The persecution of Jimmy Lai

Hong Kong once prided itself on a free press and an independent judiciary. Before the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule, the city had been promised that its liberties would endure. Yet now a newspaper publisher faces the rest of his life in prison merely for doing his job.

Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old founder of the now shuttered Apple Daily, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday. He has already spent more than five years in detention under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which was imposed on reluctant Hongkongers by its new rulers in Beijing. The guilty verdict, delivered in December, was long expected before it was formally handed down.

Six of Lai’s Apple Daily colleagues also received lengthy prison terms. The prosecution’s case rested entirely on published words and opinions expressed in print – activities that, in most open societies, fall squarely within the normal work of a newsroom.

Lai was officially sentenced for ‘colluding with foreign forces’. The charge was based on a meeting he had with American officials in 2019, at the height of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. Basically, Lai has been snared by the deliberately broad wording of the National Security Law. This is a truly demoralising outcome. 

Lai’s rags-to-riches story was a symbol of all that was once great about Hong Kong. He came to the city as a 12-year-old stowaway, fleeing a Chinese mainland ravaged by famine during the catastrophic Great Leap Forward. In Hong Kong, then under British rule, he found a place that rewarded effort and ingenuity. It had low taxes, light regulation and a respect for the rule of law. Within 15 years, he went from sleeping and working in a factory to owning one. He first built a fashion empire and later turned to the media.

For years, Western governments have sounded the trumpet over the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms. But the credibility of those governments is better measured by how they act towards China when it really counts. 

British prime minister Keir Starmer is a case in point when it comes to this credibility gap. An ex-human-rights lawyer, he regularly champions ‘the rule of law’ rhetorically. Yet when he visited China last month, it was clear that his priorities were trade, investment and technological collaboration. The imprisonment of a British citizen on bogus charges wasn’t particularly high on his agenda. He has shown that civil liberties and the rights of British subjects are negotiable when they become inconvenient. 

There are practical steps democracies can take to support Hong Kong. They can reassess Hong Kong’s special trade and diplomatic arrangements. They can target sanctions to officials and judges involved in politically driven prosecutions. They can consistently raise the release of political prisoners in engagements with Beijing. Starmer, meanwhile, has done the bare minimum.

The significance of Jimmy Lai’s sentence lies not only in its severity but in its clarity. China’s promise of ‘one country, two systems’, of respecting Hong Kong’s sovereignty and democratic rights, has been shattered once and for all. It isn’t only Lai who has been imprisoned – the freedom that once belonged to all Hongkongers has been taken into the cell with him. 

Elisha Maldonado is the global head of communications for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.