«it is hard to imagine what actions the United States or its allies could do to help»
Yesterday I wrote about the arrest of prominent pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong. Lai publishes Apple Daily which is a newspaper that routinely supports protesters and is critical of the CCP. He was arrested at his home and then 200 police officers entered his newspaper’s offices and searched for evidence of seditious behavior under the country’s new national security law. Today the NY Times published an editorial which recounts what happened and somehow manages not to criticize President Trump’s reaction: Early on Monday, the police in Hong Kong arrested Jimmy Lai, founder of the popular tabloid Apple Daily, on charges of collusion with a foreign country, one of the vaguely defined crimes under the anti-sedition law adopted this spring by Beijing. It was the latest and clearest signal that China intends to make full use of that sweeping new legislation to stifle free expression and undermine Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement… What will happen next to the 71-year-old tycoon, a native of mainland China who made his fortune in apparel, is hard to predict. The anti-sedition law is overarching both in the definition of crimes and in its scope, with penalties as severe as life in prison for crimes such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
