Jimmy Lai's verdict sends clear messages

Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, an instigator of the anti-China riots in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, was found guilty on Monday on two charges of conspiring to collude with external forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious materials.

The verdict was handed down by the High Court of the SAR in a national security case in which the defendants, including Lai and three Apple Daily companies, all faced charges of conspiracy to publish seditious materials and conspiracy to collude with external forces. Lai also faced a separate charge of conspiring to collude with external forces.

The case — the first in which a public figure has been charged with "conspiracy to collude with foreign forces" under the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, since the law was promulgated on June 30, 2020 — has attracted worldwide attention.

Not least among politicians in the capital of the United States and those of the other Five Eyes countries for whom the law is a bete noire, despite the fact that these Western "democracies" have dozens far more stringent laws of the same nature. For example, the National Security Act 2023 of the United Kingdom.

The double standard they uphold, which is amplified by some Western media, can be explained by the fact that the law has kept Hong Kong's political agitators at bay and resulted in the downfall of some agitators, such as Lai, whose anti-China behaviors, activities and campaigns have played into the hands of some Western politicians who used them as pawns in their geopolitical game against Beijing.

The investigation, arrest and trial of Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, under Hong Kong's national security law has unsurprisingly brought these external voices to a climax of vitriol, as Lai was the mastermind and bankroller of the anti-China campaign in Hong Kong, and the key anti-China pawn in the SAR.

When he visited Washington in 2019, Lai was welcomed and received by vice-president Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo and House speaker Nancy Pelosi. He did not disappoint his hosts, explicitly begging Washington to impose sanctions on officials from the central government and the HKSAR government for their alleged roles in law enforcement actions against the rampaging "black-clad" rioters who were wreaking havoc in Hong Kong. To further please his patrons in Washington, Lai shamelessly declared in a CNN interview: "We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China. We are fighting their war in the enemy camp."

Everyone now knows exactly what those "shared values" are. The judges published a 10-page judgment on how they arrived at the guilty verdict.

On the sedition charge, they found that Lai was deliberately using Apple Daily and his personal influence to "carry out a consistent campaign with a view to undermine the legitimacy or authority" of the central authorities and the HKSAR authorities.

On the two charges involving collusion with foreign forces, they found that Lai and others had engaged in "international lobbying with a view of soliciting international support" against the Chinese authorities.

Even after the enactment of the national security law, Lai had been "putting in place people to carry on the fight internationally" by lobbying for sanctions and blockades against the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong as WhatsApp messages show.

The hypocrisy demonstrated by Lai's apologists over the course of his trial has been in open defiance of the rule of law, a blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice, and wanton interference in China's internal affairs under the banners of "democracy", "human rights" and "freedom", fig leafs that have wilted after overuse.

The verdict handed down on Monday sent a clear message to both the agitators in Hong Kong and their foreign patrons and apologists that the rule of law in the SAR will not be subverted. It also made clear that any attempt to split the country or undermine Hong Kong's prosperity and stability will be met with severe punishment under the law.