Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Arrested Under Controversial National Security Law

TOPLINE

Hong Kong business tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested on Monday, while the offices of his pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily were raided by police, over allegations that he “colluded with foreign forces” in what is the most high-profile arrest since a controversial national security law was imposed by China in June.

KEY FACTS

Chief critic

The United States has already sanctioned Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam, and other senior Chinese and local officials over the national security law. The move to arrest Lai, one of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners who met with Vice President Mike Pence last July, could further escalate tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Key background

Jimmy Lai has been a thorn in the side of Beijing’s communist rulers for decades. Lai fled to Hong Kong as a refugee from mainland China in 1960 and rose from the factory floor to become one of Hong Kong’s business elite with his men’s clothing chain Giordano. That fortune, and his life, has been threatened by Lai’s vocal criticism of China, and tireless advocacy for democracy in Hong Kong, mainly through the tabloid Apple Daily, and his Next Media Group. Now Lai becomes the most high profile of a group of protesters and pro-independence demonstrators who have been charged under Hong Kong’s new national security law which was meant to quash the city’s pro-democracy movement. When the law was passed on June 30, Lai, one of its most high-profile critics, told the BBC that it “spells the death knell for Hong Kong.” Lai also suggested in a separate interview with AFP that he is prepared to go to prison. “If it comes, I will have the opportunity to read books I haven’t read. The only thing I can do is to be positive.”

What to watch for

The fate of Apple Daily, Lai’s 25-year-old newspaper which has recorded huge losses in recent years, despite being one of the most-read newspapers in the Asian financial hub, according to a Reuters report last year.

Further reading

Factbox: Who is Jimmy Lai, the media tycoon arrested in Hong Kong? (Reuters)

Hong Kong Media Mogul Jimmy Lai Arrested Under New National Security Law (Forbes)

Why pro-democracy troublemaker Jimmy Lai is the only Hong Kong multi-millionaire standing up to China (CNN)