Jimmy Lai’s Trial Is a Warning: What’s Happening in Hong Kong Won’t Stay in Hong Kong

If you care about free speech, independent media, and the future of democracy, you should know the name Jimmy Lai. The 77-year-old Hong Kong media entrepreneur—founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily—has spent years behind bars awaiting judgment in a landmark national security case that will echo far beyond Hong Kong. As of August 15, 2025, closing arguments in Lai’s trial were postponed again—this time because of heart issues that required monitoring and medication—underscoring both his deteriorating health and the grinding, punitive nature of the proceedings. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” and one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications,” charges that can carry a life sentence. 

Lai’s legal odyssey began soon after Beijing imposed a sweeping National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong in June 2020. Police arrested him in August that year, later raiding Apple Daily’s newsroom with hundreds of officers, seizing materials, and freezing assets. Within a year, financial choke points and further arrests forced the paper’s closure—a body blow to press freedom in a city that once marketed itself as Asia’s liberal, rule-of-law hub. 

His current NSL trial, which started in December 2023, has dragged on for more than 140 days of hearings. Prosecutors say Lai used journalism and advocacy to push foreign governments to “sanction” Hong Kong and China; defense lawyers counter that his speech and publications were protected expression. The court is staffed by a panel of government-designated “national security” judges, not a jury—another departure from long-standing common-law practice in the territory. The endgame is now ostensibly in sight, but even the final submissions have been delayed multiple times due to weather and, most recently, Lai’s health. A verdict could still be months away. 

International observers have called the case politically motivated. Rights groups argue that the charges effectively criminalize interviews, tweets, and editorials—core acts of journalism and advocacy. Several Western governments have protested; diplomats regularly attend hearings. Whatever the ruling, the message to Hong Kong’s media and civil society has already been sent. 

For many in the West, Hong Kong’s rollback can feel distant—news flashes that fade amid other crises. But Lai’s case is not a local skirmish; it’s a blueprint. Beijing has insisted the NSL is about “stability” and “rule of law,” yet in practice it has been applied to outlaw dissent, intimidate newsrooms, and neutralize critics. The forced death of Apple Daily demonstrated how authorities can combine police power with financial levers to suffocate a media outlet without ever needing to rebut its reporting. That’s a playbook any authoritarian system can export: criminalize speech, starve institutions, and claim legality while doing it. 

Western audiences should also understand the stakes for their own information ecosystems. The world doesn’t compartmentalize influence. Corporations, universities, publishers, and platforms that operate across borders face the same pressures that silenced Apple Daily: market access dangled against editorial independence; political red lines enforced through legal risk and client pressure. Lai’s trial isn’t just about a man; it’s about whether investigative journalism, opinion writing, and civic activism can be redefined as “collusion” when they embarrass powerful actors. 

The pattern is familiar: intimidation first, process second, and tolerance for dissent last. In Hong Kong, the NSL centralized control over “national security” cases, allowed judge-picking, curtailed jury trials, and created broad, vague offenses that chill normal political and media activity. In Lai’s case, authorities not only pursued sweeping conspiracy charges; they also ensured the logistics—the raids, asset freezes, and prolonged pre-trial detention—would send a deterrent signal to everyone else. The chilling effect is the point. 

That approach mirrors how the Chinese Communist Party governs on the mainland: define criticism as a security threat, conflate civic participation with foreign plots, and use the legal system as an instrument of politics. It’s not chaos; it’s choreography. And as China’s global footprint grows—from Belt and Road partnerships to dominant roles in supply chains and platforms—the same reflexes can surface abroad: pressure campaigns against critical speech, “lawful” restrictions wrapped in national security language, and corporate self-censorship to avoid retaliation. Lai’s case is a teachable moment in how power translates into narrative control. 

It’s easy, in analyzing geopolitics, to skip past the person at the centre. Don’t. Lai is 77, has spent well over four years in near-continuous detention—much of it in solitary—and is now facing heart problems as the case crawls toward conclusion. His health scares prompted yet another delay to closing arguments this week. Whether you admire his politics or not, a system that keeps an elderly publisher in isolation for years while criminalizing his interviews and editorials isn’t defending “order”; it’s punishing speech. 

Awareness matters. Western policymakers, business leaders, and citizens should track Lai’s case because it foreshadows the pressures liberal societies will face as China’s influence expands. Legislators can strengthen safeguards for press freedom and academic independence; companies can publish transparency reports on political requests; universities can adopt firewalls between donors and curricula. Journalists can keep reporting. Readers can subscribe to outlets that still practice independent, adversarial journalism—and write to elected representatives when those outlets are threatened.

What’s happening to Jimmy Lai is not an isolated courtroom drama. It is, as much as anything in today’s news, a live stress test of whether the ideals we say we value—free inquiry, pluralism, the rule of law—can withstand the gravitational pull of a rising authoritarian power. Don’t treat it as far-away theatre. Treat it as a preview.