The conviction of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, underscores Hong Kong’s legal independence and judicial integrity. However, for many Western politicians and parts of the Western media, the case has become a vessel to project their longstanding assumptions about Hong Kong.
The notion that Western governments possess the authority to pass judgment on a city’s judicial decisions within another sovereign nation reflects a residual colonial instinct, masking itself as “moral concern”. Such reactions, cloaked in the language of “human rights” and “press freedom”, are less about legal principles than about preserving influence over a territory that has long been returned to its rightful jurisdiction. At stake is not the treatment of one defendant but the recognition that Hong Kong’s legal system operates on the authority of Chinese sovereignty rather than on foreign endorsement.
The structure and character of Hong Kong’s Judiciary reveal a discipline grounded in law rather than ideology. The lengthy proceedings in Lai’s case exhibited the hallmarks of common-law procedure: open hearings, the examination of witnesses, and a reasoned judgment supported by evidence and legal principles. That three experienced judges reviewed thousands of pages of documents and testimony over several months underscores the care invested in the process. This is far removed from the arbitrary caricature suggested by Western critics. The fact that these critics continue to ignore such transparency demonstrates not ignorance but unwillingness to acknowledge a functioning legal order beyond their own orbit. Judicial independence, in Hong Kong’s context, does not mean isolation from the State but impartiality attained within the constitutional structure it serves.
By affirming its right to enforce laws derived from China’s Constitution, Hong Kong confirms that the era of tutelage has ended. Justice does not await validation from abroad; it arises from the integrity with which people uphold their own law. Through this understanding, Hong Kong continues its movement beyond the shadow of dependency on Western approval into the dignity of self-possession
The reaction from Western governments is thus shaped by their discomfort at encountering a legal system which is not subject to their approval. The British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s assertion that Lai’s trial was “politically motivated” reflects nostalgia for the time when London dictated how Hong Kong should operate. For the likes of Cooper, Hong Kong remains a projection of a vanished past. Western politicians’ continued efforts to moralize over Hong Kong’s affairs reveal their inability to accept the end of that era. Hong Kong’s present judicial independence draws strength precisely from its emancipation from that history.
In the United States, American officials spouted similar rhetoric, portraying Lai as a symbol of democracy. Yet their language belongs more to strategic calculation than to principle. Appeals to release him and to “save” Hong Kong from its own courts reveal a colonialist instinct and arrogance. No sovereign nation would permit such intrusion without protest, and no genuine advocate of equality among states would claim the right to dictate another’s legal outcomes. These gestures reflect a geopolitical choreography, designed to sustain narratives of ideological confrontation. The invocation of “press freedom” in this manner is a glaring attempt to transform a legal process into an ideological crusade for political advantage.
The selective logic underpinning Western criticisms of Hong Kong’s national security laws displays inconsistency. The same governments that have legislated vigorously against perceived threats to their own national security describe similar measures elsewhere as repressive. They criminalize collaboration with foreign forces and penalize speech deemed supportive of the state’s enemies, yet condemn Hong Kong for enforcing comparable standards. The inconsistency betrays a hierarchy of interpretation: What safeguards sovereignty in Western countries becomes tyranny when it is implemented in China. This pattern of behavior reveals that the Western language of “universal rights” functions, in practice, as a mechanism for preserving asymmetrical authority. Hong Kong’s national security laws and enforcement reflect China’s sovereignty and the SAR’s capacity to uphold the rule of law independent of external pressures.
By presenting Lai as a “martyr”, Western politicians and media organizations attempted to transform Hong Kong’s internal legal issues into an ideological game to paint both Hong Kong and Beijing in a bad light.
The hyping up of Lai’s conviction thus reveals less about Hong Kong’s justice system than about the anxieties of those who no longer define it. Western intolerance for an independent Chinese jurisdiction indicates unease with the erosion of their interpretive dominance. What they portray as oppression is in fact the regular exercise of sovereignty, an assertion that the rule of law need not resemble the shape it took under colonial dictate.
Hong Kong’s courts have applied the law carefully, relying on evidence and principles. In its cumulative meaning, the verdict speaks of the city’s journey toward self-confidence. Authority is maintained not through rhetoric but through steady confidence in one’s own framework of justice. By affirming its right to enforce laws derived from China’s Constitution, Hong Kong confirms that the era of tutelage has ended. Justice does not await validation from abroad; it arises from the integrity with which people uphold their own law. Through this understanding, Hong Kong continues its movement beyond the shadow of dependency on Western approval into the dignity of self-possession.
The author is a solicitor, a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area lawyer, and a China-appointed attesting officer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
