If anyone still interprets Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) conviction as a case tried in accordance with the law, they are either naive or willfully blind. The outcome of this verdict became apparent long before the day of sentencing — it was determined the very moment Hong Kong’s China-imposed National Security Law came into force. All that remained was a series of procedures. Prolonged detention, stacked charges, designated judges and delayed sentencing — all part of a judicial operation that appears lawful, but in reality is highly politicized.
Lai was not the first, nor will he be the last. His case must be discussed, because he simultaneously embodies journalism, capital, religious beliefs and a pro-democracy stance, making him the kind of figure that the regime is unwilling to free. He ran media outlets, which meant he controlled narratives. He spoke out publicly, which meant he refused to be silenced. He remained in Hong Kong, which meant he was unwilling to go along with the tacit expectation of “making oneself disappear.”
As a result, the national security law became not just a law, but a tool for clearing out the field.
The Hong Kong government and Beijing repeatedly emphasize that the national security law is meant to target only a very small number of people.
However, the issue has never been about minority versus majority — it lies in the erasure of clear boundaries. When the definition of “foreign collusion” can be stretched without limit, and when “seditious publications” can be retroactively applied to journalistic work, any form of public expression is at risk of being criminalized after the fact.
This is not mere legal uncertainty, but deliberately manufactured anxiety designed to force people to censor themselves and retreat of their own accord.
What international human rights organizations have described as a sham trial does not refer to procedural sloppiness. On the contrary, the trial was excessively elaborate. It cloaked political will in legal language, carrying out a political purge by judicial means.
For this reason, the damage it has inflicted on Hong Kong is particularly profound — the government is no longer relying on violent crackdowns in the streets, but instead using the courts to methodically and legally eliminate dissenters one by one.
All the more alarming is that this model is being normalized. When a 78-year-old media founder is subjected to prolonged detention as his health deteriorates, yet is still portrayed as a “threat to national security,” society is forced to accept an absurd proportional imbalance — power is always fragile and citizens are always dangerous.
Once such a narrative takes hold, any form of oversight, criticism or suspicion can be treated as a potential crime.
While the Hong Kong government touts its slogan of “telling good Hong Kong stories” to the outside world, its actions send a very different message — this is a territory where stories are forbidden from emerging on their own. Stories must first be vetted, journalists must know their place and media outlets must understand the costs. The so-called prosperity and stability are built upon the complete exclusion of uncertain expression. This is not a transformation, but a complete collapse of public space.
For Taiwan, Lai’s case is not merely a matter of solidarity — it is a clear warning.
Freedom is not a slogan, but a fragile set of institutional arrangements. Journalism is not decoration, but a stress test that those in power must endure.
Once a society accepts that it is only natural for some people to get arrested, or that some things are better left unsaid, the complete loss of freedom is just around the corner.
What this conviction proclaims is not the guilt of one businessman, but the transformation of the status of journalism in Hong Kong — from that of a public necessity to a political risk. When journalism itself is sentenced, democracy is no longer a possibility for the future, but a mere memory of the past.
Che-ting is a writer.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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