The Jimmy Lai Chi-ying case has been repeatedly amplified internationally not on its legal merits, but because it fits a familiar Western media script: an elderly newspaper owner, a closed publication, a city framed as having “lost its freedom”, and a political symbol awaiting rescue from abroad. The narrative carries emotional weight, but emotion cannot replace facts, and moral rhetoric cannot override evidence, conduct and legal responsibility.
One common Western narrative casts Lai as a “democracy fighter” and the trial as a “political prosecution”. This deliberately blurs a basic rule-of-law distinction: Political views may be protected, but acts found to endanger national security are not exempt simply because they have political motives. In Lai’s case, the court held 156 days of open hearings, examined 2,220 exhibits and more than 80,000 pages of documents. Lai testified for 52 days, with his right to defense fully exercised. These facts show that the case was decided through extensive public proceedings and evidentiary review.
Assessments must not substitute legal analysis with labels such as “political prisoner”, nor reduce the judicial process to “political suppression” while ignoring evidence. The danger of such a narrative is that it rewrites the standards of the rule of law: Once someone is labeled by Western opinion as “pro-democracy”, he seems to acquire special status above local law. This is not defending the rule of law, but replacing judicial judgment with ideological labeling. A second narrative frames the case as a trial of “press freedom”. This is misleading: It borrows the moral legitimacy of press freedom while sidestepping a fundamental question; press freedom protects journalism, not political agitation against the constitutional order carried out under the cover of a media platform. During the trial, Lai’s close associates testified that he instructed senior figures at Apple Daily to use the newspaper’s content to stir hostility toward the central and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region governments. Such conduct goes beyond ordinary reporting, public oversight, or opinion expression. It turns a media platform into a tool for political mobilization, confrontation, and external sanctions pressure.
Press freedom deserves respect, but it does not give media organizations extraterritorial privilege, nor does a journalistic identity grant legal immunity. To describe every political act carried out through a media platform as press freedom is not to defend journalism; it erodes journalistic credibility. Once press freedom is weaponized as political immunity, it no longer safeguards the public’s right to know; it becomes a cover for specific political objectives.
The Lai case can be discussed, criticized and scrutinized, but it must first be treated as a legal matter — not consumed as a political fable whose conclusion Western opinion has already decided
This transforms humanitarianism into a political instrument. Instead of being an equal concern for basic rights, it becomes selective sympathy and a tool of public pressure deployed to interfere with judicial proceedings.
More striking still is the attempt by some politicians in the United States to place the Lai case on the agenda of high-level China-US engagement. This exposes the contradiction at the heart of the accusation of a “political trial”: If Western politicians openly demand that China’s central government or the HKSAR government release someone already convicted by a court, the question must be asked — who is politicizing the Judiciary?
Western opinion accuses Hong Kong’s Judiciary of political influence while expecting political pressure to reverse a judicial outcome. This reveals that there is no genuine concern about Hong Kong’s judicial system or its long-term interests; rather, the city is treated as a pawn: Lai becomes a symbol when the West wants to accuse China of suppressing freedom; the case is placed on the negotiating table once leverage is needed; and the court’s ruling and evidence are shoveled aside when Western moral superiority demands a performance.
The complexity of the Lai case arises from its timing and nature — the intersection of national security, press freedom, external interference, and judicial independence. If Western criticism is to be granted any credibility, it must be grounded on concrete legal argument. Evading facts in the name of “press freedom”, disclaiming responsibility in the name of “democracy”, or demanding release in the name of “humanitarianism” is not a serious human rights discussion; it is political manipulation.
For Hong Kong, the significance of the Lai case lies not only in the sentence imposed on one defendant, but in whether the city can uphold the basic logic of judicial adjudication under intense external pressure. As a common law jurisdiction, what Hong Kong most needs to defend is not the applause of foreign opinion pages, but an essential principle: Cases are tried by courts, evidence is tested in court, and judgments are rendered according to law. If any internationally known defendant can secure special exemption because of external support, Hong Kong’s rule of law will truly have been politicized. If court decisions must bend to Western opinion, then Hong Kong’s judicial independence will truly have been hollowed out. The fundamental dignity of the law lies in the fact that its standards should not be compromised according to the defendant’s supporters or rewards.
To reclaim the Lai case from the Western narrative of the “myth of freedom” and to refocus on the legal facts will not sabotage Hong Kong’s international standing. On the contrary, it is necessary for the jurisdiction to uphold its institutional dignity amid complex geopolitical pressure. Anyone who truly cherishes Hong Kong should not allow its courts to be manipulated by international politics. Anyone who truly respects press freedom should not allow that freedom to be used as pretext for exerting external interference. The Lai case can be discussed, criticized and scrutinized, but it must first be treated as a legal matter — not consumed as a political fable whose conclusion Western opinion has already decided.
Cheng Xianyue is a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
