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Sammy Heung

Jess Ma

Brian Wong

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app.
Former media owner Jimmy Lai Chee-ying returned to the stand for a second day in his Hong Kong national security trial on Thursday, with his lawyers asking him to respond to other allegations made by former staff of his now-defunct newspaper.
Lai has pleaded not guilty to two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces under the national security law and a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications in relation to Apple Daily, his now-closed tabloid newspaper.
On the first day of his defence on Wednesday, the former media boss denied leveraging his connections to sway foreign policy on Hong Kong or mainland China, or exploiting his friendships with overseas officials to advance a political agenda.
He was asked to detail his relationship with politicians and figures from the United States, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
Lai also touched on his stance on Hong Kong and Taiwan independence, describing the advocacy of such ideas as “a conspiracy” and “a trap”.
The court looked into a series of his interactions with his former staff at Apple Daily, with Lai having to explain the intention and rationale behind his actions, including his desire to secure support by then-president Trump’s administration in the US to stop the Beijing-imposed national security law, implemented on June 30, 2020.
Defence lawyers said they anticipated it would take three weeks to question him before cross-examination by prosecutors.
Key takeaways:

Lai says he did not write a message asking Apple Daily staff to come up with a list of Hongkongers to sanction, but rather the text was forwarded from a person with access to the Trump administration


He says the storming of the Legislative Council complex on July 1, 2019, was “wrong” and he asked for the paper’s coverage to reflect the thinking of the young protesters to retain local sympathy for the movement


Lai also denies his commentary pieces over the now-withdrawn extradition bill were intended to incite hatred against authorities

See more from our coverage:
– Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai admits donating money to overseas groups but denies having agenda
– Jimmy Lai wanted Trump to stop Hong Kong national security law with ‘call to Xi’
– The Jimmy Lai trial so far: daily updates on his high-profile national security case in Hong Kong


Jimmy Lai maintains UK had ‘moral responsibility’ towards Hongkongers

Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai denies making appeal for hostilities against Beijing

Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai admits ‘mistake’ of sharing British activist’s tweet

Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai denies seeking new Cold War with praise for Pompeo

Jimmy Lai trial

Jimmy Lai denies urging hatred, says no ‘serious violence’ at Hong Kong Legco storming – as it happened

Former media boss Jimmy Lai has denied leveraging his connections to sway foreign policy on Hong Kong or mainland China. Photo: AFP

News

Hong Kong

Law and Crime

Former media boss also rejects claims from ex-Apple Daily staff over grip on editorial direction, creation of sanctions list targeting Hongkongers


Former media boss also rejects claims from ex-Apple Daily staff over grip on editorial direction, creation of sanctions list targeting Hongkongers.


Hong Kong courts

Hong Kong national security law (NSL)

Jimmy Lai

Legislative Council of Hong Kong

Hong Kong politics

Donald Trump

Hong Kong media

United States

Hong Kong protests

Live

It was revealed on Wednesday that Lai had told ex-Apple Daily publisher Cheung Kim-hung that the newspaper’s Taiwan bureau should not publish material that “goes against” Trump before the national security law was introduced in Hong Kong on June 30, 2020.
Lai explained that at the time, he believed the newspaper’s survival depended on the backing of the Trump administration, which he wanted to dissuade Beijing from implementing the national security law.
He said Trump might be able to ask Beijing not to impose the law via a call to Xi Jinping.
Under the law, there would be “no way for us” to run an independent media outlet, he added.



Lai wanted Trump to ‘stop national security law’

Prosecutors earlier said Lai had ties to politicians across the United States, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
Lai on Wednesday acknowledged that he and former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party would meet from time to time to talk about his business on the self-ruled island and US policies.
He said he had never met Donald Trump in person during his first presidency, nor directly or indirectly communicated with him.
He said he met Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his trip to Washington in July 2019, but had only asked them to voice support for Hong Kong.
Despite having taken a photo with former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi in a 2019 meeting, Lai said he did not know her and he did not say anything during their encounter.
Asked whether he had attempted to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong or the mainland through various overseas figures, Lai replied “never”. He said he had never used his friendships to pursue a political agenda.



Relationships with foreign figures

Lai on Wednesday was asked by his lawyer whether Apple Daily opposed violence during the 2019 anti-government protests and answered that he “always opposes violence in any form”, with the same position applied to Apple Daily.
He was also asked about his stance regarding the independence of Hong Kong and Taiwan. He replied he always thought the advocacy of such ideas was “a conspiracy”.
He said it was “a trap” and “too crazy to think about it”, stressing that staff at his newspaper were not allowed to advocate such an idea.



Lai’s take on Hong Kong independence

Lai, 77, has been remanded in custody since December 2020 over two conspiracy charges of colluding with foreign forces and a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious materials through Apple Daily.
The long-awaited trial began last December in the absence of a jury. Wednesday was the first time Lai had taken the stand. All three judges were selected by the city leader to adjudicate national security proceedings.
In July, despite Lai’s defence team saying the evidence presented was weak, the three judges ruled it would be premature to acquit him in the middle of the proceedings.
Western diplomats and politicians have been raising their concerns over Lai’s trial, including US president-elect Donald Trump, who said in an interview in October that he would “100 per cent” speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping to get Lai out of the country if he was re-elected.



Taking the stand for the first time

Around 50 residents, mostly middle-aged and elderly people, wait in the public queue outside West Kowloon Court shortly after 7.30am, two hours before the start of Thursday’s hearing.
Some of them tell the Post they have been lining up every morning for the past few days, to attend the former tycoon’s trial but also to catch Tuesday’s sentencing on a landmark subversion case involving 45 opposition activists.
The crowd is allowed to enter the indoor area of the court at around 8.19am.
An elderly man, aged 83, holds a yellow umbrella in the line and says he took the first bus at 5.30am to the court. He listened to the subversion case on Tuesday and queued for three days for that hearing, he adds.
A 40-year-old nurse, surnamed Chu, says she could not attend Lai’s hearing yesterday but insisted on coming today, to show support to those facing consequences for actions that were not deemed illegal before the introduction of the national security law in 2020.
“It is worth getting to know the efforts made by these people,” she says, adding the news of Wednesday’s hearing has helped her better understand Lai’s journey.



Residents return early to queue for hearing

Entering the court three minutes before the hearing begins, Lai wears the same light brown blazer and green jumper, with round black-rimmed glasses, as he did on Wednesday.
He displays a calm disposition, waving towards the public gallery and clasping his fist to express gratitude. Lai also nods and smiles in response to his wife Teresa Lai’s thumbs-up gesture and daughter Claire Lai Choi’s blown kisses.
Lai’s wife is also heard conveying to Lai that cartoonist Zunzi is in court, with the former media boss acknowledging the artist seated in the public gallery.



Lai composed with wife, daughter and cartoonist Zunzi looking on

Defence counsel Steven Kwan Man-wai asks Lai if he thinks the storming of the Legislative Council was “serious violence”.
At first, Lai disagrees, saying that “nobody was hurt” or in danger from the takeover. But then he admits that the storming was indeed an act of “serious violence” as it was illegal and property was damaged.
He then agrees that he was opposed to the storming.
“If it were not such a negative incident, I would not have asked the newspaper to get the young people to explain, to get the sympathy of the people of Hong Kong,” Lai says.



Lai says no ‘serious violence’ at Legco storming as ‘nobody was hurt’

Lai admits he had given “suggestions” to Apple Daily’s former associate publisher Chan Pui-man about the paper’s coverage of protesters storming the Legislative Council building on July 1, 2019, when anti-government demonstrators smashed a glass wall and vandalised facilities.
He wanted the newspaper to focus on the thinking of the young protesters involved, to gain public sympathy for them in spite of their wrongful actions, he adds.
“Because I thought it was a wrong thing for them to do, so they had to explain it to get understanding and sympathy from the Hong Kong people, so that the [pro-democracy] movement was not damaged,” Lai says.
He concedes he had asked the editorial board to report the news from a particular perspective, but explains his ultimate aim was to prevent the “very negative” incident from damaging the anti-government movement, which had been triggered by a proposed extradition bill later withdrawn in October 2019.
“I hope they will learn from this mistake and begin to, you know, fight in non-violent ways, peacefully,” Lai says, adding that this was his honest belief at the time and that he was concerned with the young protesters’ “radicalism”.
But Lai continues to deny he was giving explicit direction to editorial staff on Apple Daily’s coverage, saying he had merely given them “suggestions”.



Lai suggested Apple Daily reflect young protesters’ ‘thinking’ to retain Hongkongers’ sympathy

Lai says he did not read nor compose a WhatsApp message that asked for a “s*** list” of people involved in censorship and intimidation in Hong Kong that the United States could sanction.
Ex-Apple Daily associate publisher Chan Pui-man had earlier in the trial said Lai had asked whether the newspaper could follow up on Trump’s executive order, signed on July 14, 2020, which ended the US’ preferential trade relationship with Hong Kong and allowed his administration to impose disciplinary actions against foreign individuals and banks.
She told the court she did not prepare any such list, saying news reports could only talk about the impact brought by the executive order to Hong Kong.
The court earlier also heard that a forwarded text message sent by Lai on July 15 that year said the order was “quite expansive”. It allowed the US government to freeze the property of anyone engaged in acts that undermined the city’s democratic institutions, or who was involved in “censorship or other activities with respect to Hong Kong that prohibit, limit, or penalise the exercise of freedom of expression or assembly by citizens of Hong Kong”.
A message sent by Lai on WhatsApp included the executive order and a line that read: “I’d say we should work up a s*** list of those involved in censorship, which can include intimidation.”
But Lai on Thursday says he neither read nor wrote the message. It was sent to him on Signal by someone with access to the Trump administration, he says.
“The whole text, it sounds so foreign to me. It’s not the kind of language I’d use,” he adds.
The message to Chan also mentioned “I get lost in the legalese and am waiting for confirmation”, but Lai says these are “not the kind of words” he would have used.
The court hears that the message to Chan was not indicated as “forwarded”, but Lai explains he did not know how to forward messages from Signal to WhatsApp, so he copied and pasted the original Signal message instead.
His defence counsel Steven Kwan shows the court Lai had also sent the message with the line about the “s*** list” to a few friends before sending it to Chan.
People who received the message include Lee Wing-tat and Lam Cheuk-ting, both ex-lawmakers of the Democratic Party, and Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which used to organised the city’s annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
Asked if he had asked Lee Wing-tat to work out the list, Lai laughs and replies: “That would be ridiculous.”
He adds that if he had intended to ask Chan to create the list, he would have sent the message to her first.


Lai says he didn’t author message asking for list of Hongkongers to sanction

Defence lawyer Steven Kwan begins the afternoon session by examining accusations made by editorial writer turned prosecution witness Yeung Ching-kee, who earlier described Apple Daily’s editorial freedom as a type of “birdcage autonomy”, a term borrowed from local politics that means something being controlled.
Yeung had told the court earlier that editorial staff enjoyed a level of freedom and autonomy in the “birdcage” environment Lai established, but they could not go beyond these limits.
Lai rejects the claim. He says he has never imposed such constraints, but rather Yeung’s metaphor refers to how media organisations operate with a designated set of values.
“A media business is to deliver resonance by disseminating news or commentaries underlined by a set of values, which the audience or the readers can relate to not only in the mind, but also in the heart,” Lai says.
Asked by Judge Esther Toh Lye-ping whether he is talking about the perspective of a particular publication in his take on the metaphor, Lai says American outlet CNN is in “the birdcage of liberalism” with its progressive and anti-Trump stance.



Lai says values underpin media, rejects claims of ‘birdcage’ control on editorial staff

Defence lawyer Kwan asks Lai whether he has ever asked pro-establishment figures to write for Apple Daily’s opinion section. Lai says he approached former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, who declined the offer.
Kwan moves on to a list of potential op-ed writers whom Apple Daily staff wanted to invite to pen pieces in a bid to strengthen the newspaper’s line-up.
Apart from Jasper Tsang, others on the list are former Monetary Authority chief Yam Chi-kwong and ex-financial secretary John Tsang Chun-wah. Lai says both turned down the offers.
He says the only person on the list who is “out of the birdcage” is Jasper Tsang, while Yam is “free market”.



Former Legco president Jasper Tsang declined offer to write op-ed: Lai

Defence lawyer Kwan goes through two allegedly seditious Apple Daily columns written by Lai.
Lai wrote them in April and May 2019 before protests erupted in Hong Kong over the now-scrapped extradition bill, which would have allowed the transfer of fugitives to mainland China on a case-by-case basis.
Were the legislation to be introduced, he wrote, Hongkongers could be “enveloped in a sense of panic and conformity” and the rule of law could be turned into “the rule of man”.
The prosecution earlier alleged that the first article intended to bring hatred or contempt or disaffection against the central or Hong Kong governments.
Asked whether he agrees with the prosecution, Lai replies: “No.” He says he was “just projecting what would happen” if the law was imposed.
“My intention was to project what would happen and I gave my reasons why,” he adds.

In the second article, Lai wrote that if Hongkongers only opposed the law by “voice or words”, officials would only maintain their views, but if they took part in protests, authorities might “cower and compromise”.
He wrote that people “should not give up” and let officials see they would “fight to the end” to protect their home.
Lai denies he intended to “make people hate the central or Hong Kong governments”.
He says he was simply trying to convince people to come out and to demonstrate “what would happen if they didn’t”.


Columns not intended to incite hatred against authorities, Lai says

Lai had written an article that recalled the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989 and said this could also happen in Hong Kong, adding there could be “concentration camps” if an extradition law was passed. The law has since been shelved.
He then called on readers to join a demonstration to oppose the bill.
Defence lawyer Kwan asks the former media boss whether the intention was to undermine the rule of law and incite hatred, which Lai rejects.
Asked why he thought the events of 1989 would take place in the city, he says he believed Hong Kong would “have no more rule of law” if the extradition law was imposed.
Lai also dismisses claims the intention was to make people hate authorities, incite residents to resort to unlawful means or change the city’s political structure.
He says he did not urge people to disobey the law, adding he was simply convincing them to join demonstrations, which is legal.


Hatred or illegal action not goals of Tiananmen article: Lai

We’re ending our live blog of Thursday’s hearing. Stay tuned for more on our website.
We will resume our live coverage on Friday, when the trial continues at 10am.


It’s a wrap