Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong Media Mogul Who Met With Pompeo and Pence, Arrested for ‘Collusion With Foreign Forces’
HONG KONG—The founder of a popular newspaper has been arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force, six weeks after Beijing passed a national-security law that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison for people deemed to have participated in acts of “secession, subversion, treason, or collusion with foreign forces” against the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.
Jimmy Lai, a media mogul who owns the broadsheet Apple Daily, is also a key financial contributor to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp. In July 2019, Lai met with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington to discuss the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and an extradition bill that drew massive protests. In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies in Hong Kong, that counts as colluding with foreign powers to destabilize the city—and in turn disrupting the party’s grip on its political hierarchy.
On Friday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and 10 other government officials were sanctioned by the United States for paring away the freedoms of people who reside in the city. Lam is “directly responsible for implementing Beijing’s policies of suppression of freedom and democratic processes,” the Treasury Department said.