Hong Kong Court Convicts Newspaper Founder Jimmy Lai of Sedition

What Happened?

Hong Kong newspaper founder and frequent critic of the Chinese Communist Party, Jimmy Lai, was convicted of sedition and collusion with foreign forces on Monday. The voluminous eight hundred and fifty-five-page verdict was rendered by three Chinese Communist Party approved judges.

Mr. Lai was accused of using his Apple Daily media outlet to call for sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials as punishment for cracking down on pro-democracy movements in 2019. Mr. Lai was also accused of funding international campaigns to increase support for such sanctions. He has been in custody since 2020, and most of that time has been spent in solitary confinement.

Why it Matters

The landmark ruling will now provide China with an additional legal weapon to use against critics of the communist party in Hong Kong and increase the power of Chinese authorities to exercise control over Hong Kong. In 2019, widespread protests broke out in Hong Kong over a new fugitive law, which allowed suspects to be extradited to China for trial and imprisonment. Mr. Lai was a leading critic of the harsh security crackdown against those protests. 

China advocated for the extradition law because it gave Beijing a way to go after critics of the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong. When the British protectorate status of Hong Kong ended in 1997, the city was transferred to the control of China, who promised to afford the city a wide degree of autonomy with its ‘one city, two systems’ approach. But since then, China has steadily tried to increase direct control over Hong Kong, which has angered many of the city’s inhabitants, who oppose Chinese rule.

The conviction of Jimmy Lai takes China’s control over Hong Kong to a higher level. Essentially, the ruling creates thought crimes which are called sedition, but is so broadly defined it can be interpreted to mean anything critical of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a common tactic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes to threaten their political opponents with imprisonment or death for sedition in order to forcibly silence dissent. 

In the United States, the primary purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent such threats to U.S. citizens from their government, as any such actions or threats would be clearly unconstitutional. China does not have such a provision, and the ruling against Mr. Lai now gives Chinese authorities the ability to arrest residents of Hong Kong simply for expressing political views the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like. 

How it Affects You

The threat to free speech in Hong Kong posed by China is real, as the ruling against Jimmy Lai has illustrated. How Hong Kong will react is unknown, but in the short term, the possibility of a new round of protests is also real. The ruling also illustrates China’s continued move towards a more authoritarian system of government despite its promises of reform.