Four years ago this month, Peter Robinson interviewed the Hong Kong entrepreneur and newspaper owner Jimmy Lai before an audience of overseers at the Hoover Institution. Lai had been very active in the fight to preserve democracy in Hong Kong as the Chinese Communist Party tried to enforce its will on the population of the former British territory.
In this Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson interview which we are re-posting today, Lai describes the struggles he has endured: his home firebombed, his family harassed, and his business threatened by forces rallied against him by the Chinese Communist Party. Lai and Robinson also discuss the Trump administration's response to the Hong Kong protest movement, how the NBA and other American businesses found themselves in an awkward position between their business interests and their politics, and what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. In a particularly stirring moment toward the end of the interview, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on its residents.
After this event, Lai could have remained abroad, free from the clutches of the Chinese Communist Party and, inevitably, a Chinese prison. But he chose to return to Hong Kong to continue the fight for freedom and democracy.
In December 2022, Lai was sentenced to more than five years in prison for fraud, a punishment that human rights activists denounced as the latest blow to freedom of expression in the city. He remains in a Chinese prison to this day.
