If the sentence handed to the media mogul Jimmy Lai was meant to surprise, it would have been shorter. Twenty years behind bars is not a burst of rage. It is a sentence designed to make repression routine in Hong Kong. The 78-year-old founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is now likely to die in prison after being convicted of sedition. The court was telling Hongkongers what kind of place they now live in, and signalling to foreign governments what kind of relationship Beijing expects them to accept.
China’s national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, was designed to dismantle the former British colony’s pro-democracy movement and to place freedom of expression under permanent political constraint by the Chinese Communist party. From 2020 to 2026, at least 385 individuals have been arrested and 175 convicted under national security-related offences.
The day after Mr Lai’s verdict, China released a security white paper on Hong Kong. The timing was no coincidence. It described the national security law as a “legal shield” that had restored order. The message was that Hong Kong cannot be a special case within China: its courts, legislature and civil service are instruments of Beijing’s security apparatus. Mr Lai’s sentence, the heaviest yet imposed under China’s national security law, drew international criticism. The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, called for his release, warning that the verdict violated international law, criminalised journalism and relied on conduct that predated the legislation under which he was prosecuted.
Hong Kong’s chief executive said the security laws target “hostile” foreign intervention. Britain stopped short of contesting that framing. Ministers have expressed concern, called on China to honour the Sino-British Joint Declaration and said the government had raised the case privately. Their appeal for his release rests on humanitarian grounds, not on the unsoundness of the conviction.
Brussels’ response was tougher than London’s, even though Britain is the former imperial power and Mr Lai is a British citizen. That reluctance is often justified as realism: China is simply too important to confront. But realism cuts both ways. Beijing reads restraint as a signal of limits. The point of cases like Mr Lai’s is not only to punish an individual, but to demonstrate that guarantees – even “legally binding” ones – are no constraint.
Britain sees itself as a defender of a rules-based order. But it is also, regrettably, saying that those rules will not be enforced where the costs appear too high. The continued presence of some British judges in Hong Kong’s top court was once defended as a safeguard of judicial independence. They ought to leave as the role now risks legitimising Beijing’s persecution of democracy activists.
Australia’s experience offers a contrast. When a high profile China-born Australian journalist, Cheng Lei, was detained for three years on national security charges, Canberra treated her detention as political, and campaigned despite the risk of retaliation. Australia clearly said that there were costs to be weighed on both sides. The reporter was eventually freed. Britain could take a tougher stance. That would not guarantee Mr Lai’s release. Nor would it require Britain to abandon engagement with China. But if a British citizen can be ruled unlawfully imprisoned and the response stops at private appeals for mercy, a line has been drawn – and others will notice.
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