Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy activist and founder of the Hong Kong-based news outlet Apple Daily, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges of colluding with foreign forces and sedition, declaring his intention to use his high-profile trial to publicly push back against prosecutors’ claims that he worked with Western governments to undermine China’s national security.
Lai was first arrested in August 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a new Hong Kong “national security law” that was part of a broader crackdown on pro-democracy forces by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Lai’s publication supported the pro-democracy demonstrations and was critical of China’s attempts to silence dissent in Hong Kong. Local authorities eventually shuttered Apple Daily in 2021, deploying hundreds of agents to their offices.
While Lai’s trial began last month, state prosecutor Anthony Chau began making his case on Tuesday, arguing that Lai was the “mastermind” behind an international effort to punish China following its heavy-handed response to pro-democracy protests in 2019. Chau also denounced Lai as a “radical political figure” who sought to “stir up opposition.”
Among the evidence Chau cited were public statements Lai made in interviews and on social media, such as when he urged then-president Donald Trump to impose “draconian sanctions” on Beijing and CCP officials as the “only salvation” for Hong Kong. To substantiate their claim that Lai was part of an international conspiracy to subvert Chinese national security, prosecutors presented a chart that featured images of Lai meeting with Trump, then-vice president Mike Pence, former speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Lai has been imprisoned on separate charges since late 2020, when he encouraged democracy activists to continue pushing for political transparency and reform. “Let us not be afraid and fight on!” The greater the danger, he tweeted in November of that year. “[T]he world’s attention is our saving grace.” According to his son, Sebastien, Lai has been largely kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
“You don’t get to choose where you were born,” Sebastien told National Review in September. “But often you get to choose where you call home. And Dad chose to call Hong Kong home, and when someone comes for your home and your people, you stand firm.”
In mid December, the Chinese government placed bounties on the heads of five such activists living in exile, two of whom are American.
Under Hong Kong’s British inspired judicial system, Lai’s defense will respond to the prosecutors later in the trial.