Why the Wall Street Journal Cares So Much about the Jimmy Lai Case

Ng Hiuying

The conviction and sentencing of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying for conspiring to collude with foreign forces under Hong Kong’s National Security Law has drawn sustained international attention. Much of that attention has focused on Lai himself and on Apple Daily, the now-defunct newspaper he founded. Far less scrutiny, however, has been directed at the role of another media institution that has followed the case with striking persistence: The Wall Street Journal.

A review of the Journal’s coverage over the past year shows dozens of articles related to Lai, a substantial proportion of which are editorials or opinion pieces rather than straight news reporting. In both volume and continuity, this level of engagement exceeds that of most other major Western media outlets. The question, therefore, is not whether the case is newsworthy, but why this particular newspaper appears so invested in it.

The reasons become clearer when one examines the factual findings set out in the trial judgment.

An Unusually Dense Web of Personal Connections

In the court’s Reasons for Verdict, a document running to more than 800 pages, the term “Wall Street Journal” appears over 40 times. More importantly, Lai himself admitted in evidence that he had been “very close” to the Wall Street Journal people.

The judgment establishes that several key intermediaries who facilitated Lai’s contacts with senior US officials had professional ties to the Wall Street Journal. Mary Kissel and Matt Pottinger, both former editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, later entered the highest levels of the US policy apparatus. In 2019, Kissel served as an aide to then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Pottinger was the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Another figure, David Feith —the Wall Street Journal’s former employee who later worked at the US State Department — was found to have conveyed advance information to Lai’s aide regarding Washington’s intention to revoke Hong Kong’s special status.

These connections were not incidental. They functioned as channels through which Lai gained access to figures such as Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and other senior policymakers. In this sense, a shared professional background in the Journal’s opinion pages formed part of what might be described as the “lubricant” of Lai’s foreign lobbying activities.

The Journal as a Platform for Strategic Messaging

The judgment further records that in June 2019, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz suggested that Lai publish articles in major Western outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, to draw the attention of the White House to Hong Kong issues.

Crucially, the drafting of one such article was guided by Bill McGurn, Lai’s godfather and a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, who had previously served as President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter. In an August 2019 draft sent by Lai to McGurn, Lai argued that the United States “must confront China, not appease it,” and urged measures including visa sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials’ families, international condemnation of China’s religious persecution, and the establishment of a congressional panel to “monitor Beijing’s adherence to Hong Kong’s basic law”.

This article, the court found, set the tone for Lai’s subsequent public messaging — in newspaper columns, social media posts, and online broadcasts. It functioned as a kind of manifesto. Subsequent events confirmed its impact: Lai was informed on 25 February 2020 that his Wall Street Journal article published days earlier, “China’s Facade of Stability,” had been well received by Pence and his senior aides, who were anxious to see Lai when here, and discuss, among other things, Hong Kong’s forthcoming election.

If Apple Daily served as Lai’s domestic platform, the Wall Street Journal operated as his principal international outlet — an external-facing channel aimed at Western governments and audiences. This division of labour, as the evidence suggests, was strategic rather than accidental.

After Arrest: From Reporting to Advocacy

Following Lai’s arrest and subsequent conviction, the Wall Street Journal adopted an overtly supportive editorial posture. Beyond reporting on procedural developments, it repeatedly issued editorials and opinion columns passing value judgments on Hong Kong’s judiciary and on the case itself.

These pieces rarely engaged with the detailed factual findings of the court. Instead, they tended to subsume the criminal proceedings into a broader narrative of “political persecution”, “press freedom”, and “human rights crisis”. One editorial notoriously characterised Lai’s 20-year sentence as a “death sentence”, while others employed terms such as “China abuse Jimmy Lai” and “the Communists torture Jimmy Lai” to describe the legal process.

Given McGurn’s senior role within the Journal and his personal relationship with Lai, it is not unreasonable to infer that many of these editorials were shaped, if not authored, by him. Whatever the case, the tone and framing of the coverage suggest something closer to an advocacy campaign than detached commentary. The invocation of press freedom appears less an abstract defence of principle than an effort to rally support around a long-cultivated political ally.

Understanding the Pattern

Seen in this light, the Wall Street Journal’s intense focus on the Lai case is not simply a matter of journalistic zeal or the defence of universal values. It reflects a convergence of personal networks, long-standing ideological alignment, and concrete political interests — all documented, in substantial part, in the court’s findings.

This context helps explain why the Journal has continued to publish commentary critical of the Hong Kong courts despite repeated official rebuttals from the Hong Kong Government and the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong SAR. For readers, recognizing this background does not require agreement with the verdict. It does, however, suggest the need for caution.

To read the Journal’s editorials on the Lai case without reference to these entanglements is to risk mistaking advocacy for analysis. A more informed assessment requires looking beyond the rhetoric of freedom and examining the specific relationships and actions that the court found, on the evidence, to constitute collusion.

Only then can the debate proceed on a clearer factual footing.

InsightSpeak

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

In February 2026, the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued its final judgment in the case of Jimmy Lai for conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, sentencing him to 20 years’ imprisonment. The proceedings spanned 156 days of public hearings, examined 2,220 pieces of evidence, and culminated in an 855-page judgment. This case is among the most emblematic judicial practices since the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law and exemplifies the rule of law’s normative function.

For a prolonged period, Hong Kong society has experienced normative disarray amid clashing values: illegal acts have been rebranded as “protests,” foreign interference reframed as “international support,” and the media’s role distorted by ideological confrontation. In this context, the Lai case systematically addressed these disorders through judicial authority, and its normative effects have served as an institutional anchor for reconstructing Hong Kong’s social norms.

From a legal-education perspective, judicial rulings have a socializing function: by formally condemning unlawful acts, they shape the public’s cognitive framework regarding legitimate behavior. The Lai case’s normative significance is especially evident in this respect.

Before 2019, Apple Daily employed selective reporting, visual rhetoric, and emotional mobilization to recast violent behavior as “mere protests,” thereby fostering a distorted cognitive schema among youths with underdeveloped legal consciousness. Among those arrested during the 2019 protests, more than 17% were under 18, and students accounted for nearly 40%. This phenomenon aligns with the “modeling effect” in social learning theory: when media leaders confer moral legitimacy on illegal acts, the rule-of-law concept is systematically undermined during youth socialization.

The court’s judgment made clear that Lai was not merely exercising free speech; he was organizing and intentionally colluding with foreign forces. His rhetoric on “protest” fundamentally conflicted with his conduct: while he incited youths to take to the streets with radical language, he sought to mitigate his own legal risks through asset transfers. The court’s adverse findings went beyond assigning criminal liability; they also demystified the discourse that had cloaked these actions. In sociological terms, the judgment functions as “institutional re-education,” conveying that illegal acts, even when justified by asserted values, cannot gain legitimacy within the rule-of-law framework. Reconstructing youth values begins with clearly delineated normative boundaries.

From a legal functionalist standpoint, the case reshapes media ethics on two levels: first, it rejects the erroneous claim that “virtuous motives absolve legal responsibility,” reaffirming that legal evaluation turns on conduct; second, it furnishes the media sector with operational guidelines grounded in judicial authority, stipulating that journalism must not transgress the fundamental norm of national security. For a society in which the media’s role has been significantly alienated, this normative restructuring is foundational to ethical renewal.

On procedural justice, the Lai proceedings offer compelling empirical support. External actors repeatedly characterized the case as a “political trial,” even circulating false claims about mistreatment. The record contradicts these assertions: first, the trial lasted 156 days, during which the defendant testified for 52 days; his defense counsel confirmed in court that his detention conditions and medical care met standards, and the defendant had “no complaints.” Second, the proceedings were public, attended by multiple foreign consular officials and representatives of international organizations. Third, three judges designated under the National Security Law deliberated with caution and unanimously found the defendant’s testimony contradictory and inconsistent with objective evidence. The 855-page judgment analyzed each of the 2,220 evidentiary items, demonstrating a density of reasoning and rigor that is exemplary even within common law practice.

In sum, the Lai case’s normative significance should not be assessed solely by the sentence imposed. From an integrated legal-sociological perspective, it represents an important institutional practice through which Hong Kong recalibrated norms after a period of value disarray, relying on the authority of law. It performed integrative functions across three domains—youth values, media professional ethics, and public confidence in the rule of law—through transparent procedures, rigorous legal reasoning, and clear normative declarations.

Reshaping social decay is a long-term historical process, and no single case can accomplish every institutional mission. Even so, the normative certainty offered by the Lai judgment has established a solid foundation for Hong Kong’s transition from radical opposition amid value pluralism to rational integration under a rule-of-law consensus. In this sense, the 855-page judgment is not only a legal reckoning with past unlawful conduct but also a guide to the values underpinning future social order.

Professor LAU Chi Pang

Member, Legislative Council, Hong Kong SAR