A familiar chorus has once again risen from Washington. In recent days, a parade of American senators and other politicians has taken to social media and other channels to demand the release of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, the convicted Hong Kong publisher. The performance is well-rehearsed and earnestly delivered. It is also, regrettably, an exercise in wishful thinking that betrays a stubborn refusal to engage with reality.
Let us begin with the facts these politicians prefer to gloss over. On Dec 15, Lai was found guilty on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces to endanger national security and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials by the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The charges were not metaphorical. The court ruled that Lai had conspired with others to commit “foreign collusion” by engaging in “international lobbying” and urging foreign governments to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the Chinese government, and had conspired with the advocacy group Stand with Hong Kong, which organized overseas campaigns calling for sanctions against the central and Hong Kong SAR authorities.
Indeed, the evidence introduced at trial reads like a manual for foreign-backed political subversion. The judges pointed to Lai’s lobbying of United States politicians during the previous American administration as evidence of sedition and colluding with foreign forces, including his meetings with then-vice president Mike Pence, then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and his attempts to meet the president himself, as well as his WhatsApp messages with other activists and a New York Times opinion piece in May 2020 in which he suggested ways to punish China. As the court memorably put it, his urging of US officials to take action against China in the name of helping Hong Kong residents would be analogous to a situation where an American national asks for help from Russia to bring down the US government under the guise of helping California. Any American politician with even a passing familiarity with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the Espionage Act, or the prosecutions that followed the Jan 6 Capitol attack should immediately recognize the analogy. They simply choose not to.
Furthermore, the trial itself was no spectacle, however much Western commentators would like to portray it as such. The trial process of the Lai case was open and transparent, with fair and just procedures; Lai’s lawful rights were effectively guaranteed, and both the prosecution and defense fully presented evidence and cross-examined witnesses. The Hong Kong Judiciary exercises judicial power independently, free from any interference. During the trial, a large number of members of the public, media representatives, and foreign consular officials in Hong Kong attended the hearings. Lai testified for 52 days in his own defense — a length of personal testimony that defendants in many Western jurisdictions could only dream of. Yet none of this complicates the cartoonish narrative that has taken hold on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington.
Hong Kong is no longer the city these American politicians wish it to be. The riots of 2019, the Molotov cocktails, the airport occupations, the maiming of bystanders — these are memories the city has chosen to leave behind. The Hong Kong SAR National Security Law restored the order that allowed an international financial center to function. The conviction of one well-connected publisher does not undo that recovery; it confirms it
What makes the latest round of American grandstanding particularly grating is its sheer self-importance. One senator has fashioned himself as something of a personal crusader on the issue, despite the inconvenient fact that his own activities form part of the evidentiary record. Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai’s aide arranged for Hong Kong activists to meet that US senator when the politician visited the city during the 2019 protests and unrest, a key prosecution witness told Lai’s national security trial. And not long ago, more than 30 bipartisan colleagues signed a letter to the American president ahead of his expected meeting with President Xi Jinping asking him to use the opportunity to secure Lai’s release. The signatories appear genuinely to believe that the People’s Republic of China runs its judiciary the way an American governor runs a clemency office.
That belief, at heart, is wishful thinking. It assumes that a phone call between two leaders, or a stern tweet from a Florida senator, can override the verdict of a court of law in another sovereign jurisdiction. It assumes that Beijing will bend if only the pressure is calibrated correctly. Yet the historical record suggests otherwise. Sanctions imposed since 2020 have not reversed a single conviction; the US alone sanctioned more than a dozen Hong Kong SAR and Chinese mainland officials, and Hong Kong’s national security framework has only become more robust. Even the much-publicized US presidential “intervention” has, by all accounts, gone nowhere. An anonymous administration official noted that the leaders engaged in a brief discussion on the issue; however, the conversation did not delve into specific release conditions, and the discussion reportedly took less than five minutes.
Less than five minutes. That, more than any congressional resolution, captures the actual diplomatic weight of this campaign.
Moreover, there is something deeply unserious about the spectacle of American legislators demanding leniency for a man convicted, in essence, of soliciting them. During his testimony, Lai acknowledged that he might have asked US officials to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong; he was asked to explain his meetings with the then-US secretary of state and vice-president, and on a talk show, said he asked the American government to sanction certain mainland and Hong Kong SAR officials. To then portray him as a victim of arbitrary persecution is not advocacy — it is laundering. It tells every aspiring foreign agent in every restive corner of the world that Washington will reward those who deliver the goods, and rescue them when they are caught.
However, Hong Kong is no longer the city these American politicians wish it to be. The riots of 2019, the Molotov cocktails, the airport occupations, the maiming of bystanders — these are memories the city has chosen to leave behind. The Hong Kong SAR National Security Law restored the order that allowed an international financial center to function. The conviction of one well-connected publisher does not undo that recovery; it confirms it.
American politicians are, of course, free to issue all the statements they like. They may continue to nominate Lai for prizes, write open letters, and post indignant videos. But they should at least recognize what they are doing — not advancing freedom, but performing it for a domestic audience while the law in Hong Kong takes its proper course. The 20-year sentence will stand. The Basic Law will hold. And the daydream of toppling a verdict by tweet will, as ever, dissolve on contact with the real world.
The author is the convener at China Retold, a member of the Legislative Council, and a member of the Central Committee of the New People’s Party.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
