Here's the opening act for 2026: Jimmy Lai faces sentencing, and right on cue, his daughter delivers a tearful BBC performance claiming her father is dying. She rattles off a dramatic list of supposedly terminal symptoms, blowing minor ailments wildly out of proportion. The most ridiculous fabrication to kick off the new year.
Throughout last year's trial, she and her brother Sebastien Lai fed the same tale to American and British outlets, banking on the old adage that repeat a lie enough times and it becomes truth. But their shabby playbook won't work this time. Authorities have rolled out hard evidence again and again, systematically demolishing their clumsy deception. Here's the irony: people who know Lai well say his health risks ran sky-high before prison—he could have collapsed any moment. Behind bars? Those risks plummeted.
Jimmy Lai's daughter claims to BBC he's "near death" with critical symptoms – all wildly exaggerated. This year's most ridiculous lie yet.
Jimmy Lai's conviction is final. Sentencing looms. The US and UK governments issue statements but take no action. His chances of walking free hover near zero. Yet his children refuse to quit. Their last card? Fabricate stories about their father's severe illness, hoping to manipulate foreign media into sympathy and manufacture public pressure. On New Year's Day, his daughter Claire Lai sat down with the BBC, tears flowing, painting a picture of extreme deterioration. Her "near-death" symptom checklist: grey-green fingernails falling off, rotting teeth, sudden heart problems he never had, weight loss, and lower back pain so severe he can barely stand. She catalogued every conceivable ailment to prove he's gravely ill and approaching the end.
They've recycled this performance repeatedly for foreign outlets—The Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, The Independent, and Nikkei Asian Review, etc. Jimmy Lai's international legal team amplifies the chorus, releasing a solemn "research report" on Lai's grave condition and going so far as to rush it to the United Nations. The theatrics are complete.
Evidence Crushes Fiction
The "health problems" Jimmy Lai's children trumpet are either grotesquely exaggerated or outright invented—utterly absurd. The Hong Kong government has systematically refuted each claim with concrete evidence. And Lai's recent court appearance to hear the verdict, where he displayed no abnormalities whatsoever, demolished their narrative all by itself.
Start with the grey-green, falling fingernails. Yesterday, while condemning the BBC report, the Hong Kong government revealed that Jimmy Lai had mentioned some nail issues to the Correctional Services Department last year. The institution's doctor prescribed ointment. He recovered. Since this minor problem got treated, his fingernails looked rosy and perfectly normal when he appeared in court recently.
I looked up what causes grey-green nails that fall off. Turns out it's just an infection from a type of bacillus. Some housewives and beauticians get this condition. You treat it with ointment and it clears up. Claire Lai presenting this as a symptom of grave illness? It terrifies people who don't know better and makes those who do burst out laughing.
Falling nails, rotted teeth? Just minor ailments already treated. Yet his children cry "near death" – laughably absurd.
As for rotting teeth, it's more surprising if someone doesn't have bad teeth at 78. The government stated that Jimmy Lai requested dental care in 2021 and 2022. The dentist treated him. No problems since. He hasn't raised any further requests. Claire Lai has inflated her father's dental issues by a factor of N, lying without batting an eye.
Medical Tests Expose the Truth
During the trial in August last year, Jimmy Lai told the Correctional Services Department he experienced rapid heartbeat and palpitations. These are normal reactions to anxiety and tension. But the department didn't take chances. The Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre medical team conducted blood tests and electrocardiograms. They found nothing wrong. As a precaution, the team recommended he wear a Holter monitor. He initially refused but later agreed. Since then? No abnormalities detected. His heart is healthy.
Regarding Claire Lai's claim that her father has "lower back pain, sometimes even when standing, with difficulty getting up and walking," authorities don't even need medical evidence to refute this. Simply watch him move normally in court—no cane, no assistance required. That proves Claire Lai's claims are false. Even if he does have some backache, it's utterly common at his age.
Now consider the weight loss. Jimmy Lai's nickname is "Fat Lai." He's been overweight for years. Losing weight after imprisonment isn't just normal—it's a sign of improvement. The Correctional Services Department takes his physical condition seriously, conducting regular examinations. They certainly wouldn't let him balloon up or waste away.
Prison Actually Saved His Health
A friend who knows Jimmy Lai well told me his lifestyle before imprisonment was extremely "indulgent." He chronically overate and drank, ignoring his diabetes and obesity, still gorging on braised pork belly. His health risks ran sky-high. If that continued, his body would certainly face serious problems. In contrast, after imprisonment, his risks have dropped dramatically thanks to normal diet and regular routine.
Claire Lai keeps "making empty boasts." Western media and politicians continue treating fiction as fact, even though they know she's deceiving them. But even so, this cannot change the final outcome fast approaching for Jimmy Lai.
Lai Ting-yiu
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The most consequential national security trial yet to come is also the one with the most unanswered questions — and at the centre of it is a man who almost made it out.
Monday (Feb 23) was "Renri" (人日) — the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, meant to be a day of celebration for all people. But for the 12 defendants in the "35+ Subversion Case," there was nothing to celebrate. The Court of Appeal dismissed all their appeals against both conviction and sentencing in full. Unless they push it all the way to the Court of Final Appeal, this case is done. That brings two of the three major national security cases to a close — the other being the Jimmy Lai trial. What remains is the Joshua Wong case, expected to go to trial around mid-year. Like Lai's, it reaches into the highest levels of American politics, and it will almost certainly expose a trove of behind-the-scenes dealings that will shake Hong Kong to its core. The trial is close enough that the details don't need spelling out here. But one mystery absolutely does: Wong was once Washington's darling — so why did he never make it out, while his co-conspirator Nathan Law did? An investigative report by American journalists cracked open the story.
Wong's trial is the last big national security case standing — and the most explosive one yet. How did he never make it out?
Wong's role in the Occupy Central movement and the 2019 unrest needs no introduction. In June last year, while already serving a prison term at Stanley Prison on sedition charges, he was arrested again and charged under the Hong Kong National Security Law with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security. His second pre-trial review at the Magistrates' Court came on 21 November last year, with the next hearing set for 6 March; the full trial at the High Court is expected to begin around mid-year. This case carries weight every bit as significant as the Jimmy Lai trial — the spotlight it commands will be enormous.
The Charges Are Grave
The prosecution alleges that between July and November 2020, Wong — together with Nathan Law and others yet to be identified — conspired in Hong Kong to solicit foreign governments and institutions to impose sanctions against the Hong Kong SAR and the People's Republic of China, and to seriously obstruct the government in enacting and enforcing its laws and policies. The charges carry a potential sentence of life imprisonment. What exactly Wong and Law did, and which foreign officials were involved, the prosecution will lay out in full when the trial begins.
The public has long asked some uncomfortable questions. Did Joshua Wong ever consider fleeing before or after the National Security Law came into force at the end of June 2020? If so, why did it never happen? Did the US government try to help him get out? An investigative report by two American journalists answered part of the puzzle — and sources familiar with the matter, when contacted by Hong Kong media, broadly confirmed what it said.
Wong Begged Washington for Help
The night before the National Security Law took effect, Wong reached out through a senator's adviser to appeal directly to President Trump for help. At the same time, he sent an email to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, explicitly asking to be helped to "travel to the United States to seek political asylum, by whatever means necessary". That email tells you everything. Wong knew exactly how dangerous his situation had become — and he was betting his future on American goodwill.
Around the same time, Wong arranged to meet two officials from the US Consulate General in Hong Kong at St. John's Building, directly across the street from the consulate. He made clear he wanted to walk in and seek refuge. He was turned away on the spot. When Pompeo saw the email, he consulted with his staff and arrived at the same conclusion: letting Wong through the consulate doors was simply not an option — Washington feared Beijing would retaliate by forcing the US consulate in Hong Kong to close entirely.
State Department officials went further, exploring a covert plan to smuggle Wong out of Hong Kong by sea — routing him through Taiwan or the Philippines before eventually reaching the United States. That option was killed too, on the grounds that any such attempt would very likely be intercepted by Chinese authorities, triggering a diplomatic crisis. When the accounting was done, American interests won out — and Joshua Wong was coldly abandoned.
By that point, Nathan Law had already made it out. Seizing Pompeo's visit to London, Law met the Secretary of State privately and raised the question of rescuing Wong one more time — and was once again turned away without sympathy. In September 2020, Wong was arrested on sedition charges and imprisoned two months later. Any remaining window for escape had sealed shut.
Law Moved Fast — and Made It
Nathan Law is named as a co-conspirator in the charges against Wong — meaning that if arrested, they face the same jeopardy. But Law proved far more calculating than Wong. Shortly before the National Security Law took effect, he quietly slipped away, eventually confirming his presence in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2020. He even staged a moment of wistful sentiment, declaring: "With this parting, I do not yet know when I shall return... May glory come soon!" — words that, in the circumstances, could not have sounded more hollow.
Same charges, same case — but Law ran, and Wong didn't. One man made it out clean. The other is still paying the price.
Joshua Wong — sharp-witted all his life — took one step too many in trusting the Americans, and that delay cost him everything. The US government, in the name of "national interest," discarded him without hesitation. As his trial approaches, the reality is this: placing any further faith in American support would be the last illusion he can afford.
Lai Ting-yiu
