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
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Liang Yaqi, a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies
On 7 May 2026, the Central Criminal Court in London delivered its verdict on Chung Biu Yuen, Administrative Manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, and Chi Leung Wai, a former UK border official. This first national security case to be heard under the UK National Security Act 2023 has been marred by an air of irregularity from start to finish: persistent procedural flaws, a fragile chain of evidence and numerous inconsistencies have led many to question whether this was a fair trial or a carefully orchestrated political manoeuvre.
Preconceived notions shaped public perception, undermining procedural fairness. Even before the trial had formally commenced, the public discourse was already fraught with tension. Following the case’s first court appearance in 2024, a document purported to be a ‘summary of the charges’ circulated widely in the media. It disclosed in detail the defendant’s specific actions, included screenshots of CCTV footage from relevant activities, and even listed details concerning the London Economic and Trade Office’s involvement in the case, clearly intended to steer public attention towards the Office’s role. Some Hong Kong media outlets have questioned why, in the past, law enforcement agencies would typically handle indictments involving sensitive case details with great caution or even keep them confidential; the current situation appears rather unusual. Even before a jury has been selected and the formal trial has begun, the public and potential jurors have already been led by preconceived notions into a narrative of the case dominated by the prosecution. This directly crosses the red line set by Section 52(a) of the UK’s Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which prohibits the media from reporting content that may prejudice the defendant during the preliminary hearing stage. Before the defendants have even spoken, they have been labelled – this practice of ‘pre-conviction’ by the media is clearly extremely unfair to the defence and undermines procedural fairness.
The mysterious death of the third defendant has deepened the mystery surrounding the case. Even more chilling is the fact that shortly after the case was brought before the court, the third defendant, Matthew Trickett, a former Royal Marines serviceman, died under mysterious circumstances in a park. As a former soldier and an enforcement officer with the Home Office’s Immigration Service, Trickett could have provided crucial testimony to clarify whether the operation was ‘officially authorised’ or a private act. His sudden passing deprived the defence of a vital witness, preventing the full chain of evidence from being thoroughly examined in court and sparing the prosecution from the potential risks of cross-examination. Given the highly sensitive timing of his death, Trickett’s solicitor expressed shock at his passing, whilst some netizens have even suspected that he was “silenced”. Although the authorities have denied foul play, it is lamentable that the judicial process has been “streamlined” due to the death of a single individual.
The prosecution’s evidence was flimsy and unconvincing. Section 3 of the UK National Security Act 2023 stipulates that the offence of “aiding a foreign intelligence service” requires proof that the act “is likely to substantially assist a foreign intelligence service”. Yet throughout the trial, the prosecution failed to present any fundamental evidence that the defendant’s actions had substantially harmed UK national security. The alleged acts cited by the prosecution—such as the defendant’s purported surveillance of Hong Kong residents, unauthorised access to immigration databases, and door-to-door “debt collection”—sound more like ordinary criminal offences. The prosecution essentially pieced together a case based on electronic evidence such as communication records and financial transactions, yet never produced irrefutable proof that the defendant engaged in “intelligence activities” that posed an actual security threat to the UK. Forcing ordinary behaviour to be elevated to the level of national security constitutes a “hat trick” that fails to convince.
The judge’s guidance was markedly biased, contravening her role of impartiality. Prior to the verdict, the judge’s instructions to the jury were also biased. She repeatedly emphasised the prosecution’s perspective regarding the admissibility of evidence and the assessment of witness credibility. For instance, although much of the evidence presented by the prosecution in court occurred before the UK National Security Act 2023 came into force—and should therefore not have retroactive effect—the judge reminded the jury that they could treat this as “background information” to understand the defendant’s network of contacts. Although the judge stated that such background information could not be used directly as a basis for conviction, and this appeared neutral on the surface, in reality it had already painted the defendant in a negative light. Furthermore, when the jury had deliberated for several days without reaching a ‘unanimous verdict’ on all charges against the defendant, the judge instructed that the standard be lowered from a ‘unanimous verdict’ to a ‘majority verdict’. Whilst this move was not unlawful, in such a highly sensitive national security case, might the proactive lowering of the threshold to facilitate a conviction give rise to public doubts regarding the impartiality of the trial? Might it create a negative perception that the judicial process is not sufficiently fair?
The jury’s deliberations were fraught with difficulties, and there appeared to be political pressure. The deliberation phase was marked by a series of setbacks: one juror was hospitalised due to ill health, whilst another requested to withdraw. Chi Leung Wai’s defence counsel at one point questioned whether this juror had been ‘bullied’ by other dissenting jurors; this was precisely why the judge instructed the jury that day to ‘respect differences of opinion but continue to work together to seek consensus’.After four days of deliberations, the jury had still failed to reach a “unanimous verdict”, indicating that it was struggling to reach a consensus on the facts of the case. It was not until the fifth day, following the judge’s instruction to lower the standard of the verdict, that the jury, after a protracted stalemate, barely met the minimum threshold of a 10-2 majority verdict on the charge of “assisting a foreign intelligence agency”, whilst they remained unable to reach a verdict on the charge of “foreign interference”. Whether this outcome truly reflects the jurors’ inner conviction or is merely a compromise born of prolonged pressure is a matter for reflection.
The UK National Security Act is defined in overly broad terms, making it highly susceptible to expansion and abuse. A review of the entire case process exposes the fundamental flaw of the UK National Security Act 2023, which is its extreme vagueness. The Act stipulates that the offence of “aiding a foreign intelligence service” is committed whenever an act is likely to assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out activities relating to the UK; the definition of a foreign intelligence service is even broader, encompassing any person conducting intelligence activities for or on behalf of a foreign state. It is clear that the threshold for the offence of “aiding a foreign intelligence service” is so low that it could encompass many ordinary activities. Even Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer appointed by the UK Home Secretary, has publicly stated that the relevant provisions of the UK National Security Act 2023 could extend to political, journalistic and other everyday activities, placing legitimate lobbying, journalistic investigations and even ordinary commercial activities at risk of criminalisation. He emphasised that the Act must be subject to oversight to prevent its “abuse and overreach”.
Ironically, the UK completely ignores the fact that its own national security provisions are vague and broadly applicable, and turns a blind eye to the various flaws in the adjudication of national security cases, yet it repeatedly criticises and meddles in the Hong Kong National Security Law. Such double standards appear particularly hypocritical and laughable. If the UK truly cares about the rule of law, it would do well to return to the principles of evidence-based adjudication and procedural justice, rectify errors in cases as soon as possible, and ensure that the judiciary does not become a mere appendage of politics, thereby trampling the spirit of the rule of law underfoot!
