The trials of Jimmy Lai

OPINION:

After more than three years in a Hong Kong prison sans trial, Jimmy Lai, the legendary newspaperman, brave democracy champion, and a good man, began a trial last week under Beijing’s national security law.

The 76-year-old, who has been spending his time in 23-hour solitary confinement, faces life imprisonment if convicted of “collusion with foreign forces.”

Two things will become demonstrably clear at Mr. Lai’s sham trial, which is expected to last 80 days: Jimmy’s genuine grace and dignity — when he entered the courtroom, he smiled and waved at his family — and what a morally hollow regime the Chinese Communist Party truly is.

To use the words of the United Kingdom’s Lord David Alton, this is “a show trial worthy of Stalin.”

All because Beijing hates Mr. Lai, the defiant founder of Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper, and the Chinese government wants to make an example of him. China’s foreign ministry last week went so far as to describe him as “one of the most notorious anti-China elements bent on destabilizing Hong Kong and a mastermind of the riots that took place in Hong Kong.”

A badge of honor, if you ask me, for the “most notorious anti-China element” and a blatant lie concerning the latter. Jimmy was a peaceful backer of the 2019 demonstrations that swept Hong Kong.

But most importantly, let’s always remember and never forget that Jimmy is on trial because he chose to be. That is because he chose to stay despite knowing what was coming. With his British passport and his wealth, he could have enjoyed his freedom elsewhere. But cowardly, he is not.

He has lived his life by listening to his great and clear inner voice, by standing by his principles and ideals, and, as a devout Catholic, by his abundant faith, all of which compelled him to “suffer” it out, come what may.

When he was sentenced in December 2021 for participating in a traditional candlelight vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, he said: “Let me suffer the punishment of this crime, so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed their blood on June 4 to proclaim truth, justice, and goodness.”

He’s often made it a point to say that a free and democratic Hong Kong gave him everything, so he wouldn’t abandon it or the fight. His love for Hong Kong is too great. It’s a love he repeated to me at his house in Taipei, Taiwan, in December 2019, months before his arrest in August 2020, when 200 police officers raided Apple Daily’s offices. He was arrested again in December of that year after the city’s highest court revoked his bail, and he has remained in custody.

Born in China in the city of Guangzhou, Jimmy fled. He was smuggled out on a fishing boat at the age of 12.

Upon his arrival in Hong Kong, he took a job working 12-hour days in a garment factory. That first morning, his son Sebastien told me and my colleagues that in September, he cried at the sight of the abundance of food — the workers ate and slept in the factory. And then he worked his way up, learning English after those grueling days, ultimately running his own factory and creating his first empire with the fashion brand Giordano.

He would also go into the media, first creating Next magazine, a weekly that covered it all — politics, gossip, business — and that’s how he came to have his first brush with the Chinese Communist Party. Because his publications were as critical of the regime as the man himself, the party made it difficult for Giordano to do business.

So he did what the regime didn’t expect a businessman to do: He sold his shares in the fashion brand and decided to really dedicate his time to taking on the man, keeping the regime accountable, investigating wrongdoing, calling out former Premier Li Peng, the “Butcher of Beijing,” in a column for his role in the Tiananmen Square massacre, and championing freedom.

The pen is mightier than the sword or, in this instance, the sewing needle.

Time and time again, the Chinese government has tried to take Jimmy Lai down. And while the regime might finally succeed in imprisoning him for the rest of his life — as his son said, “the result is already predetermined” — it won’t ever really win. Truth and justice will always prevail.

What’s more, the Chinese Communist Party can imprison bodies all day long, but they can’t arrest the soul or the mind. We already know Jimmy answers to a power infinitely higher than the party.

• Elisha Maldonado is director of communications for the Human Rights Foundation.