Jimmy Lai’s conviction on charges of colluding with foreign forces is not just another headline in a long list of setbacks for Hong Kong’s pro‑democracy movement — it is a signal moment that underlines how far the city has shifted under Beijing’s watch. Lai, the founder of Apple Daily, represented the most visible strand of Hong Kong’s dissenting press: vigorous, combative and influential. The High Court’s verdict, after a trial that stretched nearly two years, arguably seals his fate: he now faces the very real prospect of spending the remainder of his life behind bars.
From newspaper proprietor to political target
Apple Daily was not merely a newspaper; it was an institution of civic debate. Under Lai’s stewardship the paper championed democratic reform and relentlessly criticised mainland policies that encroach on Hong Kong’s freedoms. That posture put him squarely in Beijing’s crosshairs. State‑aligned outlets in the mainland and pro‑Beijing papers in Hong Kong regularly branded him a traitor; the stage was set for a legal reckoning.
Yet the troubling feature of Lai’s prosecution — and of many similar cases — is not only that the law was invoked, but that laws themselves have been refashioned to facilitate repression. The colonial sedition law from 1938 and, more consequentially, the national security law imposed in 2020 have provided sweeping legal instruments that can, and have, been used to criminalise conduct long regarded under international norms as legitimate political expression.
Legal architecture of repression
Two faults stand out. First, the statutes in play are drafted with astonishing breadth. The sedition law criminalises words intended to stir “hatred” or “disaffection” against the government. Its vagueness allows prosecutorial discretion to be stretched almost to breaking point. Second, the national security law introduces offences — such as collusion with foreign forces — that carry maximum penalties as severe as life imprisonment. Such penalties change the stakes of political activity fundamentally: what had been the currency of civic life — criticism, advocacy, protest — can now translate into a capital sentence.
Critically, the courts are compelled to operate within this new legal architecture. While some judges are widely respected for their legal acumen and experience, the judgments in politically sensitive cases often display an interpretative approach that tilts towards state security over civil liberties. In Lai’s trial, judges inferred that robust criticism of Chinese policy — and publication of such criticism — could constitute an implicit call for foreign sanctions, despite thin evidentiary links. That interpretive leap is symptomatic of a judiciary operating under political pressure and within a legal framework that increasingly privileges state prerogatives.
What the judgments reveal
Reading the extensive judgments, one is struck repeatedly by the rhetorical framing: Lai’s persistent hostility to the Chinese Communist Party, his promotion of Western ideals, and his vocal support for pro‑democracy activism are repeatedly set out as incriminating contextual facts. The law becomes less a neutral arbiter and more a tool to delegitimise dissent. Where statutory language is unclear, expansive inferences have been drawn — effectively criminalising the spirit of criticism rather than specific unlawful acts.
More extreme cases, such as the conviction of activists for planning to win a legislative majority and use it to apply political pressure, exemplify this shift. Actions that are plain political bargaining in any robust democracy were deemed unlawful because they challenged the political preferences of the executive. The upshot is a political ecosystem where legal boundaries are mobile and shaped by the imperatives of regime survival.
The broader erosion of civic space
Judicial repression does not occur in a vacuum. Since 2020 Hong Kong’s public sphere has been systematically constricted: textbooks and curricula have been rewritten; libraries purged; unions and civic associations shuttered; broadcasters curtailed; and civil society leaders subject to interrogation or incarceration. This cascade of measures has normalised a climate of caution and self‑censorship. Even when formal legal rules remain, the informal social and political sanctions are powerful deterrents.
The result is a system where legal outcomes are predictable not necessarily because of the merits of the prosecution, but because of the political context that demands them. The judges may be competent and steeped in the common law tradition, but the institutional and cultural pressure placed upon them, and the interpretive latitude granted by repressive statutes, produce outcomes that are difficult to reconcile with international human rights standards.
What can the West do — and what can it offer?
Critics often ask whether Western governments have leverage to effect change in Hong Kong. The practical options are limited. Sanctions, statements of condemnation, and the provision of pathways to residency have symbolic and humanitarian value, but they do not directly alter Beijing’s calculus. The High Court judge’s rueful observation that Hong Kong is “part of China” and constrained by that reality underscores the limits of external influence.
Yet abandonment is not inevitable. Western democracies can sustain principled pressure, support independent journalism and human rights documentation, and provide refuge and legal assistance to those forced out. They can maintain international scrutiny and institutionalise consequences for systemic human‑rights abuses. Moral lectures alone are insufficient; targeted, coordinated policy responses that raise the costs of repression for those responsible may shift incentives over time.
Law, judges and the illusion of normalcy
At root, what Lai’s conviction illustrates is the collapse of a legal shield that once protected political dissent. Hong Kong’s legal system — once esteemed as a bastion of the rule of law in Asia — now applies laws whose normative orientation serves political control rather than protecting civil liberties. Appearances of procedural normalcy cannot obscure the substantive change: critics of the state, whether journalists, activists or politicians, face real criminal peril for acts of political expression.
The international community faces a choice about how it responds — between quiet accommodation and sustained resistance. For Hong Kong’s activists and journalists, the cost of dissent has already been transformed. For observers abroad, the challenge is to ensure that this transformation does not become the unremarked new normal.
