When it comes to spinning a false picture of convicted Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying as a freedom fighter and advocate of democracy, nothing can beat the Western media.

Lai is well known in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for the prominent role he played in fomenting discontent and devising schemes to overthrow the SAR government.

To achieve these subversive ends, Lai made full use of the media outlets under his control, especially the notorious tabloid Apple Daily. Through its politically biased reporting and incendiary editorials, Apple Daily poisoned the minds of scores of young people.

Lai fully exploited his fake image to seduce foreign leaders into supporting his subversive cause. In particular, through his extensive connections with political parties and influential figures in the United States, Lai sought to leverage foreign forces to impose his will on China.

Lai’s ill-intentioned exploits spanned decades.

In 2002/03, when the government launched legislative procedures to enact local legislation to safeguard national security, in fulfilment of the region’s constitutional obligation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, Lai made full use of Apple Daily to spread unwarranted fears. The legislative exercise was torpedoed, and the government’s apparent weakness emboldened Lai to step up his anti-government agenda.

During the Legislative Council byelection in December 2007, in the run-up to polling day and on polling day itself, Apple Daily ran full-page editorials urging voters to cast their votes for one of the candidates, Anson Chan Fang On-sang. Such political advertisements patently exceeded the ceiling for campaign expenditure, but insufficient vigilance on the part of the government let Lai and Chan off the hook.

In 2014, capitalizing on calls to accelerate the election of the HKSAR’s chief executive by universal suffrage, Lai and Apple Daily played a conspicuous role in orchestrating the “Occupy Central” movement, an attempt to pressure Beijing into submitting to the demands of the “democratic” camp, through occupying key business districts. Young people were used like chess pieces to confront the police, frequently engaging in violent clashes.

The Legislative Council building was surrounded by thousands of tents, and Lai was often seen occupying one of the largest, apparently issuing orders and directing the protesters’ moves. “Occupy Central”, romantically referred to by the Western media as the “umbrella revolution”, oppressed the freedoms of Hong Kong residents and damaged Hong Kong’s businesses for 79 days.

In 2019, sensing an opportunity from the government’s shaky effort to amend its law on the rendition of fugitive offenders, Lai pulled out all the stops to bring about regime change. China’s national security would be greatly undermined if the HKSAR government fell into the hands of the foreign forces’ proxies.

Lai financed advertisement campaigns across Western media to urge support for the mass protests in Hong Kong. By the summer of 2019, the protests had virtually morphed into a violent uprising, with rioters blocking key thoroughfares, besieging government facilities, sacking the Legislative Council Complex, and killing or severely injuring innocent civilians.

In complete disregard of the heinous nature of Lai’s offenses and China’s legitimate concerns about national security, some Western media continued to spread fake narratives of Lai as a freedom fighter and political victim. A German broadcaster’s “freedom of speech” award to Lai, despite his convictions, is an affront to China’s sovereignty and its long-overdue national security laws

Lai traveled to the United States and Europe to step up his propaganda campaign against China and its HKSAR, urging Western politicians to impose sanctions and other hostile measures.

Hong Kong was gripped by chaos and destruction for months, until Beijing put the brakes on the uprising through the enactment, in June 2020, of a new national law to safeguard national security in the HKSAR. The offense of collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security was created to deter the national security threat posed by Lai and his ilk.

With the successful implementation of the national security law, Lai met his comeuppance. He was convicted in December of collusion with foreign forces and spreading seditious materials and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in February. Throughout the process, Lai was well represented by his team of lawyers. 

The court’s judgment ran to 855 pages and few pundits have been able to raise any serious criticisms of the legal arguments culminating in his convictions.

The exemplary rigor of Hong Kong’s legal and judicial systems have not stopped Western media from piling up lies about the true nature of Lai’s offenses and the government’s alleged inhumane treatment.

Allegations that Lai was suffering from poor health were punctured by the fact that Lai was fit enough to defend himself without legal representation for 52 days. The Correctional Services Department’s evidence showed beyond doubt that Lai received all necessary medical and dental treatment. It was also revealed that he requested solitary confinement.

In complete disregard of the heinous nature of Lai’s offenses and China’s legitimate concerns about national security, some Western media continued to spread fake narratives of Lai as a freedom fighter and political victim. A German broadcaster’s “freedom of speech” award to Lai, despite his convictions, is an affront to China’s sovereignty and its long-overdue national security laws.

The Western media’s disrespect for China’s national security laws and the HKSAR’s due process is staggering. Recent criticism of the government’s application to confiscate Lai’s offense-related properties, in accordance with Article 32 of the national security law and Schedule 3 of the Implementation Rules, met with predictable scorn. Skewed reports omitted the fact that most of the criticisms were penned by Lai’s former acolytes. As Grenville Cross, SC, a prominent expert in criminal law, pointed out, under the common law system, the courts have wide powers to make forfeiture orders in criminal cases. Lai will have a chance to raise any objections. Whether the Western media will report the outcome fairly or not, our courts will definitely adjudicate fairly.

The author is convenor of the Executive Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.