Hong Kong media tycoon and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai (黎智英) yesterday was charged under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, accused of colluding with foreign forces, making him the latest democracy advocate targeted under the legislation.
Lai, 73, is the most high-profile figure charged under the sweeping law, which has targeted the territory’s pro-democracy movement, but brought a semblance of calm to the territory after months of often-violent protests.
The new national security unit charged him “with one count of ‘collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,’” police said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
National security offenses carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The publisher is today to appear in court in relation to the national security charge, police said.
Lai is the owner of Hong Kong’s best-selling Apple Daily, a popular tabloid that is unashamedly pro-democracy and fiercely critical of the authorities.
Police in August raided the newspaper’s headquarters and arrested a string of senior company figures, including Lai, on suspicion of “collusion with foreign forces” under the vaguely worded new law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.
Last week, he was denied bail and remanded into custody until April after being charged with fraud, the latest in a string of prosecutions brought against high-profile democracy campaigners.
He is to apply for bail on that charge at the High Court on Tuesday.
China’s clampdown on Hong Kong has dramatically accelerated since it imposed the security law in June, with opposition politicians disqualified from the legislature and dozens of democracy advocates charged or investigated.
Lai is only the fourth person charged under the controversial national security legislation.
During the police operation on the Apple Daily, journalists streamed dramatic footage on Facebook as officers raided its offices and led Lai away in handcuffs.
In Chinese state media he is routinely cast as a traitor, “black hand” and anti-China “rabble-rouser.”
Lai has long said he fears authorities want to shutter his newspaper and had vowed to use the outlet to continue speaking out against Beijing.
“I’m prepared for prison,” Lai said in an interview two weeks before the security law was imposed.
“I’m a troublemaker. I came here with nothing, the freedom of this place has given me everything. Maybe it’s time I paid back for that freedom by fighting for it,” he added.
In related news, Chinese authorities have detained a Chinese national working for the Bloomberg news bureau in Beijing on suspicion of endangering national security, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Haze Fan (范若伊) was seen being escorted from her apartment building by plain clothes security officials on Monday, the report said.
“Chinese citizen Ms Fan has been detained by the Beijing National Security Bureau according to relevant Chinese law on suspicion of engaging in criminal activities that jeopardize national security. The case is currently under investigation. Ms Fan’s legitimate rights have been fully ensured and her family has been notified,” Bloomberg quoted Chinese authorities as saying.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while the Beijing National Security Bureau could not immediately be reached for comment.
“We are very concerned for her, and have been actively speaking to Chinese authorities to better understand the situation. We are continuing to do everything we can to support her while we seek more information,” a Bloomberg spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement.
Fan has worked for Bloomberg since 2017 and previously worked for CNBC, CBS News, al-Jazeera and Reuters, Bloomberg reported.
Additional reporting by Reuters
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has