He went from rags to riches before his anti-communist newspaper fell foul of security forces. Now Lai’s plight tells of a city forced to live in the shadow of Xi’s authoritarian China
It was not the first time in his long and eventful career that media mogul Jimmy Lai became the story, and it wouldn’t be the last. But it was certainly the most dramatic. On 10 August 2020, about 200 police officers frogmarched 72-year-old Lai out of the offices of his embattled newspaper, Apple Daily, as they conducted a raid on the publication, which had vigorously supported Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. More than 10,000 people tuned in to watch as the newspaper’s reporters defied police warnings and streamed the scene live on Facebook.
As if to underline the extent to which the authorities now controlled the story, Lai had actually been arrested at his home earlier that morning. He had been brought to the offices to oversee one of the final blows to the newspaper that he had founded 25 years earlier. It was intended as a final humiliation for the outspoken tycoon who had spent his adult life opposing the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and its increasing grip on Hong Kong. The next day the paper’s front page showed a picture of Lai in handcuffs, with the headline “Apple Daily must fight on”. It was forced to close just under one year later, after its assets were frozen.
