Jimmy Lai’s Guilty Verdict — And The West’s

Imagine if, today, Hong Kong judges declared imprisoned media mogul Jimmy Lai innocent of sedition.

Such a decision would have rehabilitated the reputation of the Chinese Communist Party, which governs Hong Kong. It would have shown that under Xi Jinping, China is capable of rendering justice, a safe place for investors, and a worthy member of the community of nations. 

Of course, none of that happened. On Monday, Lai was declared guilty in a Beijing-controlled Hong Kong court that has long since ceased to behave like a real institution of justice.

This piece could have been written months ago. The verdict was preordained. The performance has been elaborate. And the point could not be more explicit: China intends to demonstrate that even a man of extraordinary achievement, wealth, international attention, and moral courage can be ground down when he refuses to bow.

The question that now confronts us in the West is whether we will continue pretending not to notice.

For nearly four years — over 1,500 days — Jimmy Lai has been held by one of the world’s most powerful states for the “crime” of publishing a newspaper and advocating liberties that were once taken for granted in Hong Kong.

The machinery of repression has been draped in legal garments: national security charges, “collusion with foreign entities,” and a farcical, 140-day trial before three government-approved judges sitting without a jury.

But no one observing this process can confuse it with justice. Lai’s real offense is moral, not legal. He refused to be silent. And more remarkably, he refused to leave Hong Kong, even though he holds British citizenship.

His suffering exposes a larger crisis than Beijing intends. The West’s response — or lack thereof — has revealed a distressing hollowing out of the very values we claim to defend.

It is fashionable in diplomatic circles to speak of Jimmy Lai as a symbol: a symbol of press freedom, a symbol of Hong Kong’s struggle, a symbol of China’s tightening grip. But symbols, by their nature, can be admired at a distance. They do not make demands. They do not interrupt trade deals, unsettle foreign ministries, or challenge ecclesial diplomacy.

Jimmy Lai is not a symbol. He is a man: a husband, father, entrepreneur, Christian convert, and a friend. His imprisonment is not merely a geopolitical incident. It is a moral scandal. And to ignore it is to participate in it.

In a sense, the trial is his. But in a deeper sense, it is ours.

Western democracies often proclaim that human dignity precedes the state, that rights derive not from a party but from a higher moral order. Jimmy Lai believes this too — indeed, he has lived it more courageously than many who declaim it from the safety of parliamentary benches or editorial pages.

What is being tested now is not his resolve, but ours. So far, we are failing.

There have been statements, to be sure. The occasional speech. A scattered diplomatic demarche. But from most governments — and all too often from global institutions that exist to defend human rights — the silence has been strategic. Clear speech about Jimmy Lai would require clear policies toward Beijing. It would impose costs. And modern democracies have grown adept at identifying moral obligations they can safely ignore.

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The Vatican’s silence has been perhaps the most dispiriting. Hong Kong’s elderly cardinal, Joseph Zen, who has stood with Jimmy in the courtroom, sees his Church’s reticence for what it is: a misreading of the Chinese Communist Party by leaders who know persecuted communists but not communist persecutors.

This silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.

The West Kowloon courtroom where Jimmy’s trial unfolded is modern enough: glass boxes, metal detectors, and a gaudy display of armed police meant to intimidate observers. The judges, bewigged in the British manner, give the proceedings the solemn appearance of common law.

But the substance is pure fiat. The prosecution spent 52 days marching the court through subscription lists, emails, tweets, and circulation figures — routine journalism recast as treason.

Apple Daily, the outlet Lai founded, sold a million copies at its height. The state now treats that popularity as evidence of criminal conspiracy. Jimmy steadily denied inciting violence or calling for sanctions, insisting instead that Apple Daily gave voice to Hong Kongers’ desire for freedom.

I watched him from the gallery, sitting behind glass, frail after years in solitary confinement. His wife, Teresa, gripped her rosary. Cardinal Zen, 93 next month and himself under tight state restrictions, sat beside us. When Jimmy caught my eye and nodded, I traced the sign of the cross. His eyes filled with tears.

This is not the behavior of a man plotting insurrection. It is the quiet dignity of conscience under persecution.

The transformation of Hong Kong is part of a wider crisis within China itself. Since the National Security Law took effect in 2020, over 300 people have been arrested for political offenses; 45 pro-democracy activists have received sentences of up to ten years simply for organizing primaries. Beijing recently expanded the NSL to include vague categories like “external interference,” ensuring that any political dissent can be retroactively criminalized.

This is the portrait of a regime tightening control because it has lost the capacity to inspire.

Hong Kong’s extraordinary success was built on precisely the principles Beijing now fears: rule of law, open markets, free expression. Its people created a global entrepôt through ingenuity and liberty.

These habits of freedom do not vanish easily. If mainland Chinese — from tycoons to factory workers — were ever allowed to see that prosperity and liberty are twins, the Party’s foundation would tremble even if the Chinese people (and the world) would prosper.

Perhaps that is why Jimmy Lai is so dangerous.

Now that the official verdict has been handed down, Beijing will claim it is a matter of law. It is not. It is a matter of fear. The CCP — an empire of 1.4 billion — fears a single newspaper publisher because he embodies something they cannot permit: a free man.

Jimmy Lai could have escaped all this. He had the wealth, the passport, and the opportunity. But he stayed because Hong Kong “gave me my freedom,” he said, and he felt obliged to defend it. In this, he resembles other prisoners of conscience: Mandela, Solzhenitsyn, and the unnamed young man who stood before a tank on a Beijing boulevard 36 years ago.

The West has the power to elevate the cost of holding Jimmy Lai. The United Kingdom, of which Lai is a citizen, could apply targeted sanctions. The United States could treat his case with the urgency it affords other political prisoners. The Vatican could speak with the clarity and courage of its own martyrs. And ordinary citizens can demand that their governments act.

Silence, too, is an action.

The British educator Arnold Toynbee once wrote that civilizations do not die from murder but from suicide. The test of our generation is whether we are still willing to defend the principles on which our free societies are built — or whether we will barter them for trade access and diplomatic convenience.

The world will watch Monday’s verdict with predictable outrage. But outrage without action is merely performance. If we abandon Jimmy Lai, we lose more than one man’s liberty. We lose our own moral clarity. We forget what freedom looks like, sounds like, and demands of us.

Jimmy has repeatedly said that the truth will prevail, even if only “in the kingdom of God.” Let us prove that it can prevail in Hong Kong as well — and that the free world still remembers how to act like one.

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Fr. Robert Sirico is a Catholic priest and co-founder and President Emeritus of the Acton Institute (www.acton.org).

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.