The trial of Jimmy Lai, the founder of anti-Beijing Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily, that began on Monday under a massive security glare in Hong Kong, is sure to draw the attention of the world to the absence of civic rights in this former British colony. Lai has been accused by authorities of being an “errand boy” of anti-Chinese forces; Apple Daily, which shutdown in 2021, was branded as anti-national for its aggressive backing of the pro-democracy mobilisations that rocked Hong Kong in 2020 after Beijing introduced the draconian National Security Law (NSL). The Lai trial begins in the wake of the conclusion of another high-profile trial — Hong Kong 47 — involving pro-democracy activists, who have been in jail since the crackdown on civic protests.
The 2020 Hong Kong protests were a response to the fear that Beijing was set to betray the promise of the one-country-two systems policy it made at the time of Hong Kong’s unification with China in 1997. Hong Kong had built itself as a trading post with an open society that guarded free speech and other liberal values. The introduction of NSL in 2020 was the culmination of a series of events that shrunk the cherished liberal space that existed in Hong Kong. The massive mobilisations and the arrests that followed raised questions about Beijing’s commitment that Hong Kong’s integration into the Chinese system would be a slow process. That Lai is a British citizen can complicate matters. Beijing’s relations with the West, though transactional at its best, is on the downswing, and will be further tested on debates around democratic values. The Lai trial will be watched, too closely for Beijing’s comfort.
