Hong Kong media entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment by a Hong Kong court on charges of colluding with foreign forces, partly because he had called on Washington to speak up for Hong Kong protesters and pressure Beijing in trade talks in mid-2019.
The jail term was handed down by three High Court judges on Monday to penalize the 78-year-old Hong Kong businessman, who has been in prison since December 2020. Sebastien Lai, his son, called the decision a “death sentence” as his father won’t survive through the two decades in the cell.
The court also sentenced six former executives and two activists linked to the now-defunct Apple Daily. They were convicted under the 2020 National Security Law and received prison terms of between six years and three months and 10 years.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump vowed to do everything within his power to secure Lai’s freedom. In a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last October, he raised the case directly, suggesting that releasing Lai would help stabilize US-China relations and enhance China’s international image.
Still, on December 15 in his national security trial, Hong Kong’s High Court found Lai guilty of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials. Trump told the media that Lai is an older man and he’s not well, and that “we’ll see what happens.”
Trump is set to meet Xi in Beijing in April. The US will have midterm elections on November 3. If China and the US cannot reach an agreement, a one-year trade truce between them will end on November 10. Trump said Monday that Xi will come to the White House “toward the end of the year.”
“Jimmy Lai is a Chinese national. The judicial case is purely an internal affair of Hong Kong,” Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a regular media briefing on Monday, when being asked by a foreign journalist about Trump’s call for releasing Lai. “Jimmy Lai is the principal mastermind and perpetrator behind the series of riots that shook Hong Kong.”
Lin urged relevant countries to respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong, and not to make what he described as irresponsible remarks about the city’s handling of the case or interfere in its judicial affairs and China’s internal affairs in any form.
The case came amid rising tensions between China, the US and Hong Kong’s opposition movement in recent years:
- In January 2017, Donald Trump took office in the White House.
- In 2018, his administration launched a trade war against China, imposing tariffs and sanctioning Huawei Technologies and other Chinese firms.
- In June 2019, the proposed extradition legislation by the Carrie Lam administration triggered mass protests across Hong Kong, culminating in a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in the November District Council elections.
- In early 2020 Hong Kong police banned protests, citing anti-epidemic measures. In June 2020, Beijing imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong. In August 2020, Lai was arrested under the new law and later granted bail, before being arrested again in December.
- From January 2021 to January 2025, the Biden administration had called for Lai’s release, but not taken strong measures to secure it.
‘Nuclear weapons’
During the trial, which ran from December 2023 to last August, prosecutors accused Lai of using his now-closed Apple Daily newspaper to encourage people to join street protests in 2019 and of meeting senior US officials, including then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to lobby Washington to support Hong Kong protesters.
On February 7, the pro-Beijing Commercial Daily reported that Lai had once called on the US to use “nuclear weapons” against China and to “destroy it within one minute.” The newspaper said the remarks were made at a July 2019 forum organized by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington-based think tank. The report was widely cited by mainland Chinese media.
In fact, footage of the event shows Lai referring to “nuclear weapons” as a metaphor for what he described as America’s “moral authority.”
“America has forgotten how important a weapon they have in their hand, which is moral authority,” Lai said at the forum. “A lot of people are saying that we have a trade deal done with China, let’s not offend them, and let’s do it afterwards. This is totally wrong and stupid.”
“You have to always know that you have to deal with the communists with strength, not weakness,” he added, recalling what he told Pompeo.
“Hong Kong is fighting a war of the same values as you. It means that we are fighting your war in your enemy’s camp,” he said.
“If we think that we are starting a cold war with China today,” he added, “a cold war is a war of competing values and we are on your side, sacrificing our life, our freedom and everything we have, fighting this war on the frontier for you. Should you support us?”
Back in November 2015, Trump suggested in his election platform that the US should strengthen its negotiating position by reducing its debt and deficit so “China cannot use financial blackmail against us.”
Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement
On January 20, a columnist with the Ming Pao Daily wrote that he had learned the British government was exploring whether it could invoke the still-effective Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement (TDPA) between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong to seek Lai’s transfer to Britain to serve his sentence.
Hong Kong’s Security Bureau responded that under China’s Nationality Law, the country does not recognize dual nationality for Chinese nationals.
It said the Hong Kong government has consistently handled cases involving foreign nationals arrested, detained or imprisoned in Hong Kong in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and relevant bilateral agreements, including applications for the transfer of sentenced persons. However, it stressed that such arrangements do not apply to Chinese nationals.
Official data shows that a total of 19 sentenced persons have been transferred from Hong Kong to the UK under the agreement since 1998.
On January 29, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Xi in Beijing during an official visit to China. Starmer said he raised Lai’s case during the meeting and described their exchange as a “respectful discussion.”
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Monday called on the Hong Kong authorities to release Lai on humanitarian grounds, so he can reunite with his family.
Public information shows that Lai was born on the mainland and moved to Hong Kong at 12. He became a British citizen in 1994 and does not have a Hong Kong or a Chinese passport.
“Lai is Chinese, and we do not recognize dual nationality,” said Chris Tang, Secretary for Security. “It is logical that a Chinese who committed an offense in Hong Kong, China, serves his sentence locally.”
Chief Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah of the police National Security Department said Monday that there is no mechanism in Hong Kong for releasing a prisoner on medical grounds. He added that while the system in principle allows for the possibility of transferring a sentenced person to another jurisdiction, such an arrangement would require formal applications and legal procedures between the justice authorities of both places.
Paul Lam, Secretary for Justice, said the Department of Justice will not comment in detail on the judgment for now as there may be further legal proceedings to follow. He added that if necessary, the department would set out its position fully before the court in subsequent judicial processes.
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