Hong Kong Is a 'Wake-Up Call for the World'

Former Apple Daily writer Simon Lee says China's crackdown reveals the CCP's ambitions for global authoritarianism.

Zach Weissmueller | 6.8.2022 11:45 AM

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"For a very long time, we thought we could leave China alone, and China would leave the world alone," says Simon Lee, co-founder of the Hong Kong–based free market think tank, the Lion Rock Institute, and a former columnist for Apple Daily. "But [the 2019-2020 government crackdown in Hong Kong] shows the world that China cannot just be itself in that middle kingdom, surrounded by walls. They want the world to accept the fact that China has a better system, a better way of doing things."

Apple Daily was the second most-read news site in Hong Kong until the police raided its offices, seized its assets, and arrested and imprisoned its founder, Jimmy Lai. He was eventually charged with committing "foreign collusion," organizing unlawful assemblies, aiding a dissident in an attempted escape to Taiwan, and committing fraud by subleasing the newspaper's office space.

The site has stopped publishing, and its archives are now only accessible via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, though a Taiwan-based version of the publication is still live.

Meanwhile the 74-year-old Lai—an entrepreneur and activist who points to F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom as the inspiration for his fight—remains in prison, where he might stay for the rest of his life.

Lee sat down with Reason to discuss his ex-boss's legacy, the history of Apple Daily, the future of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, and how libertarians should think about the increasingly strained relations between China and the U.S.

He started by telling us about Lai's warning to him in the weeks preceding the raid of Apple Daily's offices: That he should leave Hong Kong immediately.

"Jimmy texted me and he said, it is not safe anymore. You better go," says Lee. "He knew it very well. Hong Kong was not safe. He knew that he [was] in danger, but he chose to stay."

Produced by Zach Weissmueller; edited by John Osterhoudt and Adam Czarnecki; graphics by Regan Taylor.

Photos: Yan Yan Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; TOM WALKER/UPI/Newscom; Ju Peng Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Xie Huanchi Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Dickson Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Sam Tsang/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Chan Ho-him/SCMP/Newscom; Sam Tsang/SCMP/Newscom; CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; Post Staff Photographer/SCMP/Newscom; Winson Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Keith Tsuji/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Leung Man Hei/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Huang Jingwen Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Geovien So / SOPA Images/Sipa US/Newscom; Felix Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; MARTIN CHAN/SCMP/Newscom; Winson Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Artyom Ivanov/ZUMA Press/Newscom;Dominic Chiu/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Martin Chan/SCMP/Newscom; Perry Hui / SOPA Images/Sipa USA/Newscom; CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; Michael Ho Wai Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Michael Ho Wai Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

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Sevo 3 years ago

Might be confusing Xi Jinping with "China". It is pretty much a dictatorship and as dictators change, so do policies.
Remember Mao.

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1. Isabel-b62582 3 years ago
  
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2. BestUsedCarSales 3 years ago
  
  I still stand by my original reaction to the Hong Kong invasion: American should just airlift the entire island and plop it in the Gulf of Mexico. Make it the 51st state or part of Texas, since Houston has so many Chinese immigrants already.
  Stealing Hong Kongers, one of the great hard working, freedom loving, people of this world is a rare case where an immigration crisis would be basically entirely beneficial for both us and them.
  
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  1. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland 3 years ago
    
    Only if we send the ccp supporting progs in return
    
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  2. Diane Reynolds (Paul.) 3 years ago
    
    I'm guessing these aren't the kind of immigrants that will be welcome here. Lot of racist flag waving and what not.
    
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  3. Hank Phillips 3 years ago
    
    Or mebbe a population swap with communism-worshipping Cubans?
    
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  4. Hank Phillips 3 years ago
    
    Or mebbe a population swap with communism-worshipping Cubans?
    
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Illocust 3 years ago

And nothing else will happen, because we can't live without China. We're dependent on their goods and we don't have anyone that can take over for them if the flow of goods was to suddenly stop.

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1. Sevo 3 years ago
  
  Bullshit.
  
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2. Overt 3 years ago
  
  And even so, what are we to do? Force individuals to pay more for their X so that we can achieve some policy outcome we want? Do we even have any assurance that such a policy outcome will be achieved?
  
  At the end of the day, I feel really bad for Hong Kong. But there is really very little that the US can do. In decades of sanctions and diplomatic pressure, what legitimate impact has the US Foreign Policy had when it declines to use bombs?
  
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  1. BestUsedCarSales 3 years ago
    
    Biggest thing would be creating better trade relations with other, non-Chinese, countries like Malaysia and the other ASEAN nations. Both as an anti-China measure, and as distribution of responsibility measure.
    Other than that, maybe just call a spade a spade. Live not by lies. All that. Recognize Taiwan. Condemn China's breaking of their own agreement with Hong Kong. Let them pitch a fit.
    
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    1. Overt 3 years ago
      
      These I all agree with. To the extent that "Telling the Truth" makes it difficult for private Americans to do business in China, well, sorry to hear that. There is no inalienable right to a government that fluffs other countries on your account.
      
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    2. Hank Phillips 3 years ago
      
      It is a mistake to identify that alien communist dictatorship as "China." The genus is totalitarian and species, communist, both of these are German exports. National Socialism conquered the Low Countries, but Belgians and Dutchmen are hardly Nazis.
      
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3. swillfredo pareto 3 years ago
  
  We're dependent on their goods
  
  While we might suffer from a lack of engineered viruses in the short term, I think Anthony Fauci and his cabal could quickly spin up reckless Gain of Function research domestically. Of course we would have to do without inferior goods and tainted dogfood and drywall.
  
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  1. Hank Phillips 3 years ago
    
    Whatever happened to tariff clauses blocking imports of slave-labor items?
    
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4. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland 3 years ago
  
  Does LeBron James and kappernick ow reservations to the slave laborers that mak their shoes?
  
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  1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.) 3 years ago
    
    They had reservations, but they bought them anyway.
    
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5. Sevo 3 years ago
  
  Again, bullshit.
  Search US trading partners and then grow a brain cell and learn 'comparative advantage'.
  Want your kids to learn how to spend time de-burring cast iron parts?
  
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  1. Spiritus Mundi 3 years ago
    
    If you don't think we are dependent rid your life of everything made in China.
    
    I would rather have my kids make a machine or robot to do that at much greater output and much lower cost. But it is likely China would steal the IP and continue to undercut US based jobs with slave labor to install and service the equipment run via a regime backed company that can print money.
    
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6. Hank Phillips 3 years ago
  
  Taiwan, India and Japan disappeared?
  
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LarryA 3 years ago

"Hong Kong Is a 'Wake-Up Call for the World'"

Only for those who haven't been paying attention to history since 1918. Despite the great economic advantage leaving Hong Kong alone would have given China, a communist government cannot allow a capitalist enclave to provide an example of the relative merits of the two systems.
I'm only surprised the crackdown took 25 years. The smart time to flee Hong Kong was when the British left, in 1997.

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1. Sevo 3 years ago
  
  Yes, assuming the CCP was going to do other than enslave people was a fool's errand.
  Been to (main land) China several times and nothing, even in the most 'liberal' time, suggested that China is willing to give up the emperor and the mandate from heaven.
  There seem to be certain cultural imperatives and several thousand years of that experience tends to support it.
  Those in Hong Kong (and other coastal and far western areas) tend to rebel, but best of luck...
  
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PeteRR 3 years ago

And that's why we need to continue to trade with them and stay dependent on them.

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Hank Phillips 3 years ago

Huh? "the police raided its offices, seized its assets, and arrested and imprisoned..." How is that any different from Governor Reagan's California? Or Texas under Dem Gov. Adolf Briscoe (or GOP Fuhrer Abbott)? California quit shooting folks over plant leaves, but Mainland Texas seeks to ban that production and trade AND restore Comstockist bans on birth control. Chinese totalitarianism and American financial crises both arose out of prohibitionism. Both Kleptocracies seek One System, no libertarians.

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voluntaryist 3 years ago

Yes, yes, yes, Hank. You get it. The world is unfree. Tyranny is right under our noses with Civil Asset Forfeiture (Highway robbery by cops), taxation, regulation, eminent domain, qualified immunity (officials authorizing other officials to deny rights). Don't be distracted by MSM. We are under attack by the political paradigm of "Force First" (the law is the law) no matter how irrational, unfair, unjust, unconstitutional. It serves the masters. You object? You are a "domestic terrorist", a dissenter, an anarchist, a seditionist.
"I KEEL YOU!"

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Hong Kong Is a 'Wake-Up Call for the World'

Former Apple Daily writer Simon Lee says China's crackdown reveals the CCP's ambitions for global authoritarianism.

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