What’s Next for Jimmy Lai?

Realclear Politics ^ | 12 Feb, 2026 | Nina Shea

[MtnClimber]

SPECIAL SERIES: Religious Liberty Around The World.

In deteriorating health and 78 years old, Jimmy Lai is not likely to survive the 20-year prison sentence that Hong Kong’s kangaroo court handed him on Jan. 9. The Chinese Communist Party has ensured that the voice of this prominent media mogul and ardent defender of democracy will never be publicly heard from again, on anything. It accomplished this by distorting the territory’s formerly celebrated judicial system and rule of law. Over a thousand democracy defenders have been imprisoned since Hong Kong’s draconian national security law was imposed in 2020 and, as a mark of Lai’s heroic leadership, his arrest came in its first month and his sentence is the longest.

Lai’s case is a cruel lesson in the futility of dissent under Chinese Communist Party rule that will not be lost on the rest of China’s population. It is an intimidation tactic for them. If one of Hong Kong’s most prominent entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and civic figures can be put away effectively for life merely for standing up for the territory’s renowned tradition of freedom, no Chinese dissent, no deviation from party dictates and Xi Jinping thought will be tolerated. There are no exceptions even for that cosmopolitan, international financial hub that historically had a “separate system.” All 1.4 billion Chinese, including Hong Kongers, must now speak with one voice on politics, history, religion, economics, military force, foreign affairs, and numerous other topics. From academia, the media, and religious pulpits to the Internet and AI, all persons and institutions engaged in public expression must conform. All, in effect, are members of the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

Lai’s daughter Claire told me that the family hopes he will be granted leniency that would result in his release to the United Kingdom

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: ccp; china; communism; leftism

[MtnClimber]

Why does this happen and the
ChiCom communists are not on Interpol criminal lists and intercepted when they leave their corrupt country?

[MtnClimber]

[jroehl]

Mad Mao did this all the time.

[ifinnegan]

Yes. Exactly.

UK turned everyone in Hong Kong over to a communist dictatorship even after they massacred their own citizens a short 8:years prior.

UK downfall began a long time ago.

[ckilmer]

there is now a split in the CCP with chairman x and his loyalists on one side and the party elders, the red princelings and the military on the other side.

Xi sacked and maybe killed the last two remaining senior members of the People’s Liberation Army. Both men were well respected.

Now there is no one to command the military. All of the people Chairman Xi selected for the military leadership were ousted in the last year.

No one has stood up to applaud Xi for his action. Applause is a signal of loyalty. But that has not happened.

People are afraid to support Xi because doing so has consistently meant that supporters would eventually come to a bad end.

As far as the USA is concerned, all this means is that the Chinese no longer have the means or will to take Taiwan—not with their entire military leadership wiped out.

[AZJeep]

Hong Kong was supposed to be free under Chinese administration for 50 years. It took only about 20 years for Hong Kong to loose any resemblance of freedom.