Let’s just say this, Jimmy Lai is exactly where he deserves to be
- US government functionaries and their hard-right media pundits should stop interfering with the course of justice in Hong Kong
“Say Jimmy Lai’s name”. That’s the title of a leader from the Wall Street Journal’s far-right editorial board. It sounds so breathtakingly righteous. Unfortunately, it would be hard to think of someone who is more deserving of where he is now. Let justice run its course with Lai. There, I have said his name.
When will America’s state functionaries and their media propagandists stop interfering with other countries, and Hong Kong’s independent justice system in particular?
US Consul General for Hong Kong and Macau Gregory May said the city’s national security law was undermining the rule of law. Maybe it does or maybe it actually strengthens it.
I am sure there are excellent arguments by experts from both sides. May is not one of them. After all, the guy’s from a country that only recently operated black sites, and a military prison and kangaroo court in Cuba to kidnap, detain, torture, imprison and/or try suspected “terrorists”, sometimes for years, even decades, on end. It wants to extradite the Australian Julian Assange for exposing its war crimes and atrocities.
Meanwhile, WSJ’s very own hard-right editorialists have blasted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for ignoring Lai’s plight. Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to appeal to their own president? But wait. The Joe Biden administration has some serious bad blood with Lai and his defunct Apple Daily dating back to the time he was running for president.
The Hong Kong newspaper not only ran an extensive campaign calling for Donald Trump’s re-election. Under the personal initiative of his long-time sidekick Mark Simon, Lai’s own funds were used to commission a report purporting to expose shady dealings of Hunter Biden with China to discredit his father who was then running for president.
Jimmy Lai Chee-ying may carry a British passport but spiritually, he thinks he is an American and a Republican.
That may be why he didn’t think he was interfering in another country’s election. But I am sure Biden and his campaign officials took a rather dim view of the episode.
Therefore, it’s understandable the WSJ’s editorial board wants to appeal to Sunak by rounding on him, and not Biden.
But is that going to get the British leader to make a move on Hong Kong? With a cost-of-living crisis, a looming severe recession, and a collapsing National Health Service as well as other public services, where do you think Lai’s case fits in the in-tray on his desk?
The Journal’s editorial hacks think their country is taking up the Kiplingian white man’s burden of Britain by reminding Sunak that Washington has sanctioned Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials for breaching the Sino-British Joint Declaration and undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy.
How did those editorial hacks conclude every person arrested from the 2019 anti-government riots was a pro-democracy dissident? How did the US become the judge, jury and executioner of other countries’ Joint Declaration and the city’s (high degree of) autonomy status? Even the British government has openly acknowledged the bilateral treaty has no enforcement or dispute provisions.
If that’s how international law works according to Washington, the world really should get together to sanction the United States for all the treaties and protocols, and adverse judgments from international bodies that it has breached, rejected and/or undermined over many years.
China says US consul ‘maliciously’ abuses Hong Kong national security law
By definition, “do what I say not as I do” is not law, let alone international law. Somehow, that is the unwritten meaning of the “rules-based international system”, which the US champions.
However, we no longer live in a world where what Washington says goes. Its power and prestige are in decline. To be sure, it’s still the most powerful nation, but this increasingly looks like the brute force of a bully, not reasoned exercise in the responsible use of power.
Sometimes, when it’s other people’s business, it’s really no business of the US. But that message from the rest of the world will no doubt continue to fall on deaf ears in America, until it’s too late.
