Media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested as Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong hots up
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Hong Kong — Right before China retook control of Hong Kong in 1997, tycoon Jimmy Lai started Apple Daily in part to promote democracy in the city. For 25 years the newspaper survived advertising boycotts and political pressure but never backed off its tough coverage of the Chinese government and pro-Beijing legislators.
It may not last through the next few months. Hong Kong police arrested Lai and several of his top executives on Monday and sent hundreds of officers to search the Apple Daily offices, a demonstration of the broad potential for the new national security law to silence criticism and dissent beyond pro-democracy protests and activism.
Passed in June, the legislation bars “crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” as interpreted by the Chinese government and enforced by Beijing’s new security office in Hong Kong. Lai’s arrest was not entirely unexpected, but it still shook the foundations of press freedom in the financial centre and raised fears about what might come next.
For the global business community, which relies on the rule of law and stability that Hong Kong offers, threats to the free press are troubling, says Imogen T Liu, a political economist affiliated with Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
“Hong Kong is attractive to international investors because it has a reputation for market discipline and transparency that was institutionalised under British rule,” she says. “Free speech is part of this liberal image, along with free market competition and government non-intervention.”
Journalists have been concerned about China’s tightening grip on free speech in Hong Kong at least since 2018, when local authorities declined to renew the work visa of the new editor for the Financial Times. It was thought to be the first expulsion of a foreign journalist since the 1997 handover and suggested a bolder Chinese influence on the city.
Those concerns grew this year. After the US placed restrictions on Chinese media, the government in Beijing expelled Americans working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and said they were not welcome in Hong Kong. In July the New York Times announced it was moving its digital news operation from Hong Kong to Seoul.
The Foreign Correspondents Club, Hong Kong, which advocates for press freedom in Asia, condemned the arrests and newsroom raid on Monday, saying they “signal a dark new phase in the erosion of the ...
It may not last through the next few months. Hong Kong police arrested Lai and several of his top executives on Monday and sent hundreds of officers to search the Apple Daily offices, a demonstration of the broad potential for the new national security law to silence criticism and dissent beyond pro-democracy protests and activism.
Passed in June, the legislation bars “crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” as interpreted by the Chinese government and enforced by Beijing’s new security office in Hong Kong. Lai’s arrest was not entirely unexpected, but it still shook the foundations of press freedom in the financial centre and raised fears about what might come next.
For the global business community, which relies on the rule of law and stability that Hong Kong offers, threats to the free press are troubling, says Imogen T Liu, a political economist affiliated with Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
“Hong Kong is attractive to international investors because it has a reputation for market discipline and transparency that was institutionalised under British rule,” she says. “Free speech is part of this liberal image, along with free market competition and government non-intervention.”
Journalists have been concerned about China’s tightening grip on free speech in Hong Kong at least since 2018, when local authorities declined to renew the work visa of the new editor for the Financial Times. It was thought to be the first expulsion of a foreign journalist since the 1997 handover and suggested a bolder Chinese influence on the city.
Those concerns grew this year. After the US placed restrictions on Chinese media, the government in Beijing expelled Americans working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and said they were not welcome in Hong Kong. In July the New York Times announced it was moving its digital news operation from Hong Kong to Seoul.
The Foreign Correspondents Club, Hong Kong, which advocates for press freedom in Asia, condemned the arrests and newsroom raid on Monday, saying they “signal a dark new phase in the erosion of the ...
