HONG KONG - For Jimmy Lai, a prominent pro-democracy figure and the founder of Hong Kong’s best-selling newspaper Apple Daily, the prospect of going to jail had never felt so real.
“Things are getting so bad, anything like this can happen any day,” he said.
Facing seven charges, including organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies and inciting others to take part in unauthorized assembly, the 72-year-old media tycoon looked fatigued as he sat down in his office, though his usual feisty spirit picked up as he started talking.
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In recent months, China has markedly tightened its control of Hong Kong, which has been roiled by a year-long, sometimes violent anti-government movement that Beijing said was mobilized by “foreign hostile forces.”
The arrests of 15 veteran pro-democracy activists, including Lai, and the proclamation of China’s representative offices in Hong Kong that they were not bound by a clause in the city’s post-handover mini constitution, Basic Law, to stay out of local affairs, caused widespread concern.
But nothing could have prepared people for China’s shock announcement in late May that it would impose a national security law to tackle secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference. “Foreign interference” was last week changed to “collusion with foreign power” in a move that critics say would target Hong Kongers who seek help from foreign countries on political issues.
An explanation of the new law released Saturday by China’s official Xinhua News Agency says a new national security commission supervised by the Chinese government will be established in Hong Kong, and Chinese security agents will be stationed in the city to deal directly with some cases there.
The national security law seems almost tailor made for Lai. After he met U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington in July last year to discuss Hong Kong’s political crisis, the Chinese foreign ministry lambasted the meeting as a “foreign forces’ intervention.”
The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, accused Lai of “disseminating separatist rhetoric” that “endangers national security” and “subverts the regime.” The August commentary also accused him of being “a running dog of the Western hostile forces”, “a pawn of the United States” and “a traitor” selling out on China’s interests. It ominously warned: “Be mindful of the settling of accounts in due course.”
Does Lai worry that apart from the charges he now faces, which could land him in jail for a maximum of five years, the authorities would jail him using the more draconian national security law, which is in the process of being legislated in Beijing?
“I’ll fight on until I can’t anymore,” said Lai. “If we fear, then there is no way we can do anything … it’s not the time to be careful, it’s the time to be brave.”
With the national security law looming, worries abound whether many of Hong Kong’s publications will remain free to publish criticisms of the government. Civil liberties, including freedoms of the press and speech, are guaranteed to publications under Hong Kong’s postcolonial mini constitution, the Basic Law. There are now widespread fears, though, that China’s vaguely defined national security charges used to jail dissidents on the mainland soon will be applied to Hong Kong’s government critics.
Lai has long been seen as a thorn in the sides of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, with his free-wheeling Apple Daily, well known for its criticism of the authorities.
Asked whether he will have to wind down the 25-year-old newspaper, Lai vowed to continue to run it “until the last day.”
“I don't know [when] the last day is,” he said. “If they jail me, the business will go on until it can’t go on.”
Lai has long been a target of intimidation. He said he had for years been stalked by people of unknown identity. Last September, two masked men threw firebombs at the gate of his home, repeating a similar incident in 2015 when both his home and his office also were attacked by firebombs. Over the past week, his car has been closely tailed by several cars driven by unidentified people.
“I'm sure I'm a target. But that doesn't mean that I have to be frightened,” he said. “They’re just making a lot of noise, a lot of intimidation, just to frighten you.”