Sunny Cheung is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Flow HK Media, with an audience group from more than 10 countries, which aims to combat authoritarian propaganda and promote democracy by providing in-depth analysis and investigative reporting. He also leads multiple diasporic projects overseas and advises the Hong Kong Democracy Council on human rights issues and Chinese politics in Washington, D.C. He has consulted for the U.S. State Department, the Taiwanese government, and different INGOs.
Cheung started his fight for democracy as early as 2012, at the age of 16. He organized class boycotts among high schools in his district to protest against brainwashing education imposed by the government. In 2014, during the Umbrella Movement, an unprecedented civil disobedience protest, he helped occupy one of the CBDs in Hong Kong and manage the occupied zone for more than two months to pursue universal suffrage. In 2019, he was the founder of the Hong Kong Higher Institutions International Affairs Delegation, an organization representing all universities’ student unions, where he led international advocacy and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to pursue freedom and justice. The following year, he was elected as a representative of the pro-democracy camp in the primaries, in which 600,000 citizens participated. In 2022, he helped establish the World Liberty Congress to deter transnational repression and democratic recession.
He has expertise in Chinese politics, cross-strait relations, digital authoritarianism, emerging technologies, and security studies. He serves as a visiting fellow at the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan. He is also a Fisher Family Fellow at Stanford University. He was named a Young Leader by the Pacific Forum and a Global Leader by the McCain Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, the UK Parliament, and the Taiwan Legislative Yuan.
Cheung has given his thoughts and opinions to media outlets like BBC World, Channel 4, Reuters, ABC, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, South China Morning Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC, Fox News, RFI, The Guardian, Taipei Times, and The Hill. He holds a BA from the University of Hong Kong and an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS with a Dean’s Scholarship.