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Why Beijing hates Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, February eleventh, twenty twenty six. Israeli President Isaac
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Herzog meets in Canberra today with Anthony Albanesi. That's after
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Herzog accused the Labour government of not understanding Israel's right
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  Speaker 1: to self defense and Albanesi got emotional while defending his
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: decision to invite Herzog, who's from the opposition Labor Party
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  Speaker 1: in Israel, to Australia. In the background, the washup to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: violent protests. That's all live right now at the Australian
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: dot Com dot Yu. China is accused of crushing Hong
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  Speaker 1: Kong's independence after a harsh sentence was handed down to
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  Speaker 1: publisher and democracy activist Jimmy Lai. Beijing blames lie for
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  Speaker 1: years of increasingly violent dissent against the Chinese Communist Party.
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  Speaker 1: Today we talked to The Australian's National Chief correspondent Headley Thomas,
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  Speaker 1: a veteran newsman who's reported in and on Hong Kong
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  Speaker 1: for years, about the road to this result. It sounds
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  Speaker 1: almost unbearably stark. A seventy eight year old media publisher
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  Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty years in prison for national security offenses,
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  Speaker 1: the most severe punishment yet under the city's National Security law.
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  Speaker 1: Security offense is accused of publishing seditious material and colluding
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  Speaker 1: with foreign forces police.
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  Speaker 2: Officers to read my Boes News twenty years in prison,
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  Speaker 2: ending the high profile case, Jimmy Laie and six former
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  Speaker 2: executives of his now closed newspaper Apple Daily with this
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  Speaker 2: week jailed by a panel of judges in Hong Kong
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  Speaker 2: in what's being widely interpreted as a politically motivated prosecution,
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  Speaker 2: a death sentence for this old man, and a sign
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  Speaker 2: of Beijing's crackdown on free speech on the island. There
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  Speaker 2: has been international outcry after a Hong Kong court sentenced
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  Speaker 2: the pro democracy media mogul and China critic Jimmy Lai
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  Speaker 2: to twenty years in prison.
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  Speaker 1: The steamy, rugged volcanic island of Hong Kong, now one
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  Speaker 1: of the most exciting and glamorous cities on Earth, has
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  Speaker 1: been fought over for centuries. Originally part of China, it
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  Speaker 1: became a British colony in the eighteen forties, was occupied
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  Speaker 1: by Japan in World War II, and spent most of
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  Speaker 1: the twentieth century as the last remnant of the British Empire.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China.
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  Speaker 1: London and Beijing signed a deal that was supposed to
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  Speaker 1: guarantee that Hong Kong, by then a thriving center of capitalism,
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  Speaker 1: would for the next fifty years be allowed a measure
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  Speaker 1: of independence from the Chinese mainland and its Communist Party government.
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  Speaker 1: They called it one country, two systems. But ever since
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  Speaker 1: ninety seven there's been building tension between the central government
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  Speaker 1: and Hong Kong, demonstrations and growing signs that China's grip
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  Speaker 1: was tightening. Throughout the twenty tens, the tension ratcheted up
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  Speaker 1: until in twenty nineteen it exploded into violent protest.
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  Speaker 2: A dangerous, almost daily struggle that sometimes ends like fishy Way,
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  Speaker 2: Why are if?
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  Speaker 1: The Australian's National Chief correspondent, Hedley Thomas is best known
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  Speaker 1: these days as one of the world's most revered investigative podcasters,
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  Speaker 1: But early in his journalism career, Headley took the same
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  Speaker 1: path as a lot of Australian journals, off for a
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  Speaker 1: big adventure in the bright lights and vibrant media scene
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  Speaker 1: of Hong Kong. Headley, What was Hong Kong's newspaper world
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  Speaker 1: like in the nineties, Oh.
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  Speaker 3: It was absolutely fantastically, It was exciting, It was fast paced.
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  Speaker 3: Journalists were relatively well paid. The South john Morning Post
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  Speaker 3: where I worked with my then girlfriend who became my wife,
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  Speaker 3: Ruth Matthews, and it was the most profitable English language
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  Speaker 3: newspaper in the world, and we had so much to cover.
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  Speaker 3: The lead up to the handover of Hong Kong from
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  Speaker 3: the British to China was of course uppermost in the
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  Speaker 3: minds of many of the journalists there and all of
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  Speaker 3: the expats and local Chinese. But there was so much
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  Speaker 3: other news breaking, incredible murders, dank and casino heiss in Macau.
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  Speaker 3: We had corruption on an industrial scale in some parts
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  Speaker 3: of the government. These stories and so many more like them,
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  Speaker 3: made Hong Kong such a wonderful place to be a reporter,
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  Speaker 3: to work in journalism, to meet fascinating people and enjoy
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  Speaker 3: one of the greatest cities in the world.
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  Speaker 1: Did it feel when the handover was happening that was
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  Speaker 1: the end of an era in Hong Kong?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it did, But there was also a great amount
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  Speaker 3: of hopefulness that Hong Kong, with a high degree of autonomy,
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  Speaker 3: would be able to continue to prosper, that free speech
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  Speaker 3: and freedom of the press and the rule of law
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  Speaker 3: would continue and to continue for some decades. Now. There
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  Speaker 3: were always going to be constraints. China was in charge.
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  Speaker 3: That meant that the Chinese Communist Party was going to
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  Speaker 3: keep a very close eye on how events unfolded in
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong. For a number of years, Hong Kong continued
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  Speaker 3: to outperform to prosper, and the media was functioning, I
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  Speaker 3: would say, almost as vigorously as it had pre handover.
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  Speaker 3: There were undoubtedly some punches pulled, some acts of self
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  Speaker 3: censorship by some of the journalists for those journalists who,
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  Speaker 3: unlike the expats who could leave Hong Kong with our
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  Speaker 3: foreign passports, local journalists were really stuck in Hong Kong,
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  Speaker 3: so they knew that for them there could be repercussions
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  Speaker 3: if they went too far. But Hong Kong's media was
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  Speaker 3: for years really robust. There was intense questioning of the
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong government for years after the handover, and that
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  Speaker 3: was a really good sign.
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  Speaker 4: The Australian's Headley Thomas is in Hong Kong and he
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  Speaker 4: joins me now.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, you went back to Hong Kong on
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  Speaker 1: assignment with your wife, journalist Ruth Matthewson, to report on
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  Speaker 1: protests that had turned shockingly violent.
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  Speaker 4: Andrew, last night, the married quarters of the police, where
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  Speaker 4: they lived with their wives and children, was attacked by
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  Speaker 4: a petrol bomb wielding group of protesters. They've done this
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  Speaker 4: before in the married quarters, so effectively attempting to murder police.
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  Speaker 1: Today there are those protests blew up over an extradition law.
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  Speaker 1: Prosecutors wanted to return a man accused of murdering his
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  Speaker 1: girlfriend to mainland China for trial.
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  Speaker 4: The protesters are actually violently assaulting people who challenge them.
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  Speaker 4: If you are not with them, then you are an
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  Speaker 4: enemy and they will retaliate.
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  Speaker 1: As you have seen at the time, Headley, you're reporting,
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  Speaker 1: as it so often does, went against the grain of
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  Speaker 1: a lot of other journalism about those protests at the time.
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  Speaker 1: What did you see at those twenty nineteen protests.
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  Speaker 3: There were acts of incredible violence and anarchi There were
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  Speaker 3: hardline criminals who were leading those protest movements, and there
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  Speaker 3: was a degree of nihilism which we hadn't seen in
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong protests before. One man splashed with lighter fluid
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  Speaker 3: and set alight. Others violently bashed police, attacked with box cutters.
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  Speaker 3: Some of the protesters were determined to try to seize
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  Speaker 3: police weapons. One was shot while trying to grab one
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  Speaker 3: officer's gun. There were so many acts like this and
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  Speaker 3: the climate dangerous, and I think for too long Hong
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  Speaker 3: Kong police tolerated what was unfolding. They stayed back, and
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  Speaker 3: instead of trying to take charge, to take control and
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  Speaker 3: deter the protesters, they just stood by. It was a
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  Speaker 3: very weird time. The eyes of the world were on
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong, of course, because the international media journalists from
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: all around the world had to send it and they
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  Speaker 3: were reporting on what, for many journalists probably looked like
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  Speaker 3: some kind of rerun of the Tieneman Square protests and
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  Speaker 3: subsequent massacre there So, the protesters were portrayed very misleadingly
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  Speaker 3: as these peaceful young students and the like who just
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  Speaker 3: wanted to see democracy in Hong Kong. From what we
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  Speaker 3: could see, nothing could be further from the truth. Many
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  Speaker 3: of the young protesters, no doubt had that in mind,
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  Speaker 3: but there were these hardliners who appeared hell bet on,
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  Speaker 3: wanting to constructure and violence.
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  Speaker 1: Beijing's been tightening the screws ever since. In twenty twenty,
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  Speaker 1: a law was introduced after those protests which criminalized a
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  Speaker 1: lot of forms of dissent which had previously been allowed
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  Speaker 1: or tolerated. Jimmy Lai, who was found guilty of colluding
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  Speaker 1: with foreign forces that relates to conversations he was accused
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  Speaker 1: of having with American figures, including the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the former Vice President Mike Pence, and a national security advisor,
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  Speaker 1: John Bolton. He was also convicted of sedition offenses related
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  Speaker 1: to things that had been published in his newspaper, Apple Daily.
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  Speaker 1: To what extent do you think the violence of those
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine protests kind of precipitated that tougher or accelerated
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  Speaker 1: crackdown by Beijing.
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  Speaker 3: The Chinese have an expression, killed the chicken to scare
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  Speaker 3: the monkeys. In Cantaday's It's sut Guy Gang how Jimmy Lai,
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  Speaker 3: the internationally round publisher, Hong Kong billionaire and success story
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  Speaker 3: he is the chicken in this Chinese expression, and prosecuting
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  Speaker 3: him it meant that the Chinese would be able to
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  Speaker 3: set a very powerful public example to the people of
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong that acts of what the Chinese government would
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  Speaker 3: regard as sedition and subversion would not be tolerated. Jimmy
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  Speaker 3: Lai and his Apple Daily had undoubtedly gone further than
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  Speaker 3: any other Chinese media in the way that the Chinese
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  Speaker 3: Communist Party and its leaders were depicted. He was an outlier.
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  Speaker 3: His newspaper was the most popular in Hong Kong by
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  Speaker 3: a very big margin, and Apple Daily was the most aggressive,
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  Speaker 3: and with his high level political meetings in the United States.
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  Speaker 3: With many of the stories that were published by Apple Daily,
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  Speaker 3: he was perceived by Beijing as a Hong Konger actively
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  Speaker 3: colluding with China's enemies for the overthrow of the national government.
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  Speaker 3: Beijing believed that Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai and their
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  Speaker 3: journalism were undermining his rule and were fueling and encouraging
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  Speaker 3: these protests of twenty nineteen and trying to achieve insurrection.
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  Speaker 3: The leadership in Beijing believed that he was being supported
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  Speaker 3: by foreign forces, probably Taiwan and part of the United States.
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  Speaker 3: The CIA was suspected too. Now I haven't seen any
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  Speaker 3: evidence of that. Doesn't mean that it wasn't occurring. We
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  Speaker 3: don't know whether the Chinese ever uncovered any evidence of it,
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  Speaker 3: but that was certainly a belief that was rife at
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  Speaker 3: the highest levels.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up more of my conversation with Headley Thomas, Jimmy
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  Speaker 1: Lai is a big name in Hong Kong. He was
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  Speaker 1: born on the mainland, but fled to Hong Kong as
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  Speaker 1: here just as the Communist Party took power, and rose
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  Speaker 1: from a factory worker to a wealthy fashion entrepreneur. He
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  Speaker 1: founded the label Giordano and became hugely successful. This is
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  Speaker 1: lie In twenty twenty after his arrest, speaking to America's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: ABC News, I.
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  Speaker 5: Came here with one Dora, escaped from China when I
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  Speaker 5: was twelve. The priest gave me every fit. My reward
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  Speaker 5: is the feedback. It's my redemption.
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  Speaker 1: You and I talk about journalism a lot. Headley, and
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  Speaker 1: you really believe in free speech. You've won two gold
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  Speaker 1: Walkley's four stories that have really taken it to government
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  Speaker 1: or to prosecutors. What do you think about Jimmy Lai's
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  Speaker 1: case just as a journalist.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really tough unclear because the penalty that
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: has been inflicted upon Jimmy Lai is crushing. He's likely
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: to die behind bars. He was a very influential and popular,
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  Speaker 3: much loved publisher who did great things through a lot
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  Speaker 3: of the journalism that his publication has produced. But at
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: the same time, I can see how his visceral hatred
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  Speaker 3: of China and of the Chinese Communist Party, and his
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  Speaker 3: belief that Hong Kong could somehow function entirely separately from
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  Speaker 3: China fed into journalism that indeed incited and encouraged very
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: violent protests. Would the twenty nineteen protests have been as
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: destructive and as violent if Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily
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  Speaker 3: had not been encouraging and promoting the protests. That's a
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  Speaker 3: question that the judges in his trial must have grappled with.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know the answer for that, but I think
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  Speaker 3: that it's a genuine question. I think it's one that
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  Speaker 3: many journalists and certainly the overwhelming majority of media outlets
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  Speaker 3: try not to deal with because we're used to free
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  Speaker 3: speech and being able to publish very freely. But wouldn't
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  Speaker 3: we be able to do that even in Australia if
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: in our publications we were inciting people to rise up
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  Speaker 3: to potentially overthrow our own government in a violent way,
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  Speaker 3: not through democracy, but through destruction and through public vandalism
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  Speaker 3: and violence.
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  Speaker 1: You spoke about journals who you knew back in the
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  Speaker 1: late nineties who were already self censoring. How do you
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  Speaker 1: think they will be feeling now that the one country,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: two systems idea doesn't really seem to be working.
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  Speaker 3: Hong Kong didn't have true democracy under British rule before
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  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven. It enjoyed free speech, enjoyed free press
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  Speaker 3: and the rule of law. But there is no doubt
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: that Hong Kong was onece vibrant and fearless. Free press
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: has gone. There's still press criticism of Hong Kong government
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  Speaker 3: failures and policies, but the tone is markedly different now.
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  Speaker 3: It's more muted. Journalists consciously and subconsciously self censoring, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I think that the intensity of the questioning by journalists
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  Speaker 3: of the Hong Kong government is a thing of the past.
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  Speaker 3: The media has been emasculated. It is no longer fearless.
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  Speaker 3: The National Security Law introduced in twenty twenty means people
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: are treading carefully. I think that outcome was always an inevitability,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: how long it would take for that to occur after
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety seven handover, Well, we didn't know. As
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: it turned out, Hong Kong had a high degree of
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  Speaker 3: autonomy and freedom for longer than some of the pessimists expected.
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  Speaker 3: But then with the demonstrations came a crushing crackdown and
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: new laws with which Beijing signaled this is not going
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  Speaker 3: to happen again. You are not going to trash this
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  Speaker 3: incredible city, this financial center, and embarrass us on the
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  Speaker 3: world stage with these extremes of public destruction and violence.
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  Speaker 3: And so there's another really interesting question that arises from that.
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  Speaker 3: Would there have been any need for a national security
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  Speaker 3: law with all of the screw tightening that came with
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  Speaker 3: that if it had not been for the incredibly destructive,
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  Speaker 3: futile protests that damaged thousands of businesses, that destroyed Hong
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Kong's economy for some time, ruined tourism mark, it contributed
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  Speaker 3: to a multi year decline in property prices. Would any
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  Speaker 3: of it have happened but for those protests, which achieved
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  Speaker 3: absolutely nothing. It's a terrible shame, because Hong Kong may
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: have got another decade of relative freedoms as a result.
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  Speaker 3: If it hadn't been for what happened in twenty nineteen,
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  Speaker 3: and for true believers like Jimmy Laie, it's a personal tragedy.
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  Speaker 3: Jimmy Laie could have left Hong Kong pretty much any
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: time until his arrest in twenty twenty. There were no
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: restrictions on his movements. He's a British citizen. He's a
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: very wealthy man. He owns properties around the world. He
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: could have gone. Perhaps he realized that there was a
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: high risk he would be arrested, charged and prosecuted, and
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  Speaker 3: a risk he was prepared to take because he's so
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  Speaker 3: believed in his cause.
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  Speaker 1: Edley Thomas, thank you very much. Thank you.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Claire Hilly.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas is The Australian's national Chief correspondent. You can find
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: his latest podcast, Sick to Death, which is an investigation
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: into a killer surgeon, right now at Sick todeathpodcast dot
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: com and wherever you're listening. Plus check out all our
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: reporting of the Rolling Hong Kong story anytime at The
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au.