China publisher Jimmy Lai faces 20-year sentence but Trump offers some hope
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For those who talk about global dangers to democracy, a terrible turning point deserves their enthusiastic attention and wholehearted condemnation: the sentencing of Hong Kong dissident Jimmy Lai in a Chinese court on February 9.
In the imagination of the Chinese Communist Party, Lai’s punishment ends the book about a troublemaker: a Catholic, a publisher, a democrat. Lai, 78, who is in failing health, has been condemned under the flexible logic of Beijing’s imposed National Security Law and is expected to quietly fade into history.
We must hope that Lai’s story endures as an indictment of the Chinese regime.
Not for violence, espionage or corruption. Lai’s crime was running a newspaper called Apple Daily, which covered Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and reported critically about the city’s Beijing-appointed overseers.
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The United States has called on China to reverse what Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the “unfair and tragic” sentence against Hong Kong broadcaster and democracy activist Jimmy Lai. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)
Lai’s 20-year harsh sentence was designed to teach a lesson: in today’s Hong Kong, conscience is destruction; that fidelity to truth is treason; that even peaceful opposition will be crushed without apology.
Lai arrived in Hong Kong as a penniless refugee. He started his life as a child laborer and eventually became a garment tycoon. He donated his successful business, the popular Giordano retail brand, to found a newspaper that would defend the freedoms that made his life possible. Lai could have fled China’s takeover of Hong Kong but he chose to stay, thinking: “If I don’t stand up, who will?”
The way Lai’s trial was conducted is morally obscene. He was stripped of his right to choose his own legal counsel. Their lawyers were harassed. His newspaper was forcibly closed. Its employees were arrested and their assets were frozen. This punishment merely formalizes the oppression that has been going on for some time.
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Jimmy’s daughter, Claire, shared with me a list of books Jimmy read while in custody. These are not slight diversions. These are intense and challenging theological studies: Augustine, Aquinas, Guardini, Ratzinger Francis X. Van Thuan (himself a prisoner of communist Vietnam). These are the companions of a man who seeks endurance, not comfort.
Jimmy’s relationship with Claire reminds me of another imprisoned conscience: St. Paul, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for refusing to betray his faith and flatter an autocrat. Thomas More. More’s letters to his daughter Meg rank among the most brilliant prison writings in the Western tradition; compassionate, playful, disciplined and completely free.
More, of course, became one of history’s most enduring symbols of resistance to despotic oppression. We have to hope the same goes for Jimmy Lai.
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The Chinese Communist Party insists Lai’s case is an internal matter that does not concern the international community. However, Hong Kong’s autonomy was guaranteed by the agreement. Their freedom was promised to the world. Destroying the rule of law is not cleaning the house; This is a breach of trust with global consequences.
And its chilling impact will extend far beyond Lai’s prison cell. Journalists and teachers will self-censor. Priests will wonder which sermon could cross the invisible line. Students will learn how to survive, not how to argue.
The way Lai’s trial was conducted is morally obscene. He was stripped of his right to choose his own legal counsel. Their lawyers were harassed. His newspaper was forcibly closed.
This is the logic of totalitarianism: There is no need to imprison everyone. He just needs to publicly, brutally and decisively imprison the right people for the rest to internalize the lesson.
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Therefore, the protest against Lai’s sentence cannot be ceremonial or involuntary. It needs to be sustainable and morally strong. Western governments cannot be satisfied with statements containing “concern”. They should treat this as a decisive test and respond accordingly: public, high-level advocacy. Real diplomatic pressure. Support for Hong Kong’s exiled journalists and institutions.
There is reason for hope – no matter how fragile. President Donald Trump has taken a keen interest in Lai’s case and is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April. The Psalms tell us that you should not trust princes, but history often leads to such moments in unexpected ways.
What always struck me in my conversations with Jimmy over the years was joy, not anger. Not bitterness, but gratitude. He talked about freedom being a gift. He talked about faith as a relationship. He never imagined himself as a hero. He refused to betray what he saw.
Jimmy Lai takes a photo with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. (Fox News)
History is full of such figures: men and women whom regimes tried to bury, only to discover that they had sown seeds.
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The punishment given to him should not be remembered as an act of strength, but as an admission of weakness.
Because if Jimmy Lai is remembered, if his name is invoked, if his cause is championed, if his courage is honored, then a prison cell cannot contain his legacy.
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But if Jimmy Lai is forgotten, Hong Kong as the symbol of hope for China’s future democracy may be destroyed.
The regime will write the punishment. The result will make history.
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