Jimmy Lai could have fled Hong Kong when the Communists came in 1997. Hundreds of thousands of his fellow Hong Kongers did, heading to the friendlier shores of Canada, Australia and the United States.
But the billionaire entrepreneur, publisher of the former British colony’s main newspaper, Apple Daily, decided to stay back and fight for freedom.
It’s a decision that could cost him his life, believes his friend and biographer Mark Clifford.
As Clifford recounts in “The Troublemaker,” Lai had escaped from Communist China once before. In 1961, as a 12-year-old boy, Lai had slipped across the border into Hong Kong with nothing but the clothes on his back.
It was the time of the Great Chinese Famine—Mao’s missteps would starve 45 million people to death—and the city was teeming with refugees. But Lai managed to find a job in a factory as an odd-job worker.
Paid a pittance, he survived by sleeping on the factory floor and eating cheap noodles from street stalls.
Charismatic, energetic and eager to learn, Lai quickly rose through the ranks. At the age of 20, he managed a factory with 300 workers.
At the age of 26 he owned one. And then in 1981, at the age of 33, he founded the Giordano retail chain, where he pioneered fast fashion.
Jimmy Lai had made his fortune in Hong Kong, which had prospered strongly under British rule. And although Lai was not politically active, he hoped that Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms would lead to increased freedom in his homeland as well.
That dream died on June 4, 1989, when the Beijing regime killed thousands of students and workers in and around the main square of China’s capital.
The Tiananmen massacre was Lai’s moment of political awakening. He threw himself into the campaign for democracy with the same energy that would make him a billionaire over the next decade.
Among other things, he helped some of the student leaders on China’s most wanted list, democracy activists such as Wuer Kaixi, escape to the West.
But what really put Lai on what Clifford calls “a collision course with Beijing” was an article he wrote about then-premier Li Peng, one of the leaders behind the crackdown.
“He derided the Chinese premier as a ‘national humiliation,'” Clifford writes. “He criticized the barbarism, corruption and corruption of the Chinese Communist Party. . . He closed his column with a sharp jab at the prime minister: ‘I want to tell you that not only are you a bastard, but you are also a bastard with zero IQ’. “
Beijing was furious and began a campaign to destroy Lai’s businesses, not to mention his reputation.
Like many Hong Kong residents, Lai had made contingency plans to leave Hong Kong as the handover date approached.
But now he decided not to leave. He had once fled communism, but now he would stay and fight. He would use his money, his influence and the power of his Apple Daily press to support Hong Kong’s democratic movement and curb tyranny.
Lai’s oft-repeated credo, Clifford writes, was this: “I will fight for freedom, I will not give up anti-communism. [and] I will never give up my dignity as a human being.”
Where did the courage to stand up to the greatest killing machine on the planet, the Chinese Communist Party, come from?
In part it came from a businessman’s “instinctive aversion to political control,” Clifford writes. But he makes it clear that Jimmy Lai’s convictions ran much deeper.
Although he had only five years of formal education, Lai was a voracious reader. Milton Friedman, a close personal friend, wrote: “Myself, [Lai] received a liberal education and became a libertarian.
On a more personal level, Clifford notes, Lai was inspired by the faith of Catholics he met during his pro-democracy activities, such as Cardinal Joseph Zen.
Lai entered the church a few days after the communists seized power. As his wife, herself a believer, noted at the time: “He knows there’s a war coming and he’s going to need God’s help for this war.”
As Clifford’s gripping account reveals, in the years since Lai has been beaten, his home has been attacked with fire and he has been repeatedly arrested.
He has spent most of the last four years in prison. Today Lai spends about 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in a maximum security facility.
The national security charge he now faces – collaboration with foreign forces – carries a life sentence.
The story of Jimmy Lai’s rise in the textile industry alone, as skillfully told by Mark Clifford, makes for a fascinating tale.
But it is his willingness to sacrifice his wealth, his freedom and his very life for the cause of freedom that makes this brilliant biography such a compelling read.
Jimmy Lai is not only China’s most important political prisoner; he is the very personification of the greatest city in Chinese history.
His persecution at the hands of a totalitarian regime mirrors the ongoing destruction of Hong Kong itself.
His trial began in December. 18, 2023 – is still ongoing.
Steven W. Mosher is the author of The Devil and Communist China.
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