For the last 20 years, he has often worked throughout the night in a cramped Wan Chai office and dropped exhausted into bed as everyone else goes to work, to produce a monthly magazine with a circulation of 10,000 that loses money. The central government has called him 'poison from head to toe'; a Chinese citizen, he cannot enter the mainland or Macau. So what drives Jin Zhong, the editor of Open magazine?
'Mao Zedong was the greatest mass murderer in human history, worse than Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin,' he said in an interview in his office. 'I am the voice of the tens of millions of his victims. Until he is properly recognised for what he was, I will not be silent.
'His portrait overlooks Tiananmen Square and his face is on the country's banknotes. Those who criticise him are silenced. This is not acceptable. As long as I can breathe, I will continue this magazine and call Mao to account.'
The survival of Open and other magazines on China's politics, history and society 13 years after the handover is proof of the success of 'one country, two systems' - Hong Kong remains the news and publishing capital of China. As Deng Xiaoping elegantly put it, 'if it were not for Hong Kong, we would not know what is happening.'
Coverage of Liu Xiaobo is a good example. While Beijing has gone to enormous lengths to prevent its people knowing about him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the media in Hong Kong has reported the issue extensively; it is a platform for those who praise him as well as those who argue that he should never have been given the prize. This month's issue of Open devotes 67 of its 98 pages to a special edition on Liu, his history, his ideas and assessments of him. Jin has known Liu for more than 20 years.
Despite Beijing's description of Jin as 'totally poisonous', he said he had never received interference from the mainland or Hong Kong governments, or got hate mail or threatening phone calls. He has published more than 30 books; like his magazine, all are banned on the mainland.