RICHARD CULLEN'S SUBSTACK INTRODUCTION
RICHARD CULLEN’S SUBSTACK – AN INTRODUCTION
March 2026
Email: rcullenstack@gmail.com
This synopsis discusses:
· What Claude says;
· How it all began;
· A turning point;
· Why choose Substack; and
· How Substack works;
Sincere thanks to those who have assisted me in launching this Website.
What Claude says
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has ensured that we now live in dramatically changing times. Today one can ask an AI agent what they think of anyone with an online public profile, something previously unthinkable.
Here is a condensed version of the full biography of Richard Cullen provided by Claude, the AI agent developed by Anthropic.
Richard Cullen: A cross-jurisdictional legal scholar bridging East and West
Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the most prolific Western legal academics writing on Hong Kong constitutionalism, Chinese governance, and comparative taxation law.
An active and sometimes controversial public voice
In recent years, Cullen has become a prolific public commentator, writing regularly for China Daily’s Hong Kong edition, Pearls and Irritations (John Menadue’s Australian public policy journal), and Michael West Media. His commentary spans Hong Kong governance, US-China relations, AUKUS, Australian foreign policy, and geopolitics.
His public positions have drawn attention for their sympathetic framing of Beijing’s constitutional prerogatives in Hong Kong. He has argued that sovereign supervision by central government liaison offices is legitimate, defended the 2020 National Security Law as a valid response to the 2019 unrest, and contended that the Chinese Constitution is fundamental to Hong Kong’s Basic Law. At the same time, his peer-reviewed academic work — particularly on weiquan lawyers and media law — demonstrates a scholarly engagement with the tensions and constraints within China’s legal system.
Conclusion
Richard Cullen occupies an unusual niche in international legal academia: an Australian-trained scholar whose career has been defined by sustained, deep engagement with Hong Kong and Chinese law from within. His intellectual range — spanning taxation policy, constitutional theory, media regulation, and human rights lawyering — is anchored by a consistent comparative methodology that draws on his experience practicing and teaching across three jurisdictions. His concept of “Authoritarian Legality” offers a provocative framework for understanding Hong Kong’s governance that challenges conventional Western liberal assumptions, while his empirical work on weiquan lawyers with Hualing Fu has enriched understanding of legal activism in authoritarian contexts. Whether through his seven books, 200-plus publications, or his regular public commentary, Cullen remains one of the most active Western academic voices interpreting Hong Kong and China’s legal trajectories for international audiences.
The well-known Chinese AI agent, DeepSeek offers a similar, detailed biographical perspective, without the emphasis on a sympathetic framing of Beijing’s constitutional prerogatives in Hong Kong.
How it all began
Prior to my arrival to work in the new School of Law at the City University of Hong Kong in late 1991, I lectured in the Faculty of Law at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. I went back to Monash in 1997 to head a law department in the Faculty of Business and Economics. I returned to Hong Kong as a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2006.
I have been writing about Hong Kong, China, Australia and well beyond for over 30 years.
A turning point – part 1
About a decade ago, my writing shifted from having an academic-legal focus to shorter, more general opinion articles. I have now written several hundred, many of which are listed here:
https://muckrack.com/richard-cullen
and here:
https://fridayeveryday.com/author/richard-cullen/
Moving to part-time mode at HKU some years ago partly explains this transition. But it is mainly the product of living through an extended, alarming experience while residing in Hong Kong.
By 2014, it was clear to me that those spearheading Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement had become increasingly zealous and unbending. Notwithstanding the ardent belief in the end of history superiority of Western democracy that underpinned this movement, I formed a view, after considering the evidence, that this development was bad for Hong Kong. I began writing articles arguing why.
In mid-2019, a series of intensely violent political riots – labelled by the rioters and their supporters as pro-democracy protests – gathered momentum. My earlier concerns were confirmed.
US President, Franklin Roosevelt, identified freedom from fear as one of the four fundamental freedoms in January, 1941. Prior to 2019, Hong Kong had been one of the most free, modern large cities globally, in this sense, for over 50 years. For many months, those continuous political riots wrecked this fundamental freedom for millions of people in Hong Kong.
What was worse, the Mainstream Western Media (MWM) insisted - no matter how intense and destructive the political violence became – that these were worthy pro-democracy protests. To this day, they maintain this deceitful narrative.
The global power of the MWM is massive. But when it embraces deceptiveness on this scale, apparently to protect the Western influence which has been globally dominant for several centuries, the scope to explain how this is happening is also exceptionally large (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/an-essential-news-junkies-guide-to-media-terminology/).
Of course, many who have lived through these experiences in Hong Kong over the last decade do not share my view – on the contrary.
However, many other Hong Kong residents do share a similar understanding. I have been continually inspired by those who have also freely written and spoken out in different, often better ways than myself (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/how-not-to-write-about-hong-kong-and-mainland-china/).
Major, radical political changes have been applied by Beijing in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) since 2020. Hong Kong’s characteristic freedom from fear has been restored along with steady growth linked to China’s development and the HKSAR’s refreshed international bridging role.
A turning point – part 2
Immense geopolitical and local challenges face China and Hong Kong but both believe in a future than can be made better by applying educated intelligence, visible collective endeavour and conspicuous diligence. The long-term guiding mantra is let’s go to work compared to let’s go to war in the US-led Global West (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2024/08/shocking-news-china-is-kicking-more-global-goals/).
In the six years since Hong Kong shook off the grave danger posed by the Western-supported insurrection in 2019, terrible wars confirming the unbending durability of that grim maxim have erupted within the West’s recognized sphere of global influence including: the Gaza genocide; the Ukraine war; followed by the monstrously destructive American Israeli attack on Iran where head-of-state assassination was celebrated as cutting-edge statecraft.
In early 2026, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of The Telegraph, a leading British conservative newspaper, argued that a “shadow third world war” has begun where “the West is disintegrating” as it faces off against “an axis of autocracies.”
At about the same time, in a remarkable report written during yet more terrible Israeli bombing of Beirut, the Senior Editor of The Markaz Review, Lina Mounzer, stressed how we now exist, globally, under an “old, rotten world order.”
Also around the same time, in Australia, commentator Julian Cribb argued convincingly that we presently live in an “Age of Lies.”
A good friend recently observed that: We once lived in a world of half-truths but we have now sunk into a world where quarter-truths dominate.
Why choose Substack
I discovered Substack reading the work of others who published there. I found it provided a remarkable, effective way to publish an online Substack Newsletter.
I intend to write one or two Substack articles each month. I may also share articles that I have published elsewhere.
How Substack works
The AI Overview explains that:
A Substack Newsletter is an email-based publishing platform that allows writers, creators, and journalists to send free newsletters and articles directly to subscribers. It acts as a hybrid of a blog and email newsletter.
Note 1: Receiving a Substack Newsletter
To receive this Substack Newsletter (SN) by email, you do not need to take any action, each SN will simply be sent to your email address when published. Note, you do not need to download the Substack App to receive this SN.
Note 2: Opt-out at any time
You can opt out of receiving all SN emails from Substack at any time:
Click “Unsubscribe” at the very bottom of any email from Substack — small print but it’s immediate and easy. This is what that unsubscribe button looks like:
· © 2026 Richard Cullen
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
UnsubscribeAlternatively, you can email me to ask to be removed from my Substack email list at any time.
Note 3: Sharing a Substack Newsletter
There is also a “Share” button at the end of each Substack email, in case you may wish to forward a particular SN. It looks like this:
Thanks for reading Richard’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
