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. **
"When meat rots, maggots appear; when fish dries, worms breed; when one grows complacent and forgets oneself, disaster follows." These words from Xunzi's chapter "Encouraging Learning" could not be more apt as a description of America's Epstein scandal. No one could have imagined that the American system had decayed to such a degree.
During the recent Winter Olympics, Western reporters pressed Eileen Gu – who competed for China – for her views on the Jimmy Lai case and the so-called Xinjiang genocide. When she declined to comment, she was savaged by American television hosts. The irony is glaring: Americans fixate on an alleged Xinjiang genocide that exists only in fiction, yet turn a blind eye to the Epstein scandal erupting right before their eyes. Why did no reporter press Eileen Gu for her views on the Epstein case?
Former Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom has finally been arrested. The British royal family had long known of Andrew's criminal involvement in the Epstein affairs, yet only distanced themselves from him in October last year – and the government has only now taken action. How remarkably swift. Had they acted with the same urgency they showed over the Jimmy Lai case, Prince Andrew would surely be behind bars already. The ancient saying – "the law does not reach the privileged; propriety does not extend to the common folk" – finds yet another confirmation in the West.
America has partially declassified over three million pages of documents related to the Epstein case. While the files appear to give the Trump administration some leeway, the contents are already horrifying. The documents implicate sitting and former American presidents, European royalty, business titans, religious leaders, and leading academics – the filth on display is truly beyond description.
We see that Thorbjørn Jagland – former Prime Minister of Norway and former chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee – continued to maintain close ties with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction, to the point where Epstein could effectively influence who received the Nobel Prize. We also see how Larry Summers – former US Treasury Secretary and former president of Harvard University – discussed with Epstein the art of womanising.
Even more shocking is that among those closely associated with Epstein was Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as the father of American linguistics. Long considered a public intellectual – a philosopher who spent his entire life teaching people how to challenge the powerful – Chomsky himself turns out to be one of the very corrupt elites he claimed to oppose. The Dalai Lama is also part of this picture. Given that Western journalists show such keen interest in Xinjiang, one wonders why they show no similar zeal for Tibet – or for relentlessly pursuing the scandal surrounding the Dalai Lama's connections to Epstein.
The shocking secrets unearthed by the Epstein case go far beyond the mere operation of a prostitution ring.
First – Even Worse Crimes
The public's greatest suspicion surrounding the Epstein case is this: while the scandal exposed that Epstein used underage girls for prostitution on his private island – known as "Lolita Island" – those powerful men involved could have easily arranged their own channels had they simply wanted to pay for sex. There was no need for such elaborate orchestration.
According to a source who was incarcerated alongside Epstein in the United States, what truly drew America's powerful elites to Epstein was not his sex operation, but his promise of eternal youth. While stem cell therapies have long been banned in America, academic research had apparently shown that injections of stem cell extracts could restore youthful vitality. The rumour goes that Epstein arranged for these elites to father children with the girls on the island, then extract stem cells from their own biological offspring and inject them into themselves – since the children shared their DNA, there would be no immune rejection.
This same source also claimed that just days before Epstein's so-called "suicide," he had spoken with Epstein, who was in high spirits with absolutely no signs of suicidal intent – lending weight to the suspicion that Epstein “was suicided."
With this explosive secret now in the open, and with Epstein dead and vast quantities of evidence suppressed by US authorities, the matter has become an unsolvable case.
However, emails released by the US Department of Justice show that Epstein generously funded Harvard University, much of it directed at biological research – including work by renowned genomics pioneer George Church. Church had outlined to Epstein a research programme totalling US$10 million, to be implemented across 10 phases. Among the projects was one called "Supercentenarianstudy.com" (a centenarian research project), alongside research into creating virus-resistant animals through gene editing, reversing the ageing process, and producing "cold-resistant elephants." It is clear that Epstein had an intense interest in age reversal.
If this scheme – harvesting stem cells from the elites' own biological offspring – were true, every powerful individual who participated would have committed murder and numerous other grave crimes. With evidence of their crimes firmly in the hands of Epstein and the network behind him, manipulating these elites would have been effortless.
Second – Who Is Behind It All?
The same source noted that Epstein was no ordinary figure. His girlfriend came from a foreign intelligence family, and the entire Epstein operation was funded by that country. The whole affair was a deliberate setup – a carefully orchestrated operation built around an island offering sex and the promise of eternal youth, designed to lure the Western elite – primarily Americans – into participating, then using evidence of their crimes to control their political behaviour. This explains why in the United States, regardless of whether it is the Democratic or Republican Party, there is invariably a unified and unconditional stance whenever issues relating to that country arise.
Third – The Collapse of a System
In American Hollywood films, we are always presented with a principled hero who risks his life to fight the powerful and ultimately triumphs – a happy ending. Reality, however, is precisely the opposite: the West tells you to stand on principle while having none of its own.
Britain has now arrested former Prince Andrew on a charge of mere "misconduct in public office" – suspected of leaking British trade documents to Epstein. Even for that offence, he could have been charged under the Official Secrets Act, which would have been far more serious. Of course, Virginia Giuffre – the woman who accused the former prince of sexual assault – reached an out-of-court settlement with him in 2020, collecting US$12 million. Although she never took the case to trial, she continued to allege that the former prince had engaged in sexual relations with eight underage girls who could not speak English – a far graver criminal allegation. Last April, 41-year-old Giuffre "died by suicide" in Australia. This brings to mind the case of Princess Diana, who met her end in a car crash amid royal scandal – a death that many still believe was no ordinary accident.
Britain devotes so much energy to meddling in the Jimmy Lai case and Hong Kong's democratic development, when it should really put its own house in order – abolishing its feudal and rotten monarchy before it can claim to be a truly modern state.
As for America's continuing effort to export its own model of democracy worldwide – that is even more laughable. America need not lecture us on how to prevent the next Epstein scandal, because it appears genuinely impossible to prevent under the American system. What America needs to answer is how to prevent the forces behind the Epstein affair from being exploited to manipulate American politicians – and I cannot think of any satisfactory answer it could give. In a system this rotten, no one is ever held accountable.
As the Gospel of Matthew so aptly puts it: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Lo Wing-hung
