Trump hunts for weak prey and plays fast and loose with rules. Influencer “Chairman Tu” (兔主席) lays out Trump’s playbook in "A Nation Torn Apart" (《撕裂之國》): Trump picks on soft persimmons and he has no respect for the law. The US President thrives on behavior that looks downright criminal.
Put those together, and Trump’s latest “kidnapping” of Nicolás Maduro reads like a textbook case of bullying-by-banditry, with a small country openly plundered. That’s American imperialism with the mask ripped off.
Here’s the twist: even with public anger boiling, a few people rush in with gold paint. Wanted fugitive Nathan Law tries to dress up “bandit tactics” as acceptable because, he says, “ending dictatorship” is what really counts.
Nathan Law’s post puts gold trim on Trump’s “Maduro abduction,” making an invasion look cleaner than it is.
Chip Tsao goes even bigger. He argues that without imperialism and colonialism, there would be no modern human civilization. He then hails Trump’s capture of Maduro, along with threats aimed at Colombia and Greenland, as the dawn of a “new era of 21st-century imperialism”. No wonder viewers feel like they’re watching black turned into white right in front of them.
Law’s argument lands fast after Trump’s hard-handed “Maduro snatch.” In a social media post, he says the US military action against Venezuela serves US national security and energy needs, boosts the “defender of democracy” storyline, and also weakens China’s allies while striking at socialist dictators.
With his “Revolution of Our Times” pedigree, it’s no surprise he claps the loudest for the most extreme scenes. He insists that toppling a dictatorship lets long-oppressed citizens “recover hope” and perhaps one day draft a democratic blueprint, so pro-democracy supporters ought to welcome the outcome. The spin is so saccharine it turns Trump into Venezuela’s “saviour,” pretending freedom arrives as a gift basket—delivered by abduction.
Goals don’t cleanse methods
Law then tries to police the language. He tells critics not to quickly label the operation “American imperialism,” and instead to appreciate the “diverse and complex” political motives behind it; translation: if the “goal” sounds upright and reasonable, don’t simplify it into condemnation. Strip it down, and it’s still a defense brief for Trump and his administration.
None of this is exactly shocking if you remember Law’s own US storyline. Around 2019, he and opposition representatives visit the US repeatedly, meet Washington politicians, and get treated like honored guests—deeply grateful for American backing of the “Hong Kong protests.” So now he naturally frames Trump’s move as saving the Venezuelan people, no longer fussing over how ugly the action looks.
None of Tsao’s applause is shocking either: this is exactly his lane. He celebrates Trump’s Maduro stunt and the wider saber-rattling as the launch of a fresh, triumphant imperial era. Then he tops it off with that “imperialism built civilisation” argument, laundering colonialism’s crimes and polishing Trump into Venezuela’s supposed benefactor. It’s creepily adoring, and hard to read without shivering.
Chip Tsao cheers Trump as the man “opening a new era” of 21st-century imperialism.
The mask comes off
Trump isn’t merely “gaffe-prone” this time—he tears the mask clean off. It’s a barefaced assault on Venezuela: snatch people, seize oil (and pocket the money, too). Anyone still clinging to basic morality and justice will see him for what he is: an enemy. Which makes it all the more grotesque that figures like Nathan Law and Chip Tsao can keep marketing him as a “saviour.”
Still, there’s one silver lining: the debate made the masks slip. One round was enough to reveal who was really who.
Lai Ting-yiu
What Say You?
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
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
