Telling Lai
If there was any doubt political freedom of speech is finished in Hong Kong, Beijing has removed it.
The publisher of the city’s last pro-democracy newspaper was arrested at his home, then perp-walked by Hong Kong’s police through own newsroom, hands cuffed behind his back as dozens of officers swarmed the building, rummaging through files and reporters’ desks. Apple Daily’s Jimmy Lai was later posed in a police van for a “photo-op” for the city’s Beijing stooge newspapers — essentially every other outlet in town.
Lai was detained, along with nine others, on allegations that he had breached the draconian national-security law imposed by Beijing on the city last month. The law criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces as defined by Beijing.
It violates the Basic Law negotiated between Britain and China in the run up to the return of the British colony to the People’s Republic in 1997, which guaranteed basic human rights like free speech and assembly.
Also arrested were two of the media mogul’s sons, his chief financial officer and two other directors. Specifically he will be charged “for collusion with a foreign country, uttering seditious words and conspiracy to defraud.” Maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
Of course, fraud is Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s favorite charge when targeting opponents. That leads to the man directing this operation — Luo Huining, who runs Beijing's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Luo is basically the man running Hong Kong right now. As we said, in January Beijing brought him in to pull the puppet strings of failed Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Luo had no experience in Hong Kong. But, he is a Xi Jingping loyalist, and known for “enforcing Communist Party discipline.”
He was the top party official in the northern province of Shanxi, where he was tasked with cleaning up fraud and corruption. In a piece Luo wrote for the official People’s Daily in 2017, he said the people of Shanxi felt his disciplinary efforts were, “like spring rain washing away the smog.”
Lam, who began her career as a civil servant under the British, remained silent on this assault on political liberty; Luo, through a spokesman, lashed out at Lai: “He brags about fighting for America arrogantly, taking part to plan, organise and initiate a raft of unlawful resistance movements, using his media to create and spread rumours, inciting and supporting violence, and providing funds for those advocating [Hong Kong independence].”
Lai, a staunch supporter of anti-government protests who has been arrested before on lesser charges of joining illegal demonstrations, is a self-made entrepreneur known for his early success in founding clothing retailer Giordano in the late 1980s before venturing into the media landscape.
Hong Kong Journalists Association chairman Chris Yeung Kin-hing, speaking outside the Apple Daily offices, called the police raid “shocking and horrifying”.
“I believe many who have been in the industry for decades have not seen this before,” he said. “This is what we have seen in some of the third-world countries where the press and freedom of the press are suppressed. But I could not imagine seeing this in Hong Kong.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was “deeply troubled” by reports of the arrest, calling it further proof that the Chinese Communist Party had “eviscerated” Hong Kong’s freedoms and eroded the rights of its people.
Bottom line: Hong Kong is now legally just another city in China like Beijing or Shanghai. And that doesn’t just apply to the politically active.