Hong Kong: Media tycoon Jimmy Lai has denied using his relationships with senior US government officials to influence American foreign policy towards Hong Kong and China, as he took the stand for the first time in his high-profile national security trial.
It was the first time the 76-year-old, a pro-democracy advocate and renowned critic of Beijing, has been heard in public since his arrest four years ago on charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, and publishing seditious material.
Lai smiled and waved to family members as he entered the West Kowloon’s Magistrate Court in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Jimmy Lai pictured in 2020.Credit: AP
He has spent most of his time in custody in solitary confinement, and is facing possible life imprisonment under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
His now-shuttered Apple Daily was a prominent pro-democracy newspaper that was stridently critical of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. It closed in 2021 after authorities froze Lai’s bank accounts and arrested key staff members.
Under questioning by his defence counsel Steven Kwan, Lai gave evidence of his relationships and acquaintances with senior members of Western governments and their associates, as well as high-profile Western journalists whom the prosecution alleged were Lai’s “external political connections”.
Armed police officers patrol as people wait in heavy rain for public gallery seats at the sentencing of Jimmy Lai who was convicted of violating the Beijing-imposed national security law, outside West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court.Credit: Daniel Ceng
The court was shown an infographic prepared by the prosecution with headshots of his alleged contacts, including incoming US president Donald Trump and senior members of his past administration, former president of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen, former British politician Lord Elton, and former governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten.
Lai has been accused by the prosecution of lobbying foreign governments “to impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities” against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.
Asked by Kwan whether he attempted to “try to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong or China through these people” or if he requested them to take action against China or Hong Kong, Lai responded “never”.
Lai said he had never met Trump or communicated directly or indirectly with the former president, who last month told a conservative podcast he would “100 per cent” speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping about getting Lai out of China.
Protesters carry “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times” flags in Hong Kong in 2019.Credit: AP
However, Lai did confirm he had held meetings with top Trump administration officials in 2019 – then-US vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo – and urged them to speak up in support of the democracy movement as anti-government protests rocked Hong Kong. But he denied using those meetings to lobby the US government to take a particular form of action.
“I would not bear to ask the vice president to do anything. I just relayed to him what happened in Hong Kong when he asked me,” Lai said of his meeting with Pence in Washington in July 2019, which he said was initiated by the Trump administration.
“How could I ask for any action? This is beyond me.”
In a separate meeting with Pompeo, Lai said he asked him “not to do something, but to say something, to voice his support for Hong Kong”.
Jimmy Lai denied using his contacts with Donald Trump-era officials Mike Pence, centre, and Mike Pompeo, right, to influence the US’s foreign policy towards Hong Kong.Credit: Bloomberg
Lai said he would regularly meet with former US national security adviser John Bolton, after Bolton left the Trump administration. When Lai travelled to the US, he would sit in on meetings of Bolton’s think tank, which wasn’t named in court. He described the discussions as chit-chat and general conversations about the state of affairs in Hong Kong and the US.
Lai also told the court of how he introduced former US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz and retired US army general Jack Keane to Tsai when she was Taiwan president because she wanted to know “the sentiment and thinking of the Trump administration”.
Asked why he wanted to help Taiwan, Lai said “because Taiwan is the only democracy of Chinese people, for the whole history of Chinese people.”
He described the Apple Daily as embodying the core values of Hong Kong: “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religions, freedom of assembly.”
Lai said he had never donated money to political parties outside Hong Kong, and had never been a member of a political party. But he admitted he had given money to at least one overseas think tank, saying their free market principles resonated with him. But he denied it was intended to influence the think tank’s foreign policy direction.
Lai is the most high-profile target of the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in 2020 when it claimed the measure was a necessary to restore order after months of anti-government protests, which at times turned violent.
Since then, hundreds of pro-democracy figures have been arrested and jailed including opposition politicians, journalists and academics, in a sweeping crackdown that has been condemned by Western governments and human rights groups.
On Tuesday, 45 of the city’s leading pro-democracy activists were jailed for between four and 10 years for holding an unofficial primary election in July 2020 that aimed to help democrats win majority control of Hong Kong’s legislature. Among them was Australian citizen Gordon Ng, who was sentenced to seven years and three months.
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