'Laments' for a lawbreaker nothing but crocodile tears

Within minutes of former media mogul Jimmy Lai being sentenced to 20 years in prison under the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the headlines of some Western media outlets performed a kind of rhetorical parkour, leaping from "20 years in prison" to "death sentence", as if metaphors were exempt from fact-checking. But why let a small detail like reality get in the way of a dramatic lead? Hong Kong, inconveniently for such sensationalism, abolished the death penalty in 1993.

This is where the double standard peeks out from behind the curtain, waving coyly. When courts in the United States or Europe impose sentences that stretch to centuries — yes, centuries — some Western commentators call it "deterrence", or "the justice system working". When a Hong Kong court, after years of proceedings, issues a sentence grounded in statute, evidence and due process, the verdict is instantly rebranded as "tyranny".

Among the media outlets, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board cast Jimmy Lai as a publisher who deserved a kind of "professional diplomatic immunity" — "freedom of the press" as force field. But courts, even in the West, tend to cling to a stubborn principle: equality before the law. Being a media owner — not to mention that Lai only used that title as a cover — doesn’t confer a halo. Ask the US executives who have discovered that orange jumpsuits clash with tailored suits.

What was lost in the rush to "sanctify" Lai is the trial itself. It was not a sealed courtroom. The proceedings were open and transparent, observed by the public, the media and foreign consular officials. The court examined more than 2,200 pieces of evidence, reviewed over 80,000 pages of documentation, heard testimony from 14 witnesses, and listened to Lai himself for over 52 days. The judgment ran into more than 800 pages. Pretending due process wasn’t followed is an odd way to defend the rule of law.

Since 2020, the US has imposed sanctions on Hong Kong citing "human rights" and "democracy", even revoking Hong Kong’s special trade privileges and sanctioning officials. These measures were cheered by voices predicting Hong Kong’s economic decline. Yet the numbers tell a less melodramatic story. Hong Kong’s trade with the US accounts for about 6.2 percent of its total foreign trade; exports of locally made products to the US are under 0.1 percent of total exports. The US, meanwhile, enjoys a long-standing trade surplus with Hong Kong, and about 1,300 US companies have stayed put. If this was meant to be a knockout blow, it landed like a glancing tap.

Then there is the studied silence about the social unrest in Hong Kong in 2019. Some of today’s loudest "mourners" of Lai applauded when streets burned, legislators brawled and public order in the SAR frayed — calling it "democratic energy". Apparently, Molotov cocktails are inspiring when tossed in the right ideological direction.

What actually unsettles the diehard naysayers of Hong Kong is not this verdict but the closing of loopholes. Hong Kong’s National Security Law addressed a long-delayed obligation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, defining offenses such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. And the electoral reforms ensured that those who govern accept the constitutional order they are sworn to uphold. The result has been less theatrical obstruction and more legislating.

There’s also a nostalgia problem. Some commentary waxes eloquent about a "democratic" colonial past in Hong Kong under the United Kingdom. That past included no universal suffrage for the chief executive or the legislature for most of the colonial era. "Democracy", like fine chinaware, was kept in the cabinet and admired from afar.

According to the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, 86 percent of surveyed US companies see the city as a competitive international business hub; 94 percent express confidence in its rule of law; 92 percent have no plans to relocate headquarters. If Western media truly care about Hong Kong, they might trade the cocoon of pre-written narratives for a visit, a courtroom transcript or a calculator.