Media tycoon Jimmy Lai stands accused of 'conspiracy to collude with foreign forces' under Hong Kong’s national security law.TYRONE SIU/Reuters
Hong Kong is a special sort of place. A tiny enclave on China’s flank, it rose in the course of a generation from steamy colonial port to modern economic dynamo – a magnet for struggling migrants from mainland China, a financial hub for East Asia, a bustling entrepôt with trading links around the world.
When I arrived there in the early 1980s to work on a regional newsmagazine, signs of its rising wealth were all around. Skyscrapers were going up left and right. Rolls-Royce limousines carried freshly minted millionaires through the clogged streets. Even the tin-roofed shanties that spilled down the hillsides boasted new television sets.
Though it was far from a democracy, with most of the power in the hands of a British governor, Hong Kong was a symbol of what people could achieve if they were simply allowed a little freedom. It had a robust press; a professional civil service; an independent judiciary to protect property and individual rights; an open laissez-faire economy – in short, all the ingredients for dramatic success.
Now all of that is at risk. A stifling miasma blown in from the mainland has enveloped the teeming, vital, electric place I knew. The trial of Jimmy Lai, which wrapped up this week, is only the latest sign of this heartbreaking change.
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Mr. Lai is a brash tycoon who arrived in the colony as an adolescent stowaway on a fishing boat, hustled his way into the garment trade and ended up heading a multinational clothing chain. Unlike most businessmen of the time, he stuck his neck out by backing protests like China’s Tiananmen Square movement of 1989. A media empire he founded, anchored by a cheeky news outlet, Apple Daily, became a thorn in the side of Hong Kong authorities after the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
When it supported the fierce, sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations of the 2010s, they decided to make an example of Mr. Lai. Police raided Apple Daily and bundled him off to jail in handcuffs. Now 77 and in faltering health, he has spent close to five years behind bars.
The charges against him are ludicrous. He stands accused under Hong Kong’s national security law of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.” At his 156-day trial, prosecutors claimed that he was at the forefront of an international drive to impose sanctions against Hong Kong and China for suppressing protest and free speech.
Mr. Lai’s lawyers note that his grand conspiracy amounted to little beyond speaking up for what he thought was right. In any case, his alleged conspiring happened before the security law took effect in 2020. The prosecutors pressed their case regardless.
The aim of all this was to make it seem as if, instead of a legitimate expression of anger, the Hong Kong protests were a foreign conspiracy to subvert the government. With his wealth, his unguarded views and his overseas friends, Mr. Lai was portrayed as the devious “mastermind” of this traitorous scheme.
The proceedings had the unmistakable ring of a Soviet show trial. Despite the sober setting of the Hong Kong courtroom and the trappings of British-style justice, the clear intent was to warn off anyone who might even be tempted to think about defying the government.
The broader point the Beijing-backed authorities were trying to make is that the democratic freedoms that Mr. Lai champions have no place in Hong Kong or in China. They are alien Western imports, incompatible with Asian values and with public order. He stands for chaos; we stand for stability. He is a puppet of the West; we are patriots.
The Hong Kongers who once took to the streets to defend their rights and fight for their future know that is nonsense. They just want what their neighbours in South Korea or Taiwan have: a hand in choosing their own government. “Western” democracy works well there, delivering both order and freedom. South Koreans rose up to defend it last year when their president tried to impose martial law.
The Hong Kong where I lived had a rootless feel. The patronizing consensus among expatriates was that its residents were content to let the colonial administration run the show as long as they were left alone to make money. Things changed as they grew wealthier and better educated, with a firm stake in the future and a strong desire to help mould it. When Chinese troops massacred Tiananmen protesters in 1989, huge crowds marched through the streets in protest and continued to do so on the anniversary of the massacre for years afterward.
Hong Kongers may appear quiescent now. The democracy movement has been crushed. But the cause Jimmy Lai gave up his freedom for lives on in many hearts. In spite of everything that has happened, Hong Kong is still a special place. Its remarkable story isn’t over yet.