When a Hong Kong court convicted Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai for conspiring to collude with foreign forces, the reactions from Washington and London couldn't have been more different.
Trump went sentimental. At a White House event on December 15, the US president expressed sadness over Lai's conviction. "I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked (him) to consider his release. He's not well; he's an older man, and he's not well. So I did put that request out. We'll see what happens," Trump said. He mentioned discussing the matter with President Xi but didn't specify when.
Note what Trump didn't do. He didn't attack the trial process. He didn't condemn the Hong Kong National Security Law. His entire pitch boiled down to: "The guy's old now. Show some mercy and let him walk."
This is the same Trump who launched a trade war with China back in 2018. The same leader who, during the peak of the 2019 black riot, had Vice President Mike Pence meet with Lai, prompting him to become a pawn in the US-China struggle. Six years later, everything's changed. A trade deal is done. China has eased restrictions on rare earth exports to the US and Trump wants to visit China next April. The last thing he needs is to offend Beijing. Jimmy Lai, bluntly put, has become America's discarded chess piece.
London's Theatrical Toughness
The UK, by contrast, struck a firmer tone—at least on the surface. Labour's Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper took center stage. In Parliament, she announced that the Foreign Office, acting on her instructions, had summoned Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang to convey the UK's position "in the strongest terms." Cooper pointed out that Lai holds British citizenship and was being persecuted for peacefully exercising his right to free speech. She called the prosecution politically motivated and demanded his immediate release.
China hit back hard. Ambassador Zheng met with senior UK Foreign Office officials to lodge a serious protest over Britain's criticism of the Hong Kong court verdict. He urged the UK to abandon its colonial mindset, stop interfering in Hong Kong's judiciary and China's internal affairs, and cease shielding anti-China elements destabilizing Hong Kong.
Zheng made it clear: the UK's attempts at interference would only expose its malicious intent to disrupt Hong Kong—and would ultimately end in failure. He emphasized that Lai was a primary mastermind and participant in a series of anti-China riots, far from the "peaceful" exercise of free speech the British claimed.
But here's where the UK's "toughness" reveals itself as pure theater. When British MPs pressed Cooper on whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer would cancel his potential January visit to China, sanction Hong Kong officials, or place China alongside Russia and Iran in the "enhanced tier" of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, she dodged every question. She claimed that maintaining engagement with China is vital—that only through such contact can the UK directly express its strong position on specific issues.
Watch the Labour government perform, and the pattern becomes clear: loud words, soft actions. They don't want to damage Sino-British relations. They want to keep doing business with China. If Trump is a "true rogue" who openly treats Lai as a discarded pawn, the UK is a "hypocrite"—supporting Lai verbally while backing off in practice, effectively discarding him all the same.
When Britain Tramples Freedom
The UK loves to preach about freedom. But a recent news story exposes exactly how Britain tramples on the very freedoms it claims to champion. After the Russia-Ukraine war erupted in 2022, the UK followed US instructions to impose various sanctions on Russia—including the seizure of assets belonging to so-called Russian oligarchs. One prime target: Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.
The British government forcibly placed Chelsea under trusteeship and barred Abramovich from entering the country. American businessman Todd Boehly then purchased the club for £2.5 billion. But the UK government seized those funds and failed to return the proceeds to Abramovich. Recently, The Guardian reported that the UK government issued a formal ultimatum to Abramovich, demanding he transfer the £2.5 billion to a fund supporting Ukraine—or face prosecution.
Think about what happened to these wealthy Russians who moved to the UK years ago. They've become losers. Had they maintained good relations with Putin and kept their assets in Russia instead of moving them to the UK, their wealth would be safe. But once war broke out, the UK lashed out, seizing the assets of these oligarchs based on vague allegations of "close ties to Putin"—without producing concrete evidence.
The Kleptocracy Hunters
The UK government even established a new team within the National Crime Agency with the dramatic code name "K-Cell." The "K" stands for kleptocracy—a system where rulers use power to steal national resources. The K-Cell's mission: make life difficult for sanctioned Russian oligarchs and confiscate their assets.
Vladimir Putin is watching the West’s asset-grabbing spree with a smirk. During his 2023 State of the Nation address, he highlighted how the Western "safe haven" for capital turned out to be a total mirage, leaving Russian elites who ignored his warnings to get robbed of even their legitimate money. He mocked these businesspeople for making themselves sick "running from courtroom to courtroom" in the West trying to save their wealth—exactly as he predicted. For Putin, it’s a simple lesson: the West isn’t a partner; it’s a predator.
Back in 1941, on the eve of war with Japan, US President Roosevelt delivered his famous speech on the Four Freedoms, including "Freedom from Fear." At the national level, this means security from foreign aggression. At the individual level, it means not living in terror.
The UK's arbitrary seizure of investor assets has plunged investors into a state of immense fear. Paraphrasing Cooper's criticism of Hong Kong: these Russians were merely exercising their rights to invest and own private property in a capitalist society, yet they faced persecution by the British government. We could just as easily call on the UK to immediately lift sanctions on these Russian businessmen and return the £2.5 billion to Abramovich.
This incident perfectly exposes British hypocrisy. Sometimes, a hypocrite is far more loathsome than a blatant rogue.
Lo Wing-hung
Bastille Commentary
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
Visible justice, on the record. Lord Chief Justice Hewart’s line — “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done” (R v Sussex Justices, Ex parte McCarthy) — isn’t a slogan; it’s a standard you can verify by watching the process and reading the reasons. In the Jimmy Lai trial, Hong Kong’s court put that “visible rule of law” principle on full display.
After a 156-day trial, the court delivered its verdict today (December 15). A three-judge panel — Esther Toh, D’Almada Remedios, and Alex Lee Wan-tang — unanimously convicted Jimmy Lai on three counts: one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications” and two counts under the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) of “conspiracy to collude with foreign or external forces.” The court’s ruling is described as the first conviction for collusion-conspiracy offence in Hong Kong.
The court had to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Lai committed sedition and colluded with foreign forces. And because the NSL took effect on June 30, 2020 — with laws not applying retroactively — prosecutors also had to prove the alleged collusion continued after that date, not just before it.
The presiding judges’ reasons point to two make-or-break findings that carried the convictions.
Credibility Verdict: Lai Fails
First pillar: Lai wasn’t credible. The court’s first core finding was blunt: his testimony didn’t withstand scrutiny.
In the judgment, the judges said Lai’s evidence was “evasive, incredible and unreliable”, as well as “riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions, evasiveness, and unworthy of belief,”and that the court rejected it. In plain terms, the court treated him as a witness that it could not rely on.
The prosecution’s key witnesses were six accomplice witnesses, including four Apple Daily senior executives at the relevant time: Cheung Kim-hung, Chan Pui-man, Yeung Ching-kee, and Chow Tat-kuen. They testified that Lai closely managed and personally directed Apple Daily’s editorial line; Yeung, who oversaw editorials and the forum section, said they had only “birdcage autonomy,” and that he wrote and selected content guided by Lai’s views. Multiple witnesses also described “lunchbox meetings” where Lai conveyed his political positions to senior staff — evidence the court used to frame Lai not as a publisher respecting editorial independence, but as someone driving agitation through a propaganda apparatus.
The remaining two accomplice witnesses were Chan Tsz-wah and Andy Li Yu-hin. Chan testified that in 2019 he tried to help Li seek financial support for the “G20” team’s international publicity campaign — a campaign described in evidence as aimed at urging foreign countries to apply political pressure on China and the HKSAR.
The judgment records that each accomplice witness faced deep cross-examination, yet the court found that this did not damage any of their credibility. The court hence deemed all six to be “honest and reliable” witnesses, and accepted what they said in evidence as truethei.
Collusion Persisted Post-NSL
Second pillar: offending continued after the NSL took effect.
The court ruled there was ample evidence that after the NSL took effect, Lai continued expressing an anti-China stance and kept engaging in activities requesting foreign states to impose sanctions, blockades, or other hostile actions. The key nuance in the judgment is that the court said Lai shifted tactics — more indirect, more subtle, less openly inflammatory — and that this could be seen in Apple Daily editorials and forum articles, as well as Lai’s own columns, posts, and programmes.
On that evidence, the court found that before the NSL, Lai requested foreign countries — especially the US — to impose sanctions and blockades on China and the HKSAR, and that he did not stop after the law took effect. Even if the messaging became subtle and obscure, the court found the intent remained while Lai continued with relevant activities, and convicted him of colluding with foreign or external forces.
Sentencing still to come. With the trial verdict delivered, the court will next hear mitigation from the defendants before imposing sentence. Under Article 29 of the NSL, serious collusion with foreign or external forces carries life imprisonment or a term of 10 years or more.
Looking back at the investigation, you can see a clear turning point: after the events, Chan Tsz-wah and Li Yu-hin attempted to flee, were intercepted and repatriated to Hong Kong, and then agreed to testify as accomplice witnesses; the four Apple Daily executives did the same. Because the alleged collusion was conducted covertly, the prosecution initially faced obvious evidence-gathering difficulty — and the accomplice testimony helped build a complete chain of evidence.
West's Meddling Backfires
Zoom out and the bigger point is procedural: the court did not rush this case. It ran 156 trial days, heard witnesses from both sides in detail, and allowed meticulous cross-examination — making credibility, truthfulness, and contradiction something the public could observe. That is the “visible rule of law” claim in practice: defendants’ rights protected, process followed, and guilt found only after the court said it was proven beyond reasonable doubt.
The political pressure campaign and repeated US and Western interference, however, ran alongside the trial. Ahead of the hearing, some US lawmakers proposed bills urging the White House to sanction HKSAR officials, prosecutors, and judges.
During the proceedings, members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee made fact-distorting comments, including claims about Lai’s detention arrangements; and the “2025 Annual Report” by the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is cited as further smearing Hong Kong’s law enforcement, prosecution, and judiciary to pile on pressure.
Washington’s fingerprints are obvious. The case concerns Lai colluding with the US and other foreign forces to endanger national security; and the US politicians commenting and pressuring are themselves implicated as parties to that foreign collusion. On this telling, the intent behind the commentary is not mere “human rights concern,” but an attempt to obstruct Hong Kong’s judicial fairness.
The US and its allies punish their own national-security cases harshly, but lecture Hong Kong when it prosecutes similar conduct. Just look at the US court’s 22-year sentence for Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader, over the 2021 Capitol riot, an example of how harsh Washington can be toward those it says incited disorder.
The guilty verdict is the warning shot: collusion with foreign forces and betrayal of the nation does not end well.
Lo Wing-hung
