HONG KONG — Former Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai testified he met with then-Vice President Mike Pence and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during Hong Kong’s anti-government protests in 2019 but told the court at his landmark national security trial Wednesday that he did not ask the U.S. officials to take action.
Lai, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily pro-democracy newspaper, was arrested in 2020 in the crackdown that followed the protests. He is accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to issue seditious publications. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
He testified about his meetings with U.S. officials and gave details about his alleged overseas political connections with people in the U.S., Britain and Taiwan, including ex-Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong’s last British governor, Chris Patten.
But the media tycoon who also describes himself as a businessman and social activist said he never tried to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong or China through the people he met overseas or ask them to take action against them.
Lai’s case is widely seen as a measure of press freedom and judicial independence in the Asian financial hub.
Lai testified in English that he asked Pence to voice his support for Hong Kong but not for the U.S. government to take any action, saying, “It’s beyond me.”
During the same trip to the U.S., Lai also met with Pompeo and discussed the situation in Hong Kong with him, noting it was a similar conversation to the one he had with Pence, he testified.
When Lai’s lawyer, Steven Kwan, asked him whether he had requested the U.S. to do something, Lai said not to do something but “to say something.”
Beijing promised to retain the former British colony’s civil liberties for 50 years when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. But critics say that promise has become threadbare under the rubric of maintaining national security.
Authorities have used a Beijing-imposed national security law to prosecute many of Hong Kong’s leading activists, including Lai and 45 democracy advocates who were sentenced to several years in prison on Tuesday. Other pro-democracy figures were forced into self-exile or silenced. Dozens of civil society groups have disbanded under the threat of the law.
Beijing and Hong Kong governments insist that the law restored stability to the city following the 2019 protests.
Prosecutors have alleged that Lai asked foreign countries, especially the United States, to take actions against Beijing “under the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy.”
They pointed to Lai’s meetings with Pence, Pompeo and U.S. senators in July 2019 to discuss a now-withdrawn extradition bill that sparked the massive anti-government protests. They allege that Lai sought support from the U.S. in sanctioning mainland Chinese and Hong Kong leaders who cracked down on the movement.
Dozens of people stood in the rain to secure a seat in the courtroom, including former Apple Daily reader William Wong, who said he wanted to remind Lai that Hong Kongers have not forgotten him. “I haven’t seen him for a few months. I know he will testify himself, so I want to encourage him,” said Wong, 64.
Upon entering the court, Lai waved and smiled at his family members, who sat next to the city’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen.
During the hearing, Lai said he had introduced former U.S. officials Paul Wolfowitz and Jack Keane to Taiwan’s former President Tsai Ing-wen — whom he knew before she became the island’s leader. It was because Tsai wanted to know more about the thinking of then-President Donald Trump’s administration back then, he said.
Lai said she knew he was “supportive of Trump” and she thought he knew a lot about the U.S. because of his links with U.S. think tanks. But he never communicated with Trump, he said.
He said he wanted to help Taiwan to know how to better deal with the U.S. because the island was the only democracy of Chinese people.
But Lai rejected the idea of Hong Kong independence, saying it was a “crazy” idea and he never allowed his staff or the newspaper to mention it.
He said he broke into the media world because “to participate in delivering freedom” was a very good idea for him.
“The more you know, the more you are free,” he said.
He said the core values of Apple Daily were the core values of the people of Hong Kong, including the rule of law, freedom and the pursuit of democracy.
In May 2020, a month before the security took effect, Lai took up the role of executive chairman of Next Digital, the parent company of Apple Daily.
“I think it’s right for me to take up the responsibility of the company if anything happens to it as an owner,” he said.
The American and British governments and a group of independent United Nations human rights experts have called for Lai’s release.
Trump was asked on a podcast before his reelection this month whether he would talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping to seek Lai’s release, and he replied: “One hundred percent, I will get him out.”
Hong Kong leader John Lee said mutual respect is important for the development of trade relations and there should be no interference in local affairs. Beijing also criticized some U.S. lawmakers for supporting Lai.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also raised concerns over Lai’s detention to Xi in a meeting during the Group of 20 summit in Brazil.
Hong Kong’s security minister Chris Tang maintained the prosecution was based on facts.
Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, said on Friday that his father’s treatment in prison is “inhumane.” “My father is now 77 and has spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison in solitary confinement,” he said in the statement released by Britain-based law firm Doughty Street Chambers.
On Sunday, the Hong Kong government condemned some members of the law firm for what it called spreading misinformation. It said the separation of Lai from other inmates “has been made at his own request” and was approved by prison authorities. It added judges remain independent and partial when handling national security cases.
On the eve of the court hearing, some U.S. lawmakers gathered with the younger Lai in a restaurant near the U.S. Capitol in Washington in a show of support for the publisher.