Who is Jimmy Lai, jailed pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon despised by China?

Lawyers for pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai have sought an urgent meeting with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. Lai, a dual Hong Kong and British citizen, is arguably the highest-profile China critic in the city. The founder of the now defunct newspaper Apple Daily has been in prison since December 2020 after being arrest during crackdown by China on the Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. But who is Lai?  Let’s take a closer look: Lai was born in China’s Canton (Guangzhou) in 1948. According to The Atlantic, everything changed for Lai’s well-off family once Mao Zedong took power. Before Lai was even a teen, he would carry passengers’ bags at a railways station in mainland China. His Hong Kong origin story has been told and retold time again – a man Lai helped with his baggage handed him a chocolate bar. When asked where he got it, the man replied “Hong Kong”. Lai eventually made it to the city of his dreams as a stowaway on a fishing boat – he was 12 at the time. Lai eventually became a salesman after starting out as a child labourer at a garment factory where he would earn around $8 per day, as per Gentleman’s Journal. On a trip to New York, a lawyer handed him Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom – a book he says made him want to become an entrepreneur, as per The Atlantic. In 1975, Lai began funnelling his yearly bonus into the stock market and would ultimately by a bankrupt clothing factory. He then began producing sweatshirts and exporting them to the United States.

Lai founded the Giordano clothing brand in 1981.

The company had 2,400 locations in 30 countries, as per Gentleman’s Journal. Voice for democracy Lai’s attitude towards China and democracy was formulated by the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, according to The Guardian. [caption id=“attachment_10759611” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Cangan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square, on 5 June, 1989. The man, calling for an end to violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. AP/File[/caption] As per CPJ.org, Lai’s next venture was Next magazine. According to BBC, Lai then began writing columns supporting demonstrations in Beijing and taking the regime to task. He was forced to sell his shares in Giordano after a column in which he told the then-Chinese leader Li Peng to “drop dead.”

Lai in 1995 founded the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, which was one of Hong Kong’s biggest tabloids.

In 1997, when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China, the newspaper was selling 400,000 copies per day, according to Gentleman’s Journal. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Lai has been a tireless advocate for the Catholic faith in China and has spoken up about religious freedom in Hong Kong. He has also asked the Vatican to exercise its ‘moral authority’ in its relationship with the Chinese government. Clashes with Chinese authorities Lai has a long history of clashing with Chinese authorities. In 2014, he was arrested for refusing to leave a key pro-democracy protest site in the centre of Hong Kong. He resigned as editor in chief of Apple Daily following that arrest. In 2014, Lai’s home was raided by Hong Kong’s anti-graft agency.

China has gone after Lai with ever-increasing ferocity ever since it passed its National Security Law in 2020.

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Prior to the law passing Lai in a BBC interview warned that it would be a “death knell” for Hong Kong and that it would become “as corrupt as China”. [caption id=“attachment_11785271” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, centre, leaves the Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on 9 February 2021. AP[/caption] He also told the outlet Hong Kong’s status as a global financial powerhouse would be “totally destroyed” in the absence of rule of law. In May 2020, in an interview with CNN, Lai called on then president Donald Trump to save Hong Kong. “Mr President, you’re the only one who can save us. If you save us and stop China’s aggressions, you also save the world.” Lai at the time told Bloomberg the US ought to sanction Chinese officials. “The most effective sanction … is to freeze the bank account of the Chinese top officials’ corrupt money in the US and in the free world. I think this will scare a lot of them off,” Lai said. Lai was in December 2022 sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for fraud, convicted of violating a lease contract for the headquarters of the Apple Daily. Lai was found guilty of two counts of fraud for covering up the operations of a private company, Dico Consultants Ltd, at the headquarters of the now shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, in what was ruled a breach of its land lease. Lai is currently fighting collusion charges under the Beijing-imposed national security law and faces up to life in prison if convicted. Lai is accused of conspiring with others to call for an imposition of sanctions or blockade, or engage in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China. He also faces a charge of collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security, and a separate sedition charge under a colonial-era law that is increasingly used to crush dissent. His trial - originally slated to begin last month - was postponed to September after the Hong Kong leader asked Beijing to make a ruling that could effectively block Lai from hiring a veteran British lawyer, Timothy Owen, to represent him. But don’t expect Lai to change.

“I’m a born rebel,” Lai told BBC in 2020. “I have a very rebellious character.”

Last month, the team called for the UK government to take immediate action to secure Lai’s release ahead of his high-profile national security trial after he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on fraud charges linked to lease violations. The meeting request is the latest attempt from his legal team to urge the British government to step into the case of Lai, who is a dual Hong Kong and British citizen. “We’ve been clear that the Hong Kong authorities must end their targeting of pro-democracy voices, including Jimmy Lai,” Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, said in London. “The Foreign Office has provided support to Jimmy Lai for some time, and Minister for Asia Anne-Marie Trevelyan has met his legal team today. We think that’s the right approach at this stage,” he said. Caoilfhionn Gallagher, leader of the team, said Lai’s son was in London this week to call on British officials to protect his father. “He is being subjected to lawfare’ – multiple prosecutions and lawsuits, all designed to silence and discredit him and send a clear message to others that they should not dare to criticise the Chinese or Hong Kong authorities,” she said in an email reply to The Associated Press. Britain, along with other Western nations, has been critical of China’s crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong, which was handed over from the UK to China in 1997 with a promise by Beijing to keep Western-style liberties under a “one country, two systems” framework. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.