February 11, 2025 • 29 mins
This week, Roger welcomes Mark L. Clifford, the president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic,” which was released in December of 2024.
They discuss the remarkable life story of Jimmy Lai, a Chinese refugee who built a successful business empire in Hong Kong before becoming an outspoken pro-democracy activist. They cover Lai's early hardships, his spiritual conversion to Catholicism, and his current imprisonment by the Chinese government under harsh conditions. Plus, how Clifford and the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation are actively advocating for Lai's release and the preservation of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.
Mark is a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong, and lived in Asia from 1987 until 2021. Prior to that, he was executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council, the editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), publisher and editor-in-chief of The Standard (Hong Kong), held senior editorial positions at BusinessWeek and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and Seoul, and is the recipient of numerous academic, book, and journalism awards.
The Liberty + Leadership Podcast is hosted by TFAS president Roger Ream and produced by Podville Media. If you have a comment or question for the show, please email us at podcast@TFAS.org. To support TFAS and its mission, please visit TFAS.org/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
I'm excited to welcome Mark LClifford to the show.
Mark is the president of theCommittee for Freedom in Hong
Kong.
Today we'll be discussing hisnew book the Troublemaker how
(00:25):
Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire,hong Kong's Greatest Dissident
and China's Most Feared Critic,which was released in December
of 2024.
Mark is a Walter Bagot Fellowat Columbia University, holds a
PhD in history from theUniversity of Hong Kong and
lived in Asia from 1987 until2021.
(00:47):
Prior to that, he was executivedirector of the Hong Kong-based
Asia Business Council, theeditor-in-chief of the South
China Morning Post publisher andeditor-in-chief of the Standard
, and held editorial positionsat Businessweek and the Far
Eastern Economic Review in HongKong and Seoul, south Korea.
(01:07):
He's won numerous academic bookand journalism awards, mark.
Welcome to the show, roger.
Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Thanks for your interest.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This is going to be a difficult conversation for me,
in part because you've writtensuch an exceptional book.
At times it's powerfullyinspirational, at other times
it's even sad.
And the story you tell in thereand while I have never had the
opportunity to meet Jimmy Lai,from 2002 until 2019, my
organization ran a program atthe University of Hong Kong, at
(01:38):
HKU, for young people fromthroughout Asia, and I do know
that at least Jimmy Lai or hiscompany did provide a junk for
our students to take a beautifultrip in the harbor there each
summer.
But the story is an interestingtale and you tell it just
exceptionally.
So let me start by asking youto give listeners a brief
description of who Jimmy Lai isand why you chose to write this
(02:01):
biography of him.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well thanks.
Jimmy is a 77-year-old manwho's now sitting in solitary
confinement, where he's been formost of the past four years in
a Hong Kong prison on completelytrumped-up charges, while a
lengthy, very lengthy,one-year-plus national security
law trial is underway.
That tries to portray thiswonderful man as some sort of
(02:25):
enemy of the state who should belocked up for 10 years, if not
for life.
He started out.
He was born in southern China,just across the border from Hong
Kong, came into Hong Kong,smuggled himself in on a fishing
boat at the age of 12.
First night he was there, heslept in a factory.
He worked in a factory.
15 years later he owned afactory Classic Hong Kong
(02:45):
success story.
But he wasn't just one ofanother 10,000 really successful
entrepreneurs.
He really was something more.
And within five years or so ofstarting a manufacturing
operation he had the biggestsweater maker in Hong Kong.
He parlayed that success intoan extraordinarily successful
retail clothing chain.
He was about to go into fastfood when the Tiananmen Square
(03:09):
killings of 1989 saw the Chinesegovernment murder hundreds,
maybe even thousands of its ownpeople, many of its best and
brightest students.
So Jimmy decided to go intomedia.
Oh yeah, the same kind ofenergy and extraordinary verve
and creativity that he broughtto making sweaters and selling
shirts.
He started first a newspaper,then a magazine, first in Hong
(03:31):
Kong and then in Taiwan, and hispublications, especially in
Hong Kong, became almost like anopposition political party
magazine Next were successful inrallying, helping spur millions
of Hong Kongers to come out inthe streets in a series of
demonstrations culminating inthe summer of 2019.
(03:51):
And I think, ultimately theChinese Communist Party decided
Jimmy Lai was too hot to handleand the only way they knew how
to deal with him was to lock himup.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You were living in Hong Kong.
You met Jimmy at some point andeventually joined the board of
his communications company.
Could you mention thatbackground?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I moved to Hong Kong in 1992, five years before the
Chinese were scheduled to takethis thriving free city over
after 156 years of Britishcolonial rule.
I met Jimmy pretty early on.
He invited me to his house.
He cooked lunch for me.
I mean, he did the cooking,which was pretty impressive for
a CEO, but he's really into food.
It was a simple lunch a stirfry with veggies and rice.
(04:32):
And, yeah, I knew him over theyears.
I met him hundreds of times andthen I went on his board in
2018, a couple of years beforethe newspaper and magazine was
forcibly shut by the governmentwhen it froze our bank accounts
without a court order.
So I don't want to say I waspresent at the creation, but I
was at least kind of watchingfrom the sidelines and then,
ultimately, as a board member,much, much more involved in the
(04:54):
publications.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've heard you say that Jimmy Lai was forged in
fire when you describe hisupbringing and his early years.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about that, not only his
life in China as a child and theexperiences there, but when he
first came to Hong Kong and howhe got there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That's a great question, I mean because you
can't understand Jimmy withoutunderstanding how he was forged,
how he was made.
So he was born two years beforeMao took power in China and
what had been a prosperousfamily his father, had married
into a shipping family it wasjust ripped apart by the
revolution and the family lostmost of what they had.
(05:34):
The house was split up.
The father went to Hong Kong.
Jimmy and his twin sister andanother sister was a couple
years older were pretty muchleft to fend for themselves.
The mother was in and out ofwhat he's described as labor
camps.
They seemed to have been morelike you'd work during the week
and you'd be home on weekendthan a typical Chinese labor
camp.
But they were rough.
There wasn't a lot of food.
(05:55):
There were these kids.
They were four years old, sixyears old, when their mother
first was taken off for thiskind of re-education and they
were fending for themselves.
Jimmy was hustling black market.
He'd ground tobacco off thestreets and re-roll it and sell
a cigarette.
He'd steal scrap metal and sellit.
He'd be, you know, just feelthrilled if he found a field
mouse that he could grill.
(06:16):
That was like as a delicacy.
I mean, this was a time of realhunger in China, especially
right before he left.
So something like we don'treally know the number something
like 45 million people died inthe famine.
The famine accompanied theso-called Great Leap Forward in
the late 1950s, early 1960s, andJimmy left during this period.
(06:36):
So he was this skinny12-year-old who I think his
mother was probably afraid he'dperish of hunger if he stayed in
China.
So he got a one-way permit toMacau.
He smuggled himself onto asampan, a little fishing boat,
and made the journey east acrossthe Pearl River Delta to Hong
Kong, Was smuggled in, you know,in a remote area of the city,
(06:56):
Managed to find his aunt anduncle.
Their place was so small hecouldn't even sleep on the floor
and that's why he ended up inthe factory the first night.
He was a hustler.
I mean, he's an incrediblysmart guy, as is his twin sister
, although they're wired quitedifferently.
He's a hard worker, he's smart,he wanted to please and he
found a succession of older men,of mentors, who helped him
(07:18):
learn the trade, learn English,spent a lot of time reading the
dictionary while he was livingin the factory.
I mean, these were really,really tough times.
I mean people were living onthe streets in Hong Kong.
There were more than a millionrefugees that had preceded him
in the 10 or 12 years after theChinese Revolution.
They were just flooding intoHong Kong to escape the poverty
and the political persecution ofChina.
(07:41):
That was the world in which he,as a young boy, young man, grew
up in and he came to Hong Kongand it was freedom.
The first morning he describedsmelling the rice, the congee,
the rice porridge that so manyHong Kongers eat for breakfast,
and the dim sum, the flour-baseddumplings and other food.
And you know, wow, this wasfreedom for him.
It was a freedom to eat,freedom to work, the freedom to
(08:02):
start his own business.
Eventually, more rarefiedfreedoms, political freedom and
spiritual freedom.
He converted to Catholicism in1997.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, quite a survivor when you consider there
must have been in those shantytowns, the diseases, the TB, the
fires, a lot of hardships.
He had to be a hustler andentrepreneurial to survive all
that.
He worked his way quickly as akind of a rags to riches success
story, first in manufacturing,then in fashion and apparel and
(08:32):
eventually to the media.
But why don't you talk a littlebit about how he became such a
success and it led him to end uptraveling to the United States
and elsewhere in the world?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Great question.
He's always such a curious guyand again, I've known him for
more than 30 years and sometimesyou kind of wonder, like what's
really making this guy tick,and thought about that a lot.
I mean, first of all, thisinsatiable curiosity, this
really really brilliant mind,and in some funny areas he
happens to have a great sense ofcolor, and that, of course,
(09:03):
helped him in fashion.
He studied with a famousChinese-American artist who
passed away in the last coupleof decades, wallace Ting, and so
Jimmy's in prison now and he'sdrawing so a religious theme.
He never even finished primaryschool.
He repeated at least one, maybemore grades in primary school.
But he has this nativeintelligence brilliance, I would
say, coupled with an insatiabledesire to learn.
(09:26):
And you know, maybe that'stypical of some people who
actually don't get enough formalschooling and they always kind
of worry that they've missed out.
I mean, I know, at the age of19, he was already in Japan
acting as a salesperson.
I don't think he speaksJapanese to this day, although
he has a house in Kyoto, but he,I guess, had enough English by
that point that his company feltcomfortable sending him abroad.
(09:47):
As a teenager he spent a lot oftime in New York and that's
where I think he really got anappreciation for freedom and for
just kind of wide open anythinggoes kind of place.
And it's there that he was kindof adopted by a New York family
and used to spend many weeks, ifnot months, much more
challenging books than he'd readbefore.
And one night they took himover to dinner at another
(10:18):
friend's house and Jimmy wascomplaining about the Chinese
communists, as he was wont to do, and that's probably what's got
him in jail.
At the end of the dinner thehost reached over to his
bookshelf, pulled down a bookand it was Hayek's Road to
Serfdom and he said read this,you know, study it, learn
something.
In other words, you're justkind of blathering about how
horrible the Chinese are, butthis will give you a little bit
(10:39):
more of a theoretical, astructured approach to it.
And from there he just startedjust almost inhaling books.
But Hayek was very, veryimportant to him.
Karl Popper, these were men whoreally believed in freedom,
free markets and free people,and I think this gave Jimmy a
lot more of the intellectualbase to supplement his kind of
(11:00):
native feeling for freedom.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, I recall in the Acton Institute film Call of
the Entrepreneur, when Jimmytells the story of being given
this book Road to Serfdom byHayek, he's choked up and in
tears telling that story and howmuch that meant to him and you
quote I think it's Bill McGurnin your book talking about when
he got to Hong Kong that Jimmyhad read everything by Hayek.
So he was a devourer, I know,of books.
(11:24):
I'd love to ask you a littlemore, since it's an important
part of your book was Jimmy'sdecision to become a Catholic,
which he did on what?
The same day as the handover ofHong Kong?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I think he decided the day after the handover.
He did about a week later,which is pretty fast.
He met his second wife, teresa,in 1989, just a month after the
Tiananmen killings, the June4th killings.
I think he was at a.
Maybe it was a little bitadrift, I mean, one of the
problems.
Actually.
I got to be honest about writingthis biography.
I've known him a long time,I've talked to him about a lot
(11:57):
of things, but he's in jail, Ican't communicate with him.
He's being tried for collusionwith foreigners and I don't need
to cause him any more trouble.
So there's some of this is kindof supposition, but I think he
I've talked to Bill about thishis godfather, his wife, had
left him a couple years earlier.
He had three kind of fairlyyoung kids, teenagers, and he
met Teresa Lee, who was a summerreporter, an intern at the
(12:20):
South China Morning Post, andwas smitten by her.
So you know he'd been on hisown for two or three years and
pursued Teresa.
She was studying in Paris.
He went and spent a lot of timein Paris, wooed her.
They married a couple of yearslater and through her especially
, he started talking tospiritual advisors, mostly from
(12:40):
the Catholic church, about.
He, jimmy, is a real seeker.
He's always questing, he'salways looking for kind of the
next thing and again, at firstit was just like food and being
able to work.
And then I think he moved on toreally a higher plane and I
think Teresa would have liked avery devout Catholic, would have
liked him to convert earlier.
But her feeling was and I thinkmany of us who knew him was
(13:02):
that he was already kind of mostof the way there.
He just hadn't gone through theformal rituals.
And I say this, I'm not aCatholic, but I mean just it was
definitely a part of his life,an important part.
After the handover it wouldgenerally take a year or so of
study before one can convert,unless the circumstances are
extreme.
I guess Chimmy made a prettygood case that the circumstances
(13:22):
were extreme, as Teresa told me.
You know he saw trouble comingafter the Chinese took over Hong
Kong and he figured that itwould probably be better to have
a higher power on his side.
It's not clear immediately howmuch of a difference it made in
his life.
On the one hand, he was alreadykind of most of the way there,
as his friends would say.
On the other hand, what'shappened in the last four years
(13:44):
while he's been in prison isthat his faith has really
deepened and sustained him in avery powerful way.
He gets four or so books amonth.
They're all Catholic theologyhe's able to draw.
As I said, he draws exclusivelyreligious themes.
It's a really important part ofhis life and I think if one is
(14:08):
going to be as strong and asfree as Jimmy by all accounts
seems to be in prison, it'shelpful I don't mean this like
sardonically at all Helpful tohave a really powerful
supportive spouse, partner andsome sort of faith.
And I was the moderator for alive stream conversation where
Jimmy and Nate and Sharanskytalked about this, and many of
your viewers will know thatSharansky spent nine years in
the Soviet gulag in reallyhorrific conditions and I've
(14:30):
talked to Sharansky about thissubsequently.
He was really struck by Jimmy.
They had, I believe, threeconversations this public one
and two private ones andSharansky said he'd never met
anybody like Jimmy, the guy whoknew he was going in jail.
He could have run away, he wasa very wealthy man with houses
around the globe and he decidedto stay.
And his faith and his wife andhis belief that what he was
(14:53):
doing was right is what hasreally anchored him, and it's
interesting Sharansky was kindenough to write the foreword to
the book as well, and I thinkhis remarks are really spot on.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, that's a powerful foreword you've
included there by Sharansky,because of the similarity of the
circumstances and the fact thatthey had those conversations
leading up to Jimmy's time inprison.
Those who have said the kind ofconditions that he's being kept
in now, in a cell with no airconditioning, and for those who
don't know, hong Kong gets veryhot and humid.
He gets maybe 50 minutes a day,you said, to get some exercise,
(15:26):
go outside, but he's allowedonly a handful of books a month.
He's not allowed communion.
Solitary confinement.
Many people have consideredthat a form of torture and
violation of internationalstandards.
How much communication is therewith him?
His wife get to visit and whatdo you think about those
conditions?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, I mean, they're tough, as you say.
Actually, the United Nations,under the Mandela principles,
says that solitary confinementshould only be used as a last
resort, you know, if theprisoner is a danger to himself
or to other people, and itshouldn't be for more than 15
days, and Jimmy's been in prisonnonstop since December 31st
2020.
So we're coming up on 1,500days of incarceration, most of
(16:10):
that in solitary confinement,and, yeah, under UN conventions
it's regarded as a kind oftorture.
He has no natural light.
Authorities have said thatthere's indirect light in the
corridor outside his cell, nowindows at all.
They seem obsessed with tryingto prevent any sort of images of
him coming out.
As you say, he goes out forabout 50 minutes a day.
(16:32):
I guess he's out of the cellfor an hour, so he's exercising
for 50 minutes a day.
An Associated Press photographerin the summer of 2023,
surreptitiously took a long lensphotograph and the authorities
of Jimmy going out to exercise.
He looked fine.
I mean, definitely lookedthinner, gaunt.
Yeah, there wasn't a sign ofhorrible treatment or anything.
Again, we don't know what he'slike mentally from a picture
(16:55):
like that.
But for her pains, theauthorities threw this woman
photographer out of Hong Kong,denied her a visa.
I mean they just seem againobsessed with Jimmy, which is to
me so misplaced, because therewere millions of Hong Kong
people out in the streets votingfor democracy.
Every time there's an election,six out of 10 Hong Kongers more
or less go for thepro-democracy camp.
I mean it always wins amajority.
(17:16):
And so to put all this pressureon Jimmy and, as you say, the
conditions, I think there arepeople around him who are
concerned that he might not makeit through another summer.
He's sleeping on some kind ofstraw substance, as you say, no
air conditioning.
It's very, very hot and so he'sgot a lot of heat rash issues
in the summer.
It's obviously cold in thewinter.
When he's not on trial, wherehe's kept closer to the court,
(17:38):
he's in Stanley Prison.
It's a maximum security prisonbuilt before World War II, 1937,
by the British authorities.
The conditions are, they'relousy and he's in prison and has
had, you know, kind ofmarginally successful cataract
(17:58):
operation while in prisonDoesn't seem to be seen too well
Lost a lot of his hearing andpart of his finger fingertip,
working in those factories backwhen he was a kid.
So it's tough conditions, right.
You know from what Sieranskidescribed in his experience in
the Gulag.
Yeah, it can be worse, but thatdoesn't take anything away from
the fact that this is a man whoshouldn't be in jail, who's put
(18:20):
under a lot of pressure.
Jimmy never likes to complain.
I discourage people from sayinghe's quote unquote rotting in
jail.
He's not.
He's probably as free as he'sever been in his mind.
But of course he'd like to befree and he'd like to leave Hong
Kong to spend his last yearswith his family.
We just hope we can get him outquickly enough that he does
that.
I mean, you know we've seen theChinese held Nobel Peace Prize
(18:41):
laureate Liu Xiaobo.
They held him in prison untilhe was just about to die.
Then they put him in a prisonhospital and he died, right, I
mean that's not the fate thatanybody deserves.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You know you touch on this theme that comes out of
Sharansky and Jimmy Lai in yourbook that Jimmy's as free as
he's ever been and it'sremarkable that someone in
prison, in confinement, like heis under those conditions, has a
different kind of spiritual andhe stayed really because he
wanted to support the studentswho were fighting for democracy
(19:18):
and stand on the principles hebelieved in.
We honored Jimmy at our 29thAnnual Journalism Awards Dinner
in New York a few years ago.
Obviously he couldn't be therebut we gave him our Kenneth
Tomlinson Award for Courage inJournalism.
Bill McGurn and Paul Chigotaccepted on his behalf.
We shared a clip at thatprogram from the Hong Konger, a
film that Acton did about Jimmy.
(19:40):
What do you think the realmessage is for others,
especially for young journalists, in the life of Jimmy Lai?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Never give up and do what's right.
Be creative, be innovative.
Don't take no for an answer,but if you're going to stay, be
really clear about why you'restaying and what you're willing
to suffer.
We discussed seems quite free,but honestly, I mean, we'd all
like to think we're heroes, butI don't think most of us are
(20:18):
really cut out to do what he'sdoing and to remain free and
convinced and defiant the wholetime he's testifying.
Now I think he testified 25days on his own behalf and is
now being cross-examined.
The prosecution expects another25 days or something and he
seems unbowed.
And that's really different formost of the not all, but many
of the political prisoners inHong Kong have pled guilty in
hopes of more lenient treatmentand I think if you're going to
(20:41):
do something like this, you'vereally got to be certain.
I'm not sure that helps youngjournalists except, you know, as
an inspiration and ademonstration of the importance
of journalism in speaking truthto power.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I assume the verdict in this trial is preordained,
but what can people do tosupport Jimmy Lai?
I know one thing, and that's tobuy your book.
I mean, if we could get this onthe bestseller list, that would
be sending a great message.
I know former Vice PresidentMike Pence was just in Hong Kong
and he spoke out for Jimmy'srelease from prison at a
conference there.
Are there other things?
(21:15):
Is it putting pressure on thenew administration here in
Washington?
Is there anything we can do?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, I think that's probably the best approach.
The president said on thecampaign trail that he would
absolutely, 100% guaranteed, getJimmy Lai out of Chinese prison
.
He said it'd be very easy.
Look very happy to hear him saythat.
Now we need to be working withhim and others in the
administration to see that thisis, you know, moves up the
priority list and that it'sactually accomplished.
(21:42):
I thought Vice President Pence'sremarks were terrific in Hong
Kong, wasn't anything too pushyor anything, but he just pointed
out that if China wants toimprove relations with the US,
at least in the short term,there's almost nothing they
could do that would have a lowercost and a higher potential
reward than moving to let Jimmyand other political prisoners
out.
I mean, china's made its point.
(22:03):
Jimmy Lai is not going back.
The presses are not going tostart rolling again at Apple
Daily.
They've crushed the democracymovement in Hong Kong.
It's not to say that most HongKongers don't still support
democracy, but the days when youhad a million or two million
people out in the streets, youknow, just aren't there.
So let's work with the USadministration.
He's a British citizen, which wehaven't discussed, but he's a
(22:24):
full British citizen.
Has been since 1992.
Let's see our two governmentsput some pressure on the Chinese
and make them realize thathonestly he's more trouble in
prison than out.
He continues to attractinternational attention and
support.
That reflects very badly onHong Kong, which is trying to
reestablish itself as a trustedinternational business center
(22:45):
despite this crackdown that'sseen more than 1,900 political
prisoners convicted in jail inthe last five years.
And if Hong Kong wants to kindof turn the page and move
forward with the internationalcommunity, you know the Chinese
need to take some steps too, butobviously you or I can't have a
lot of influence on Chinesepolicymaking, so it's got to
come through our governments.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I want to read two sentences from the middle of
your book.
The first is you quoting BillMcGurn and the second is yours,
where you say he is driving themcrazy because he won't go along
with the lie.
And then you write one man in acountry of 1.4 billion who uses
his considerable moral andmaterial resources to fight the
(23:26):
lie.
I really like that sentencebecause it illustrates the point
of how one man can make such adifference, while at the same
time, as you just reminded me,there are I don't know if it's
over a thousand other politicalprisoners in Hong Kong who are
part of this.
So that's powerful.
Could you tell me a little bitabout your work with the
Committee for Freedom in HongKong?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
As we discussed earlier, I've known Jimmy for
three decades and I was on theboard and I felt that I needed
to do something.
After he was put in prisonInitially, in the beginning of
December 2020, they let him outfor a few days over Christmas,
and so a group of friends and Isome of whom knew Jimmy not
everybody who did just wanted todo what we could to try to
(24:08):
protect freedom in Hong Kong.
I mean, I'm sure many of yourviewers and your listeners have
been to Hong Kong and it's aremarkable place.
It's extraordinary, and it'sextraordinary not only because
of its beautiful harbor and itsdynamic business environment,
but also because offreedom-loving people like Jimmy
and many of the 4,000 or sopeople we had on staff.
(24:28):
And, as you said, I think rightnow there are about a thousand
political prisoners in prison,but 1,900 have done some jail
time in the last couple of years, and we wanted to do what we
could just to bear witness at atime when Xi Jinping seemed to
be determined to crush dissenteverywhere and you know it was a
broader issue.
I mean, I think many of us areconcerned that what happens,
(24:49):
what China does in Hong Kongtoday, is a kind of playbook for
some of the tactics that itwants to use in other countries
to squelch freedom.
Obviously, it has its eyes seton Taiwan, but we're all or many
of us longtime Hong Kongresidents and just felt the need
to do something and we werecoming up in 2022.
(25:10):
And I think that maybe we diddiscuss it explicitly, but I
think we kind of felt like thatwould be an obvious pressure
point for the Chinese to releasepolitical prisoners before the
Beijing Games, and Beijing Gamescame and went and more and more
people just were in prison.
So we're into it more for thelong haul now.
So we're a 501c3, a registeredUS charity based in Washington
(25:32):
DC.
We've got offices in DC as wellas in London.
We primarily I guess you'd saya lot of focus anyway on
governments, but especially onlegislatures parliament in the
UK, congress in the US.
Part of that is moral, part ofit is trying to get legislation
introduced or laws kind of morefully enforced, whether they're
sanctions against human rightsviolators in Hong Kong or moves
(25:56):
to shut their diplomaticoutposts.
Hong Kong has a reallyfavorable system where they have
economic and trade offices in14 cities around the world.
They were great back when HongKong was free and now they've
become kind of wolf warrioroutposts.
Even, it seems, in the UKespionage dens.
We're trying to raise the costfor what China's doing to Hong
(26:17):
Kong.
We also do a lot of media work.
Obviously.
I've written this book, butwe've got a great staff that's
just out there interacting withmedia people, with politicians,
again trying to keep the message, keep the spotlight on Hong
Kong.
We also do research.
So we've, and last year we'vehad three very strong research
(26:38):
pieces.
One looks at the way in whichreligion is being increasingly
brought under the thumb of theChinese Communist Party, even in
Hong Kong, despite promises tothe international community that
religious freedom would remainuntouched after Chinese rule.
We did a piece on the role offoreign judges.
There are a number of foreignjudges in Hong Kong courts and
again we think this is givingaid and comfort to some very bad
people who don't believe inrule of law.
(26:59):
And the third was a reallydetailed report that I think has
moved the needle a lot, lookingat Hong Kong's role in
sanctions evasion.
So Hong Kong used to be, it's afree port.
A lot of stuff goes throughthere, but it's increasingly
being used to well, whether it'smoney laundering or especially
evade technology-relatedsanctions.
So Hong Kong is a key, if notthe most important node in
(27:22):
technology smuggling that's usedfor the Russian war effort in
Ukraine.
So that's something that we see.
Hong Kong has an importance, arole that's way beyond a city of
seven and a half million people, halfway around the world from
Washington DC.
It actually has seriousnational security implications.
So research, media andlegislative government work.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for writing thisgreat biography of Jimmy Lai and
talking about the work of theCommittee for Freedom in Hong
Kong.
There's a lot we didn't touchon the influence of Tiananmen
Square on Jimmy's thinking, manyother matters, his time in
Taiwan and a lot more about hiscareer, as well as about the
trial itself and the OccupyCentral Hong Kong, the Umbrella
(28:04):
Movement.
But I really encourage everyoneto get a copy of this book,
give it as a gift.
People need to know the storyof Jimmy Lai and we'll be
hearing a lot more about him, Ihope, in the next few months and
pray that it's because he willhave been released from his
captivity in Hong Kong.
Any last words, mark?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Thanks for your interest and just to underscore
what you just said, I mean noneof us fighting for freedom have
armies at our disposal, but youknow we do have moral right on
our side and we do have electedofficials who can influence
China.
And so I think if we can keepthe eyes of the world on Hong
Kong, on Jimmy Lai and the otherpolitical prisoners, we really
have a strong chance of somemeaningful change or at least
(28:46):
meaningful amelioration of someof these conditions and of
getting some of the prisonersout, and that would be a step
that would be a really importantstep.
So, yeah, thanks for yoursupport, Thanks for everybody
who's watched and everythingthey're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
The book is called the Troublemaker.
Thank you very much, markClifford, for joining me today.
Thank you so much, roger.
Thank you for listening to theLiberty and Leadership podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at tfasorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
(29:20):
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
things, large and small.
Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
I'm excited to welcome Mark LClifford to the show.
Mark is the president of theCommittee for Freedom in Hong
Kong.
Today we'll be discussing hisnew book the Troublemaker how
(00:25):
Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire,hong Kong's Greatest Dissident
and China's Most Feared Critic,which was released in December
of 2024.
Mark is a Walter Bagot Fellowat Columbia University, holds a
PhD in history from theUniversity of Hong Kong and
lived in Asia from 1987 until2021.
(00:47):
Prior to that, he was executivedirector of the Hong Kong-based
Asia Business Council, theeditor-in-chief of the South
China Morning Post publisher andeditor-in-chief of the Standard
, and held editorial positionsat Businessweek and the Far
Eastern Economic Review in HongKong and Seoul, south Korea.
(01:07):
He's won numerous academic bookand journalism awards, mark.
Welcome to the show, roger.
Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Thanks for your interest.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This is going to be a difficult conversation for me,
in part because you've writtensuch an exceptional book.
At times it's powerfullyinspirational, at other times
it's even sad.
And the story you tell in thereand while I have never had the
opportunity to meet Jimmy Lai,from 2002 until 2019, my
organization ran a program atthe University of Hong Kong, at
(01:38):
HKU, for young people fromthroughout Asia, and I do know
that at least Jimmy Lai or hiscompany did provide a junk for
our students to take a beautifultrip in the harbor there each
summer.
But the story is an interestingtale and you tell it just
exceptionally.
So let me start by asking youto give listeners a brief
description of who Jimmy Lai isand why you chose to write this
(02:01):
biography of him.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well thanks.
Jimmy is a 77-year-old manwho's now sitting in solitary
confinement, where he's been formost of the past four years in
a Hong Kong prison on completelytrumped-up charges, while a
lengthy, very lengthy,one-year-plus national security
law trial is underway.
That tries to portray thiswonderful man as some sort of
(02:25):
enemy of the state who should belocked up for 10 years, if not
for life.
He started out.
He was born in southern China,just across the border from Hong
Kong, came into Hong Kong,smuggled himself in on a fishing
boat at the age of 12.
First night he was there, heslept in a factory.
He worked in a factory.
15 years later he owned afactory Classic Hong Kong
(02:45):
success story.
But he wasn't just one ofanother 10,000 really successful
entrepreneurs.
He really was something more.
And within five years or so ofstarting a manufacturing
operation he had the biggestsweater maker in Hong Kong.
He parlayed that success intoan extraordinarily successful
retail clothing chain.
He was about to go into fastfood when the Tiananmen Square
(03:09):
killings of 1989 saw the Chinesegovernment murder hundreds,
maybe even thousands of its ownpeople, many of its best and
brightest students.
So Jimmy decided to go intomedia.
Oh yeah, the same kind ofenergy and extraordinary verve
and creativity that he broughtto making sweaters and selling
shirts.
He started first a newspaper,then a magazine, first in Hong
(03:31):
Kong and then in Taiwan, and hispublications, especially in
Hong Kong, became almost like anopposition political party
magazine Next were successful inrallying, helping spur millions
of Hong Kongers to come out inthe streets in a series of
demonstrations culminating inthe summer of 2019.
(03:51):
And I think, ultimately theChinese Communist Party decided
Jimmy Lai was too hot to handleand the only way they knew how
to deal with him was to lock himup.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You were living in Hong Kong.
You met Jimmy at some point andeventually joined the board of
his communications company.
Could you mention thatbackground?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I moved to Hong Kong in 1992, five years before the
Chinese were scheduled to takethis thriving free city over
after 156 years of Britishcolonial rule.
I met Jimmy pretty early on.
He invited me to his house.
He cooked lunch for me.
I mean, he did the cooking,which was pretty impressive for
a CEO, but he's really into food.
It was a simple lunch a stirfry with veggies and rice.
(04:32):
And, yeah, I knew him over theyears.
I met him hundreds of times andthen I went on his board in
2018, a couple of years beforethe newspaper and magazine was
forcibly shut by the governmentwhen it froze our bank accounts
without a court order.
So I don't want to say I waspresent at the creation, but I
was at least kind of watchingfrom the sidelines and then,
ultimately, as a board member,much, much more involved in the
(04:54):
publications.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've heard you say that Jimmy Lai was forged in
fire when you describe hisupbringing and his early years.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about that, not only his
life in China as a child and theexperiences there, but when he
first came to Hong Kong and howhe got there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That's a great question, I mean because you
can't understand Jimmy withoutunderstanding how he was forged,
how he was made.
So he was born two years beforeMao took power in China and
what had been a prosperousfamily his father, had married
into a shipping family it wasjust ripped apart by the
revolution and the family lostmost of what they had.
(05:34):
The house was split up.
The father went to Hong Kong.
Jimmy and his twin sister andanother sister was a couple
years older were pretty muchleft to fend for themselves.
The mother was in and out ofwhat he's described as labor
camps.
They seemed to have been morelike you'd work during the week
and you'd be home on weekendthan a typical Chinese labor
camp.
But they were rough.
There wasn't a lot of food.
(05:55):
There were these kids.
They were four years old, sixyears old, when their mother
first was taken off for thiskind of re-education and they
were fending for themselves.
Jimmy was hustling black market.
He'd ground tobacco off thestreets and re-roll it and sell
a cigarette.
He'd steal scrap metal and sellit.
He'd be, you know, just feelthrilled if he found a field
mouse that he could grill.
(06:16):
That was like as a delicacy.
I mean, this was a time of realhunger in China, especially
right before he left.
So something like we don'treally know the number something
like 45 million people died inthe famine.
The famine accompanied theso-called Great Leap Forward in
the late 1950s, early 1960s, andJimmy left during this period.
(06:36):
So he was this skinny12-year-old who I think his
mother was probably afraid he'dperish of hunger if he stayed in
China.
So he got a one-way permit toMacau.
He smuggled himself onto asampan, a little fishing boat,
and made the journey east acrossthe Pearl River Delta to Hong
Kong, Was smuggled in, you know,in a remote area of the city,
(06:56):
Managed to find his aunt anduncle.
Their place was so small hecouldn't even sleep on the floor
and that's why he ended up inthe factory the first night.
He was a hustler.
I mean, he's an incrediblysmart guy, as is his twin sister
, although they're wired quitedifferently.
He's a hard worker, he's smart,he wanted to please and he
found a succession of older men,of mentors, who helped him
(07:18):
learn the trade, learn English,spent a lot of time reading the
dictionary while he was livingin the factory.
I mean, these were really,really tough times.
I mean people were living onthe streets in Hong Kong.
There were more than a millionrefugees that had preceded him
in the 10 or 12 years after theChinese Revolution.
They were just flooding intoHong Kong to escape the poverty
and the political persecution ofChina.
(07:41):
That was the world in which he,as a young boy, young man, grew
up in and he came to Hong Kongand it was freedom.
The first morning he describedsmelling the rice, the congee,
the rice porridge that so manyHong Kongers eat for breakfast,
and the dim sum, the flour-baseddumplings and other food.
And you know, wow, this wasfreedom for him.
It was a freedom to eat,freedom to work, the freedom to
(08:02):
start his own business.
Eventually, more rarefiedfreedoms, political freedom and
spiritual freedom.
He converted to Catholicism in1997.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, quite a survivor when you consider there
must have been in those shantytowns, the diseases, the TB, the
fires, a lot of hardships.
He had to be a hustler andentrepreneurial to survive all
that.
He worked his way quickly as akind of a rags to riches success
story, first in manufacturing,then in fashion and apparel and
(08:32):
eventually to the media.
But why don't you talk a littlebit about how he became such a
success and it led him to end uptraveling to the United States
and elsewhere in the world?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Great question.
He's always such a curious guyand again, I've known him for
more than 30 years and sometimesyou kind of wonder, like what's
really making this guy tick,and thought about that a lot.
I mean, first of all, thisinsatiable curiosity, this
really really brilliant mind,and in some funny areas he
happens to have a great sense ofcolor, and that, of course,
(09:03):
helped him in fashion.
He studied with a famousChinese-American artist who
passed away in the last coupleof decades, wallace Ting, and so
Jimmy's in prison now and he'sdrawing so a religious theme.
He never even finished primaryschool.
He repeated at least one, maybemore grades in primary school.
But he has this nativeintelligence brilliance, I would
say, coupled with an insatiabledesire to learn.
(09:26):
And you know, maybe that'stypical of some people who
actually don't get enough formalschooling and they always kind
of worry that they've missed out.
I mean, I know, at the age of19, he was already in Japan
acting as a salesperson.
I don't think he speaksJapanese to this day, although
he has a house in Kyoto, but he,I guess, had enough English by
that point that his company feltcomfortable sending him abroad.
(09:47):
As a teenager he spent a lot oftime in New York and that's
where I think he really got anappreciation for freedom and for
just kind of wide open anythinggoes kind of place.
And it's there that he was kindof adopted by a New York family
and used to spend many weeks, ifnot months, much more
challenging books than he'd readbefore.
And one night they took himover to dinner at another
(10:18):
friend's house and Jimmy wascomplaining about the Chinese
communists, as he was wont to do, and that's probably what's got
him in jail.
At the end of the dinner thehost reached over to his
bookshelf, pulled down a bookand it was Hayek's Road to
Serfdom and he said read this,you know, study it, learn
something.
In other words, you're justkind of blathering about how
horrible the Chinese are, butthis will give you a little bit
(10:39):
more of a theoretical, astructured approach to it.
And from there he just startedjust almost inhaling books.
But Hayek was very, veryimportant to him.
Karl Popper, these were men whoreally believed in freedom,
free markets and free people,and I think this gave Jimmy a
lot more of the intellectualbase to supplement his kind of
(11:00):
native feeling for freedom.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, I recall in the Acton Institute film Call of
the Entrepreneur, when Jimmytells the story of being given
this book Road to Serfdom byHayek, he's choked up and in
tears telling that story and howmuch that meant to him and you
quote I think it's Bill McGurnin your book talking about when
he got to Hong Kong that Jimmyhad read everything by Hayek.
So he was a devourer, I know,of books.
(11:24):
I'd love to ask you a littlemore, since it's an important
part of your book was Jimmy'sdecision to become a Catholic,
which he did on what?
The same day as the handover ofHong Kong?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I think he decided the day after the handover.
He did about a week later,which is pretty fast.
He met his second wife, teresa,in 1989, just a month after the
Tiananmen killings, the June4th killings.
I think he was at a.
Maybe it was a little bitadrift, I mean, one of the
problems.
Actually.
I got to be honest about writingthis biography.
I've known him a long time,I've talked to him about a lot
(11:57):
of things, but he's in jail, Ican't communicate with him.
He's being tried for collusionwith foreigners and I don't need
to cause him any more trouble.
So there's some of this is kindof supposition, but I think he
I've talked to Bill about thishis godfather, his wife, had
left him a couple years earlier.
He had three kind of fairlyyoung kids, teenagers, and he
met Teresa Lee, who was a summerreporter, an intern at the
(12:20):
South China Morning Post, andwas smitten by her.
So you know he'd been on hisown for two or three years and
pursued Teresa.
She was studying in Paris.
He went and spent a lot of timein Paris, wooed her.
They married a couple of yearslater and through her especially
, he started talking tospiritual advisors, mostly from
(12:40):
the Catholic church, about.
He, jimmy, is a real seeker.
He's always questing, he'salways looking for kind of the
next thing and again, at firstit was just like food and being
able to work.
And then I think he moved on toreally a higher plane and I
think Teresa would have liked avery devout Catholic, would have
liked him to convert earlier.
But her feeling was and I thinkmany of us who knew him was
(13:02):
that he was already kind of mostof the way there.
He just hadn't gone through theformal rituals.
And I say this, I'm not aCatholic, but I mean just it was
definitely a part of his life,an important part.
After the handover it wouldgenerally take a year or so of
study before one can convert,unless the circumstances are
extreme.
I guess Chimmy made a prettygood case that the circumstances
(13:22):
were extreme, as Teresa told me.
You know he saw trouble comingafter the Chinese took over Hong
Kong and he figured that itwould probably be better to have
a higher power on his side.
It's not clear immediately howmuch of a difference it made in
his life.
On the one hand, he was alreadykind of most of the way there,
as his friends would say.
On the other hand, what'shappened in the last four years
(13:44):
while he's been in prison isthat his faith has really
deepened and sustained him in avery powerful way.
He gets four or so books amonth.
They're all Catholic theologyhe's able to draw.
As I said, he draws exclusivelyreligious themes.
It's a really important part ofhis life and I think if one is
(14:08):
going to be as strong and asfree as Jimmy by all accounts
seems to be in prison, it'shelpful I don't mean this like
sardonically at all Helpful tohave a really powerful
supportive spouse, partner andsome sort of faith.
And I was the moderator for alive stream conversation where
Jimmy and Nate and Sharanskytalked about this, and many of
your viewers will know thatSharansky spent nine years in
the Soviet gulag in reallyhorrific conditions and I've
(14:30):
talked to Sharansky about thissubsequently.
He was really struck by Jimmy.
They had, I believe, threeconversations this public one
and two private ones andSharansky said he'd never met
anybody like Jimmy, the guy whoknew he was going in jail.
He could have run away, he wasa very wealthy man with houses
around the globe and he decidedto stay.
And his faith and his wife andhis belief that what he was
(14:53):
doing was right is what hasreally anchored him, and it's
interesting Sharansky was kindenough to write the foreword to
the book as well, and I thinkhis remarks are really spot on.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, that's a powerful foreword you've
included there by Sharansky,because of the similarity of the
circumstances and the fact thatthey had those conversations
leading up to Jimmy's time inprison.
Those who have said the kind ofconditions that he's being kept
in now, in a cell with no airconditioning, and for those who
don't know, hong Kong gets veryhot and humid.
He gets maybe 50 minutes a day,you said, to get some exercise,
(15:26):
go outside, but he's allowedonly a handful of books a month.
He's not allowed communion.
Solitary confinement.
Many people have consideredthat a form of torture and
violation of internationalstandards.
How much communication is therewith him?
His wife get to visit and whatdo you think about those
conditions?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, I mean, they're tough, as you say.
Actually, the United Nations,under the Mandela principles,
says that solitary confinementshould only be used as a last
resort, you know, if theprisoner is a danger to himself
or to other people, and itshouldn't be for more than 15
days, and Jimmy's been in prisonnonstop since December 31st
2020.
So we're coming up on 1,500days of incarceration, most of
(16:10):
that in solitary confinement,and, yeah, under UN conventions
it's regarded as a kind oftorture.
He has no natural light.
Authorities have said thatthere's indirect light in the
corridor outside his cell, nowindows at all.
They seem obsessed with tryingto prevent any sort of images of
him coming out.
As you say, he goes out forabout 50 minutes a day.
(16:32):
I guess he's out of the cellfor an hour, so he's exercising
for 50 minutes a day.
An Associated Press photographerin the summer of 2023,
surreptitiously took a long lensphotograph and the authorities
of Jimmy going out to exercise.
He looked fine.
I mean, definitely lookedthinner, gaunt.
Yeah, there wasn't a sign ofhorrible treatment or anything.
Again, we don't know what he'slike mentally from a picture
(16:55):
like that.
But for her pains, theauthorities threw this woman
photographer out of Hong Kong,denied her a visa.
I mean they just seem againobsessed with Jimmy, which is to
me so misplaced, because therewere millions of Hong Kong
people out in the streets votingfor democracy.
Every time there's an election,six out of 10 Hong Kongers more
or less go for thepro-democracy camp.
I mean it always wins amajority.
(17:16):
And so to put all this pressureon Jimmy and, as you say, the
conditions, I think there arepeople around him who are
concerned that he might not makeit through another summer.
He's sleeping on some kind ofstraw substance, as you say, no
air conditioning.
It's very, very hot and so he'sgot a lot of heat rash issues
in the summer.
It's obviously cold in thewinter.
When he's not on trial, wherehe's kept closer to the court,
(17:38):
he's in Stanley Prison.
It's a maximum security prisonbuilt before World War II, 1937,
by the British authorities.
The conditions are, they'relousy and he's in prison and has
had, you know, kind ofmarginally successful cataract
(17:58):
operation while in prisonDoesn't seem to be seen too well
Lost a lot of his hearing andpart of his finger fingertip,
working in those factories backwhen he was a kid.
So it's tough conditions, right.
You know from what Sieranskidescribed in his experience in
the Gulag.
Yeah, it can be worse, but thatdoesn't take anything away from
the fact that this is a man whoshouldn't be in jail, who's put
(18:20):
under a lot of pressure.
Jimmy never likes to complain.
I discourage people from sayinghe's quote unquote rotting in
jail.
He's not.
He's probably as free as he'sever been in his mind.
But of course he'd like to befree and he'd like to leave Hong
Kong to spend his last yearswith his family.
We just hope we can get him outquickly enough that he does
that.
I mean, you know we've seen theChinese held Nobel Peace Prize
(18:41):
laureate Liu Xiaobo.
They held him in prison untilhe was just about to die.
Then they put him in a prisonhospital and he died, right, I
mean that's not the fate thatanybody deserves.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You know you touch on this theme that comes out of
Sharansky and Jimmy Lai in yourbook that Jimmy's as free as
he's ever been and it'sremarkable that someone in
prison, in confinement, like heis under those conditions, has a
different kind of spiritual andhe stayed really because he
wanted to support the studentswho were fighting for democracy
(19:18):
and stand on the principles hebelieved in.
We honored Jimmy at our 29thAnnual Journalism Awards Dinner
in New York a few years ago.
Obviously he couldn't be therebut we gave him our Kenneth
Tomlinson Award for Courage inJournalism.
Bill McGurn and Paul Chigotaccepted on his behalf.
We shared a clip at thatprogram from the Hong Konger, a
film that Acton did about Jimmy.
(19:40):
What do you think the realmessage is for others,
especially for young journalists, in the life of Jimmy Lai?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Never give up and do what's right.
Be creative, be innovative.
Don't take no for an answer,but if you're going to stay, be
really clear about why you'restaying and what you're willing
to suffer.
We discussed seems quite free,but honestly, I mean, we'd all
like to think we're heroes, butI don't think most of us are
(20:18):
really cut out to do what he'sdoing and to remain free and
convinced and defiant the wholetime he's testifying.
Now I think he testified 25days on his own behalf and is
now being cross-examined.
The prosecution expects another25 days or something and he
seems unbowed.
And that's really different formost of the not all, but many
of the political prisoners inHong Kong have pled guilty in
hopes of more lenient treatmentand I think if you're going to
(20:41):
do something like this, you'vereally got to be certain.
I'm not sure that helps youngjournalists except, you know, as
an inspiration and ademonstration of the importance
of journalism in speaking truthto power.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I assume the verdict in this trial is preordained,
but what can people do tosupport Jimmy Lai?
I know one thing, and that's tobuy your book.
I mean, if we could get this onthe bestseller list, that would
be sending a great message.
I know former Vice PresidentMike Pence was just in Hong Kong
and he spoke out for Jimmy'srelease from prison at a
conference there.
Are there other things?
(21:15):
Is it putting pressure on thenew administration here in
Washington?
Is there anything we can do?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, I think that's probably the best approach.
The president said on thecampaign trail that he would
absolutely, 100% guaranteed, getJimmy Lai out of Chinese prison
.
He said it'd be very easy.
Look very happy to hear him saythat.
Now we need to be working withhim and others in the
administration to see that thisis, you know, moves up the
priority list and that it'sactually accomplished.
(21:42):
I thought Vice President Pence'sremarks were terrific in Hong
Kong, wasn't anything too pushyor anything, but he just pointed
out that if China wants toimprove relations with the US,
at least in the short term,there's almost nothing they
could do that would have a lowercost and a higher potential
reward than moving to let Jimmyand other political prisoners
out.
I mean, china's made its point.
(22:03):
Jimmy Lai is not going back.
The presses are not going tostart rolling again at Apple
Daily.
They've crushed the democracymovement in Hong Kong.
It's not to say that most HongKongers don't still support
democracy, but the days when youhad a million or two million
people out in the streets, youknow, just aren't there.
So let's work with the USadministration.
He's a British citizen, which wehaven't discussed, but he's a
(22:24):
full British citizen.
Has been since 1992.
Let's see our two governmentsput some pressure on the Chinese
and make them realize thathonestly he's more trouble in
prison than out.
He continues to attractinternational attention and
support.
That reflects very badly onHong Kong, which is trying to
reestablish itself as a trustedinternational business center
(22:45):
despite this crackdown that'sseen more than 1,900 political
prisoners convicted in jail inthe last five years.
And if Hong Kong wants to kindof turn the page and move
forward with the internationalcommunity, you know the Chinese
need to take some steps too, butobviously you or I can't have a
lot of influence on Chinesepolicymaking, so it's got to
come through our governments.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I want to read two sentences from the middle of
your book.
The first is you quoting BillMcGurn and the second is yours,
where you say he is driving themcrazy because he won't go along
with the lie.
And then you write one man in acountry of 1.4 billion who uses
his considerable moral andmaterial resources to fight the
(23:26):
lie.
I really like that sentencebecause it illustrates the point
of how one man can make such adifference, while at the same
time, as you just reminded me,there are I don't know if it's
over a thousand other politicalprisoners in Hong Kong who are
part of this.
So that's powerful.
Could you tell me a little bitabout your work with the
Committee for Freedom in HongKong?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
As we discussed earlier, I've known Jimmy for
three decades and I was on theboard and I felt that I needed
to do something.
After he was put in prisonInitially, in the beginning of
December 2020, they let him outfor a few days over Christmas,
and so a group of friends and Isome of whom knew Jimmy not
everybody who did just wanted todo what we could to try to
(24:08):
protect freedom in Hong Kong.
I mean, I'm sure many of yourviewers and your listeners have
been to Hong Kong and it's aremarkable place.
It's extraordinary, and it'sextraordinary not only because
of its beautiful harbor and itsdynamic business environment,
but also because offreedom-loving people like Jimmy
and many of the 4,000 or sopeople we had on staff.
(24:28):
And, as you said, I think rightnow there are about a thousand
political prisoners in prison,but 1,900 have done some jail
time in the last couple of years, and we wanted to do what we
could just to bear witness at atime when Xi Jinping seemed to
be determined to crush dissenteverywhere and you know it was a
broader issue.
I mean, I think many of us areconcerned that what happens,
(24:49):
what China does in Hong Kongtoday, is a kind of playbook for
some of the tactics that itwants to use in other countries
to squelch freedom.
Obviously, it has its eyes seton Taiwan, but we're all or many
of us longtime Hong Kongresidents and just felt the need
to do something and we werecoming up in 2022.
(25:10):
And I think that maybe we diddiscuss it explicitly, but I
think we kind of felt like thatwould be an obvious pressure
point for the Chinese to releasepolitical prisoners before the
Beijing Games, and Beijing Gamescame and went and more and more
people just were in prison.
So we're into it more for thelong haul now.
So we're a 501c3, a registeredUS charity based in Washington
(25:32):
DC.
We've got offices in DC as wellas in London.
We primarily I guess you'd saya lot of focus anyway on
governments, but especially onlegislatures parliament in the
UK, congress in the US.
Part of that is moral, part ofit is trying to get legislation
introduced or laws kind of morefully enforced, whether they're
sanctions against human rightsviolators in Hong Kong or moves
(25:56):
to shut their diplomaticoutposts.
Hong Kong has a reallyfavorable system where they have
economic and trade offices in14 cities around the world.
They were great back when HongKong was free and now they've
become kind of wolf warrioroutposts.
Even, it seems, in the UKespionage dens.
We're trying to raise the costfor what China's doing to Hong
(26:17):
Kong.
We also do a lot of media work.
Obviously.
I've written this book, butwe've got a great staff that's
just out there interacting withmedia people, with politicians,
again trying to keep the message, keep the spotlight on Hong
Kong.
We also do research.
So we've, and last year we'vehad three very strong research
(26:38):
pieces.
One looks at the way in whichreligion is being increasingly
brought under the thumb of theChinese Communist Party, even in
Hong Kong, despite promises tothe international community that
religious freedom would remainuntouched after Chinese rule.
We did a piece on the role offoreign judges.
There are a number of foreignjudges in Hong Kong courts and
again we think this is givingaid and comfort to some very bad
people who don't believe inrule of law.
(26:59):
And the third was a reallydetailed report that I think has
moved the needle a lot, lookingat Hong Kong's role in
sanctions evasion.
So Hong Kong used to be, it's afree port.
A lot of stuff goes throughthere, but it's increasingly
being used to well, whether it'smoney laundering or especially
evade technology-relatedsanctions.
So Hong Kong is a key, if notthe most important node in
(27:22):
technology smuggling that's usedfor the Russian war effort in
Ukraine.
So that's something that we see.
Hong Kong has an importance, arole that's way beyond a city of
seven and a half million people, halfway around the world from
Washington DC.
It actually has seriousnational security implications.
So research, media andlegislative government work.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for writing thisgreat biography of Jimmy Lai and
talking about the work of theCommittee for Freedom in Hong
Kong.
There's a lot we didn't touchon the influence of Tiananmen
Square on Jimmy's thinking, manyother matters, his time in
Taiwan and a lot more about hiscareer, as well as about the
trial itself and the OccupyCentral Hong Kong, the Umbrella
(28:04):
Movement.
But I really encourage everyoneto get a copy of this book,
give it as a gift.
People need to know the storyof Jimmy Lai and we'll be
hearing a lot more about him, Ihope, in the next few months and
pray that it's because he willhave been released from his
captivity in Hong Kong.
Any last words, mark?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Thanks for your interest and just to underscore
what you just said, I mean noneof us fighting for freedom have
armies at our disposal, but youknow we do have moral right on
our side and we do have electedofficials who can influence
China.
And so I think if we can keepthe eyes of the world on Hong
Kong, on Jimmy Lai and the otherpolitical prisoners, we really
have a strong chance of somemeaningful change or at least
(28:46):
meaningful amelioration of someof these conditions and of
getting some of the prisonersout, and that would be a step
that would be a really importantstep.
So, yeah, thanks for yoursupport, Thanks for everybody
who's watched and everythingthey're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
The book is called the Troublemaker.
Thank you very much, markClifford, for joining me today.
Thank you so much, roger.
Thank you for listening to theLiberty and Leadership podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at tfasorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
(29:20):
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
things, large and small.
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