Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in jail by the city’s Chinese Communist Party rulers. Lai is Hong Kong’s most prominent political prisoner. The verdict is tantamount to a death sentence for the 78-year-old. It is also a warning for another neighbor that China has set its sights on: Taiwan.
Authorities in Hong Kong called the sentence “deserved,” claiming that Lai had committed “numerous heinous crimes, and his evil deeds were beyond measure.” In fact, Lai had been a critic of the CCP, highlighting how its rulers destroyed democracy in the city. Lai’s words and his uncompromising stance are what prompted the ruling, not some trumped-up charges brought forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s henchmen.
Lai’s sentence is the coup de grace for democracy in what was, until recently, a vibrant and free city.
In 1997, the British government handed over Hong Kong to China. In exchange, Beijing agreed to allow the region political autonomy under a framework known as “one country, two systems.” China promised that this agreement would last for half a century. This turned out to be a lie. Ultimately, China’s autocrats couldn’t tolerate freedom so close to its shores.
Under British rule, Hong Kong had a free press, thriving trade, and a famously booming economy. Indeed, as historian Frank DiKotter has documented, Hong Kong was key to the economic reforms that lifted China from poverty to a financial powerhouse. What is often labeled as the “Chinese miracle” was, in fact, aided by its industrious capitalist neighbor.
But capitalism requires innovation and innovation requires competition, and this the CCP cannot tolerate. There can be no competing with, or questioning, the party and its diktats. This is central to communist doctrine. Beijing, its rulers haunted by the fate of the Soviet Union, has learned it well. Dissent isn’t tolerated.
Unsurprisingly, the CCP broke its promises, instituting a variety of draconian measures culminating in so-called national security laws in 2020. Pro-democracy activists, lawmakers, and journalists were arrested, including Jimmy Lai among them. Protests were brutally suppressed. In March 2024, a new “legislature” rubber-stamped Article 23, further expanding the CCP’s hold on the city.
Hong Kong is no longer sovereign, let alone free. Its institutions have been twisted and subverted, its free enterprise and roaring spirit crushed. But Hong Kong is more than just a city turned into a dystopia.
Hong Kong is a warning about the fragility of freedom itself. And China’s neighbors would be wise to take note. The Chinese Communist Party’s plans extend far beyond what was once known as the “Pearl of the Orient.”
The CCP has coveted Taiwan for decades. Xi Jinping has told his People’s Liberation Army to be ready to seize the island by 2027. Current U.S. defense estimates indicate that Xi is on track to do just that. For years, Taiwan was a military dictatorship under the heavy hand of Chiang Kai-shek. But beginning in the late 1980s, Taiwan slowly liberalized, ending martial law and eventually holding free and fair democratic elections.
Taiwan’s economy grew commensurate with its freedoms. And Taiwan now stands on the verge of sharing Hong Kong’s fate.
Yet some Taiwanese leaders seem nonplussed. For years, Taiwan’s defense spending has been perilously low. Nor has the United States been much of a help. There is a backlog of U.S. arms to the country, and for too many years, American defense planners have encouraged Taipei to purchase costly weapons platforms that will be of little assistance in the event of an invasion.
Taiwan’s opposition-controlled Parliament, led by the KMT Party, has repeatedly refused to approve much-needed defense increases and procurements. But they should hold no illusions.
The specter of what has happened in Hong Kong should haunt them, and it should haunt the rest of the free world, too.
Ronald Reagan famously observed that freedom is “never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance — it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” Jimmy Lai and others in Hong Kong would agree. But they no longer have a say in their future. For the moment, Taiwan does.