10 January, which was the same day of the criticism session for the late party secretary Hu Yaobang, whose death in 1989 triggered the infamous June 4 military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing,” he recalls.

The incident caused a vogue for information on China and Open Magazine sold more than a record 20,000 copies a month.

The propitious market led Jin to the book publishing business in the early 1990s – long before Lee Po and his associates at the Causeway Bay bookstore went into the so-called banned books business and got into trouble.