WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden lamented a "sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world" after the financial hub's pro-democracy Apple Daily tabloid was forced to close under a new national security law.

"Intensifying repression by Beijing has reached such a level that Apple Daily, a much-needed bastion of independent journalism in Hong Kong, has now ceased publishing... Beijing must stop targeting the independent press and release the journalists and media executives that have been detained. The act of journalism is not a crime," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.