Jimmy Lai is on trial in Hong Kong on charges of sedition and foreign collusion. The Chinese Communist Party despises him for his ardent support of the democratic rule of law in the former British colony. It wants his trial to serve as an example to others who support human freedom that they should keep quiet.
To his great credit, Lai isn’t backing down.
On Monday, Lai pushed back against a biased judge’s suggestion that the democratic rule of law is a fundamentally Western value concept. Lai has reality and the law on his side. The Hong Kong national security law, under which the prosecution of this ailing 77-year-old man is being pursued, is in fundamental conflict with Beijing’s obligations under the Sino-British joint declaration. Under that binding international treaty, Beijing committed to upholding Hong Kong’s democratic character until at least 2047.
Today, no such democracy exists in Hong Kong. It has been purged by prosecutions of Lai and dozens more activists like him. China makes facile claims that these people pose a threat to its security. The more basic reality is that they have been targeted because they have spoken in defense of human rights in Hong Kong. Chinese President Xi Jinping despises this challenge, knowing it undermines both the moral legitimacy of the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule and Western willingness to invest in Hong Kong.
Yet with Lai ailing, time is of the essence to see him freed.
Sebastien Lai, Lai’s son and the leader of the Free Jimmy Lai Campaign told the Washington Examiner that “there needs to be continued pressure on the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, making clear to them that my father needs to be released immediately and unconditionally, and that killing a 77-year-old man for standing up for democracy will be seriously detrimental to any ongoing relationship.” He added, “That pressure needs to be firm, consistent, and unwavering, and continue until he is released.”
Asked if British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is doing enough to secure Jimmy Lai’s release, Sebastien Lai responded, “My father might die at any time. Now is not the time to be pulling punches. They must make it clear that there can be no normalization of the relationship until he’s back home in the U.K.” This bears note amid Starmer’s attempt to strengthen links with China, ignoring the security costs of doing so.
This concern extends to the private sector. Powerful U.K. commercial institutions such as the HSBC bank, and influential people such as former U.K. Supreme Court Chief Justice David Neuberger continue to serve Chinese repression in Hong Kong in return for access to the city’s wealth. Asked by the Washington Examiner about this specific concern, Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, responded forcefully.
“They should try to live up to the standards they have set for themselves – international standards that protect free speech and other civil rights, rights that China itself promised to uphold,” Clifford said. “HSBC and Lord Neuberger instead have become knowing accomplices in a regime that has sent nearly 2,000 Hong Kongers to jail on political charges in the past five years.”
Clifford continued, “HSBC has frozen the bank accounts of activists and denied Hong Kongers emigrating to Britain access to their pension funds. Lord Neuberger takes all the benefits of a lavish pay package and royal treatment while in Hong Kong in order to preserve a regime that has systematically destroyed freedom.”
He added an important piece of advice: “Regulators and legislators in the U.K. should ensure that HSBC’s actions in Hong Kong aren’t running afoul of U.K. laws or the bank’s own internal human rights policies.”
The incoming Trump administration should look closely at HSBC’s conduct and that of the many other multinational businesses that operate in Hong Kong. Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio has been particularly forward-leaning on matters such as these. But the level of hypocrisy that American and other Western multinational firms display regarding Hong Kong is sickening. While these businesses are happy to scream their devotion to domestic DEI concerns from the rooftop, when it comes to Hong Kong, their greed sees their obsequious, silent prostration to the Chinese Communist Party.
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The present situation is intolerable. Lai is a good man who dared only to stand up for the rights that Beijing itself swore by treaty to uphold. The cowardice of Western governments and corporations in tolerating his malaise is unacceptable. Or at least it should be.
China’s economy is in big trouble. If forced to choose between releasing Lai and other political prisoners into exile or losing export access to Western markets, China will choose the former.
Disclosure: The author previously wrote a column for Apple Daily, the now-banned Hong Kong newspaper of which Lai was publisher.