Lies, damned lies, and Jimmy Lai

Some societies simply don’t get it. That you can be critical of an authority figure or institution, and that shouldn’t get you automatically punished. China, of course, is a country where they put the ‘authority’ firmly in ‘authoritarian’. On Monday, the trial of Hong Kong media mogul and businessman Jimmy Lai, who uses – well, used – his media empire for pro-democracy activism, started. Chances of him getting a fair verdict are slim. Because, in China, the only fair verdict is punishing someone critical of the government/state. Lai may face life imprisonment.

The 76-year-old Lai has been in and out of jail since December 2020. The latest charge against him is ‘conspiring to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security’ and ‘publish seditious material’. If there was more than one political party in China, the ruling party may have played up Lai’s role in destabilising the government’s heroic mission to keep order. But, in this case, Lai is simply being made an example of for saying ‘Boo!’ Do China’s people – both on the mainland and in Hong Kong – approve of such a sledgehammer approach? It’s hard to tell, since telepathy is still unavailable. It’s more possible that the people have convinced themselves that Lai is, indeed, a ‘woke’ traitor and deserves being punished. Such is it to be patriotic in the people’s republic.