Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai behind efforts to get then US president Trump to sanction China over national security law, court told

Ex-Apple Daily publisher Cheung Kim-hung says Jimmy Lai wanted the US president and vice-president to sanction China

Prosecutors argue Lai was the mastermind of an anti-China conspiracy linked to Apple Daily, where he had complete control over editorial policy

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Police on guard outside West Kowloon Court. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 3:56pm, 23 Jan 2024Updated: 11:33pm, 23 Jan 2024

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying orchestrated a campaign for Hongkongers to petition then US president Donald Trump four years ago to stop Beijing from imposing the national security law on the city through the use of sanctions, a court heard on Tuesday.

Cheung Kim-hung, ex-publisher of the now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid, testified that the newspaper’s initiative, titled “One Hongkonger One Letter to Save Hong Kong”, was intended to attract US intervention after China’s legislature on May 22, 2020, introduced a resolution on a national security law for the city.

“Mr Lai called me that day saying he wanted the US president and vice-president to sanction China,” the defendant turned prosecution witness told West Kowloon Court on the 14th day of the tycoon’s national security trial.

“It was a very brief conversation where he said that because of the national security law, we must ask them to step in.”

Defendant turned prosecution witness Cheung Kim-hung in custody in 2021. He says his former boss, Jimmy Lai, was supportive of protesters even when they chose to ‘smash shops’. Photo: Dickson Lee

The court heard Apple Daily had run print advertisements promoting the idea “Trump saves Hong Kong” and providing a template letter for petitioning him in late May 2020. The same document was also published on the newspaper’s digital platforms.