Jimmy Lai Chi-Ying, Hong Kong’s 74-year-old self-made billionaire, is a dissident. His cause is freedom. For championing this cause, he has been jailed since December 2020. One of the crimes he was found guilty of was lighting a candle in public to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when thousands were slaughtered. His real sin, however, was publishing Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s lone voice for freedom. This voice was smothered in June 2021 with the jailing of its senior journalists.

Lai could have remained free – he has homes in Paris, London, Kyoto and Taipei – but chose to stay in solidarity with the Hong Kong democrats being prosecuted. The UK abandoned Hong Kong in 1997 on China’s promise that its seven million-plus people would have “a high degree of autonomy” with “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong”.

However, the democrats’ demand for China to honour this pledge was rebuffed from the start and dealt a final blow in 2020 when Beijing imposed direct rule by promulgating a vague and sweeping National Security Law along with an electoral system modelled on Iran’s that allows only handpicked candidates. Virtually all democrat leaders have since been jailed.

Lai was born in Guangzhou. He escaped communist rule at the age of 12 by stealing his way into Hong Kong, hidden in the bottom of a small fishing boat. By the time he was in his 20s, he had risen from a child labourer to owning his own business.

He started Giordano, an international clothing retailer. Along the way he learned English – initially by reading the dictionary while living in the factory where he worked – and took to the brand of free-market economics espoused by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. He credited his success to the freedom he enjoyed in British Hong Kong. He vows to fight for this freedom so others may have the same opportunities.

Like most Hong Kong people, Lai’s political awakening came in the spring of 1989 when a democratic movement led by students erupted in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He was sympathetic to their aspirations and lent them support by raising money through his Giordano stores.

After communist tanks mowed down demonstrators on 4 June 1989, he dedicated himself to upholding their torch of democracy by going into publishing in Hong Kong, where the press remained free.

He first launched Next, a weekly magazine, in 1990, and then Apple Daily on the eve of Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese rule. With their bold and fiercely independent editorial stance, both publications enjoyed wide readership and were successfully “cloned” in Taiwan. As the communists tightened their grip on Hong Kong, Lai was first forced to sell his controlling interest in Giordano and then his publications were subjected to orchestrated advertising boycotts. Though financial losses piled up, Lai did not waver. Readers’ loyalty remained to the end: when Apple Daily printed its last edition of one million copies on 24 June 2021, thousands of people waited in the middle of the night for it to roll off the press.

Lai is now represented by the London-based lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC. She has called Lai “a man of courage and integrity” and vowed to “pursue all available legal remedies to vindicate Mr. Lai’s rights”.

Lai’s wife Teresa is a devout Catholic. He himself converted to Catholicism when Hong Kong came under Chinese rule. China’s communists, often godless, are known to be ruthless, but in this couple they may have met their match. Because of his faith, Lai does not seek temporal salvation. He quoted the 15th-century German priest Thomas a Kempis in a letter to a friend from prison: “If thou willingly bear the Cross, it will bear thee, and will bring thee to the end which thou seekest, even where there shall be the end of suffering; though it shall not be here.”[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]*****

‘I don’t want my life to be a lie’ – letters from Lai’s prison cell

Jimmy Lai has been in jail since December 2020. He has told friends and associates from his cell that he does not want to turn his “life into a lie” and willingly pays the price for upholding “truth, justice, and goodness”. He said he bears this price gladly and sees it as God’s grace in disguise. Here are excerpts from some of his prison letters.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]‘The muted anger of the Hong Kong people is not going away’

Apple Daily published its last edition of one million copies on 24 June 2021. This was how he reacted to it from prison. While deploring what he called “this barbaric suppression”, he was weighed down with guilt that his staff were incarcerated on his account and wished he could share “the pain of the cross” they bear. He vowed to find a spiritual way to help them.

The forced closure of Apple Daily Hong Kong showed clearly what [a] shipwreck life in Hong Kong has become for them. The damage done [by] the Hong Kong government and Beijing’s legitimacy long term is much greater [than] the temporary benefit of quieting down the voice of freedom of speech.

Yes, this barbaric suppression intimidation works. Hong Kong people are all quieted down. But the muted anger they have is not going away. Even those emigrating will have it forever. Many people are emigrating or planning to.

This Apple Daily shutdown only aggravates it, making it certain to people that the hopelessness of Hong Kong is irreversible. The more barbaric [the] treatment of Hong Kong people, [the] greater is their anger, and power of their potential resistance; [the] greater is the distrust of Beijing, of Hong Kong, [the] stricter is their rule to control.

The vicious circle of suppression-anger-and-distrust eventually will turn Hong Kong into a prison, a cage, like Xinjiang. World, cry for Hong Kong people.

Pastor Lee came to visit… Told me he had visited Cheung Kim Hung, our CEO, and Lo Wai Kong, our Chief Editor. They are both being remanded. Cheung, being a devout Christian, is doing fine. But Lo, who has no faith, is miserable.

What I can do to help him? Send him a Bible? But Bible is no faith, not panacea. Maybe I should ask Cardinal Zen to visit him to see what we can do for him.

It would be disingenuous to say that by creating Apple Daily I have put him in this situation. But I do have a guilty feeling and want to share his price of his cross, which is weighing too heavily on him. There must be something I can do to help. I will not cease until I find a way.

“If we suffer courageously, quietly, unselfishly, peacefully, the things [that] wreck our outer being perfect us within, and make us. And as [we] have seen, more truly ourselves.”

‘There is always a price to pay when you put truth, justice and goodness ahead of your own wellbeing’

Lai wrote in July 2021 to console his hotel staff in Canada for their suffering during the pandemic and held out the hope that soon he could share “the coming prosperity” with them. He also updated them on his life in prison, telling them not to worry about him, though when they “pass by a church, do go in and pray for me”.

Dear Bob,

If you are worry[ing] about me, please don’t. I am keeping myself busy reading the scriptures, gospels, theology and books of the saints and their lives… Life is peaceful and edifying… There is always a price to pay when you put truth, justice, and goodness ahead of your own comfort, safety and physical wellbeing, or your life becomes a lie. I choose truth instead of a lie and pay the price. Luckily God has made this price a grace in disguise. I am so grateful.

So, don’t worry about me. However, when you pass by a church, do go in [and] pray for me. Believers and non-believers, the sun shines on you the same. So the Lord will listen to you the same. Thank you! Hope to see you soon,

Cheers,

Jimmy.

‘I am changed… I can’t see myself going back to business again’

Lai wrote to a friend, James, in September 2021, saying that, by clinging to Christ, his life in prison “is full” and spiritually “at peace”. However, he was worried about his wife, Teresa, whom he said was weighed down by grief.

James,

I am doing fine, keeping myself busy, studying gospels, scriptures, theology and books on the saints and lives and prayers, touching the fringe of Christ’s cloak to live, so to speak. Life is full and at peace. I am learning and changed a lot. Can’t see myself going back to business again. All have to depend on others.

I do worry about my wife Teresa. She has lost a lot of weight under the grief of my situation. Lucky she has God [to] abide [with] her. May God bless you all.

Cheers,

Uncle Jimmy

‘But with her prayers, she will slug it through’

In October 2021, Lai wrote to a business associate about his happiness when his family visited him. He urged him to “keep writing”.

I am doing fine here. Happy to see Teresa, Claire, Tim and Ian and my brother… Teresa looks weak and weighed down by grief. But with her prayers, she will slug it through.

I am keeping myself busy here. Spiritual study, drawing and trying to improve my English writing skill. Take care!

So sweet of you to write me. Please keep writing. May God be with you all! Cheers, Uncle Jimmy

‘If thou willingly bear the Cross, it will bring thee [that] which thou seekest… ’

In a November 2021 letter to a friend, Lai copied the following quote from the 15th-century German priest Thomas a Kempis, author of The Imitation of Christ.

“If thou willingly bear the Cross, it will bear thee, and will bring thee to the end which thou seekest, even where there shall be the end of suffering; though it shall not be here.

“If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest a burden for thyself and greatly increaseth thy load, and yet thou must bear it.”

‘Lord, remember those who shed their blood in Tiananmen Square’

Lai was sentenced 13 months in jail for attending the vigil in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, on 4 June 2020 that marked the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He protested his innocence by reading the following statement in court before he was sentenced. He appealed to God to grant the young men and women who died in Tiananmen their redemption.

I did not join the 4 June vigil in Victoria Park. I lit a candle light in front of reporters to remind the world to commemorate and remember those brave young men and women who 31 years ago in Tiananmen Square put the truth, justice and goodness above their lives and died for them.

If [to] commemorate those who died because of injustice is a crime, then inflict on me that crime and let me suffer the punishment of the crime, so that I may share the burden and glory of those men and women who shed their blood on June 4th to proclaim truth, injustice and goodness.

Lord, remember those who shed their blood, but do not remember their cruelty. Remember the fruits those young men and women have borne because what they did and grant, Lord, that the fruits these young men and women have borne may be their redemption. May the power of love of the meek prevail over the power of destruction of the strong.

This article and Lai’s letters appeared in the 50th anniversary issue of Index on Censorship magazine, alongside a picture that Lai drew of Jesus Christ on the cross. They were published on 15th March 2022. Click here for options on how to see and read the article in full.