Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, arrives the Court of Final Appeal by prison van in Hong Kong, on Feb. 9, 2021.Tyrone Siu/Reuters
If the Communist Party of China had its way, no one would be talking about Jimmy Lai, because he is the living contradiction of Beijing’s lies about Hong Kong.
Mr. Lai, who is 76, has been held in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for three years and nine months. His cell is inhumanely hot in summer, and he is allowed only 50 minutes of exercise a day.
His trial on charges filed under Hong Kong’s repressive National Security Law has lasted more than 160 days and won’t resume until mid-November. There are grave concerns about his health, and that, if and when he is convicted by Beijing’s hand-picked judges in a what amounts to a modern-day communist show trial, he will be sentenced to die in prison.
His crime? Publishing a newspaper called Apple Daily that promoted democracy in Hong Kong, until authorities arrested him and forced the closure of his business.
Mr. Lai’s arrest and trial have been condemned around the world. Both houses of Canada’s Parliament have called for his release and the end of his prosecution. But the Canadian government itself has yet to do so. It has also failed to acknowledge what has become obvious: that Hong Kong is now indistinguishable from mainland China when it comes to silencing regime critics.
The National Security Law (NSL) that Beijing forced on Hong Kong in 2020, combined with the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance that Hong Kong enacted in March, means “risk factors that were formerly limited to mainland China are now also a concern in Hong Kong and could affect commerce, trade, and seemingly routine individual commercial activities in Hong Kong,” the United States government warned a business advisory this month.
This is not how Beijing wants the world to see Hong Kong. It wants the world to think the former British colony is a place where foreign companies and their employees still enjoy freedoms that don’t exist on the mainland: open trade, a relatively uncensored internet, reliable physical and intellectual property protections and independent courts.
But while those things exist on paper, they are now deeply compromised by the steady erosion of the Hong Kong government’s autonomy from Beijing, and by the deliberate vagueness of the laws put in place in March.
The U.S. warns that it would be possible to find oneself in breach of vague new laws governing “state secrets,” “interference” and “sedition” simply by doing due diligence on government policy or a local client, writing an analysis of local economic conditions, getting in contact with a journalist or a non-governmental organization or lobbying a local government official.
A visitor to Hong Kong can be arrested under the security laws for a social media post they made in their home country and transported to mainland China to face prosecution. Businesses can be subjected to electronic surveillance or the seizure of data without a warrant.
The U.S. government says in its advisory that, as of May of this year, more than 100 people have been found guilty of national security offences, while only two have been acquitted. In May, the Hong Kong court that hears national security cases convicted a man to 14 months in prison for wearing a T-shirt bearing a pro-democracy slogan.
Mr. Lai stands as the regime’s most public and controversial attempt to eliminate the last remaining daylight between Hong Kong and the mainland. As his show trial proceeds, Beijing is weighing the rewards of making an example of him against the pain doing so will bring in the form of international reaction.
That means the Canadian government (and not just its parliamentarians) needs to join the fight and demand Mr. Lai’s immediate and unconditional release, as the governments of the U.S., Britain and elsewhere have done.
It also needs to mirror the U.S. government’s business advisory. Canada has a travel advisory in place for Hong Kong that urges extreme caution, but it doesn’t single out the new dangers involved with doing business there, thereby missing the opportunity to exploit Beijing’s fear of seeing Hong Kong hollowed out.
Canada’s business community could also do its part by raising questions about Hong Kong’s reliability as a safe place for employees.
Above all, China must hear one message coming loud and clear from all quarters in Canada: Free Jimmy Lai now.