Jimmy Lai’s Fortune

A person’s luck or misfortune is always a matter of perspective—without something to measure against, there’s no sense of grievance. That’s the story of Jimmy Lai’s fate.
 
The trial of Jimmy Lai has just wrapped up its closing arguments, and now everyone’s waiting for the judge’s verdict. At the very same time, I stumbled onto a story from America—one that really puts into perspective just how remarkably lucky Jimmy Lai is to be facing justice in Hong Kong.
 
America’s Instant Judgement: Sink Now, Ask Later
 
Let’s start with a chilling episode: On September 2, Trump stood at the White House to announce that the American military had attacked and sunk a drug-carrying boat from Venezuela, killing all 11 people on board. Trump’s words were clear: that was a “drug-carrying boat” and there was “A lot of drugs in that boat”. Later he added on his Truth Social platform: “Let this be a warning to anyone contemplating bringing drugs into the United States. BEWARE!”

Just one declaration from the President of the United States—labeling a Venezuelan boat as filled with drugs—and the US military launched a missile, destroying the boat and killing every soul onboard. If you go by the textbook version of Western democracy, suspected criminals should be arrested, brought before a judge, and have the evidence weighed against them. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, right? But here, a single presidential order turned into a death sentence—no trial, no evidence, just annihilation at sea.

Trump posts video confirming he ordered the sinking of a “drug-carrying boat” of “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists”.

Even in the US, trafficking drugs almost never ends with the death penalty. Federal laws, like the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, restrict the death penalty to the most extreme crimes—typically those where drugs and murder intertwine. Since death penalty reinstatement in 1988, only one person was executed for a drug-connected murder in 2020. There’s never been a modern case of someone executed just for trafficking.

The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution bans “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Supreme Court also held, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, that giving the death penalty for crimes like simple drug trafficking is unconstitutional. In reality: even if a boat packed with drugs was more than enough for a conviction, executing the suspects without trial would be off the table. So, what gave Trump the right to skip the courts and go straight to killing 11, supposedly just on “intelligence”?
 
Applying “Trump Logic”: It Could Have Been Worse
 
Imagine this: By Trump’s logic, if there were an “American Jimmy Lai” who he saw as a severe threat to national security, he could’ve simply duped this guy onto a smuggling boat and obliterated it—no trial, just sunk it at sea with a missile. That’s really terrifying.
 
Compare that to how authorities handled things here: when 12 fugitives—connected to Lai’s case—tried to flee by speedboat, they were briefly sentenced on the mainland before being handed back to Hong Kong for trial. Now that’s how a system built on law and civilization is supposed to look.

Jail in Hong Kong vs. “Crocodile Devil’s Island”
 
Jimmy Lai’s son, Sebastien, and the so-called “international legal team” representing him, have been quick to claim Lai is suffering from poor health, harsh treatment, and solitary confinement—that enduring 40°C heat without AC amounts to torture. But the reality isn’t quite so dramatic—especially if you compare it to America’s way of handling detainees.

Trump (2nd left) and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (1st left) tour “Alligator Alcatraz”, inspecting the iron cages where “illegal immigrants” are detained.

The US built a massive detention facility outside Miami, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” because of its alligator-infested swamps. With 5,000 beds, Trump made sure the world knew it was a place to fear. He and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even did a publicity tour—showing off endless metal bunks inside vast iron cages, purposely designed to humiliate. They paraded through this intimidating compound, emphasizing the cruel environment.

Americans packed detainees—suspected illegal immigrants—into cages, row after row of beds, all to send a public message. Jimmy Lai, by contrast, actually asked for solitary confinement for his own safety—and Hong Kong’s correctional authorities agreed. His family then spun this into claims of “abuse.” Now, if Lai were a Trump critic in America and got thrown in prison, just imagine the “special treatment”: an extra-large super-cage packed with the worst kinds of criminals—murderers, drug lords, and rapists—all crammed together. Would that be “gentle treatment”?
 
Selective Outrage and Convenient Silence
 
Sebastien Lai and his overseas supporters have been lobbying so-called human rights organizations, demanding Lai’s release. But as they protest so loudly for him, where was the outrage for those 11 Venezuelans killed on that boat—executed without any legal process? Are these organizations fine with extrajudicial killings, or are they just so afraid of Trump that they roll over and play lapdog when he’s involved?
 
Bottom line: Jimmy Lai is lucky—standing trial in Hong Kong within a transparent legal system, he’s already far better off than many people elsewhere in the world.

Lo Wing-hung

Bastille Commentary

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

“People are blessed and don’t know it” sounds like a cliché, but truly grasping it is anything but easy.

China’s Victory Day parade rolled out world‑leading new weapons that left foreign political and military circles stunned, and it stirred pride across China too. Yet next to one young Iraqi’s reaction, that pride felt almost restrained.

Tears on Tiananmen

He’s in his twenties and his Arabic name is Amin Obadi, but Chinese audiences know him as Fang Haoming, a Beijing‑based correspondent for Chinese Arabic TV who took a Chinese name.

  

Cameras caught him covering his face in tears as the parade concluded, and when interviewed afterward he admitted he was overwhelmed, saying he couldn’t calm down for a long time and that once the doves and balloons were released, he just couldn’t stop crying.

  

He added that he wished the Middle East could finally find peace — He especially hope people in the Middle East can live like the Chinese do.

If his own country had such military armament, he said, it wouldn’t be living under the shadow of war. And with China inviting so many partners to co‑develop, he hoped the world could become one family — just like the slogan on Tiananmen proclaims: “Long live the great unity of the world’s peoples.”

The Contrast of Peace and War

The Middle East he comes from is still riven by conflict today, and Iraq — invaded by the US in 2003, which toppled Saddam Hussein — never truly rebuilt in the 14 years that followed despite elections and a sustained American military presence.

His words inevitably summon memories of China more than a century ago, when in 1894 the Qing fought Japan with modern German‑built battleships like Dingyuan and Zhenyuan — only to see them sunk soon after hostilities began and to suffer a crushing defeat that forced the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki.

Who would have imagined that a century on, China would develop military capabilities that shock the world — not only far outpacing Japan, but formidable enough to counter the United States — such that if conflict erupted tomorrow in the Asia‑Pacific, it’s hard to envision America winning.

Stability Before Strength

China carved this path through brambles and hardship, and the crucial ingredient was political stability and a sound environment that allowed over four decades since 1978 to focus relentlessly on economic development — the long road to prosperity and strength.

At the parade, some fellow attendees from industry shared hard‑earned lessons about investing overseas: for lagging regions, the West once dangled preferential tariffs, and with low labor and production costs, manufacturers were lured to build plants.

But as one seasoned industrialist put it, overseas investment boils down to the “PEST” equation: P for political stability, E for economic conditions, S for social conditions, and T for industrial technology — and P trumps everything, because without stability, nothing else matters.

When Instability Burns Capital

Building a factory in a developing country easily means pouring in hundreds of millions to construct facilities and buy machinery, and only after a decade of operation — once the equipment has fully depreciated — can the investment be counted as a win.

The catch is obvious: if turmoil erupts three to five years in, the whole bet can go up in smoke.

Several industrialists pointed to Madagascar: a decade or two ago, many firms built plants there, but after the large‑scale unrest in 2009, long‑term political turbulence took hold — a HKD 300 million‑level investment was wiped out, the factory shut, and even the machinery couldn’t be recovered.

Many, having swallowed a Western narrative, judge development chiefly by “democracy and freedom,” but too often that’s just a tool to prop up pro‑US regimes, and importing such systems doesn’t guarantee long‑term political stability.

Once politics destabilize, investments vanish, scars remain, and capital doesn’t come back — as seen in recent years in Myanmar, where half the country has fallen into rebel hands and factory investors have taken painful losses.

The Air We Breathe

Political stability is like air — invisible when present, suffocating by its absence — and it brings to mind Warren Buffett’s blunt reminder at his May shareholder meeting. Asked by a Shanghainese attendee how to face setbacks, he said: “You were born in the best era China has seen in a thousand years; you waited in the womb for thousands of years and were born today — how lucky you are; don’t dwell on the bad, focus on the beauty of life.”

For Chinese born today, that good fortune is real.

Lo Wing‑hung