China hails HK tycoon Jimmy Lai’s 20-year jail term in national security case as West denounces it

HONG KONG – Hong Kong media tycoon and the city’s most vocal democracy advocate, Jimmy Lai, was on Feb 9 handed a 20-year jail term for his national security offences, concluding a landmark legal battle that has tested the West’s ties with China.

The Chinese authorities hailed the sentencing of Lai, a British citizen and long-time critic of China’s Communist Party, even as Western governments and international rights organisations condemned it.

The decision – passed down quickly at the packed West Kowloon Law Courts after proceedings began at 10am – brings to an end a lengthy trial that has dragged on for more than two years.

Lai, 78, founder of Hong Kong’s now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, has already served more than five years behind bars.

He will be 96 by the time he completes his time in prison, two years of which overlap another sentence he is presently serving for fraud.

In a document summarising their decision, the judges said his “serious and grave criminal conduct... warrants a heavier sentence”.

“Lai was no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged,” they stated, citing prosecution evidence that the media boss had sought sanctions, blockades and other hostile acts against the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities from the US and other countries.

Lai – who had been facing up to lifetime imprisonment for his offences – can appeal the decision within 28 days. His lawyer Robert Pang declined to confirm if he would do so.

Lai is the highest-profile figure to be convicted under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020, and his sentence is the harshest handed out so far.

He was in December 2025 found guilty of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious materials. He had pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Feb 9 said the sentence was “reasonable, legitimate”, and that the tycoon “deserved to be severely punished under the law”.

Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong described it as a “powerful declaration that whoever dares challenge (China’s) law on safeguarding national security will be severely punished”.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, too, hailed the judges’ decision as “deeply gratifying”.

Britain’s Foreign Office, however, argued that Lai’s jail term was “tantamount to a life sentence”, vowing to “rapidly engage” with China to seek his release on humanitarian grounds.

The European Union urged Lai’s “immediate and unconditional release”, warning that his prosecution “harms Hong Kong’s reputation”.

The West has strongly condemned Lai’s national security trial, which countries including the US and Britain say was politically motivated.

Their response in the coming days will reveal just how far their governments are willing to go to press for the tycoon’s release, even as they seek to manage their fragile ties with China.

US President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit Beijing in April, claims to have urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release Lai. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he has also discussed the issue with President Xi.

The European Parliament has threatened sanctions against Hong Kong’s leader and other officials over what it calls a crackdown on the city’s freedoms and a violation of its people’s rights.

But Professor John Burns, emeritus professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, did not foresee much action from the West beyond the rhetoric.

“I don’t think they will go beyond public statements; there isn’t much they can do,” Prof Burns told The Straits Times.

In balancing their relationship with China, the foreign governments “are interested in many other things much more important to their countries than Jimmy Lai – like trade, investment, access to rare earths, and nuclear treaties”, the academic said.

“Freeing Lai is simply not at the top of those priorities; that’s just the reality of the situation.”

Non-profit organisation the Committee to Protect Journalists’ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said Lai’s sentencing was “the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong”.

“The international community must step up its pressure to free Jimmy Lai if we want press freedom to be respected anywhere in the world,” she added.

Eight others received their sentences alongside Lai on Feb 9.

They are activist Andy Li, paralegal Chan Tsz Wah and six former Apple Daily executives, comprising publisher Cheung Kim Hung, associate publisher Chan Pui Man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man Chung, and editorial writers Fung Wai Kong and Yeung Ching Kee.

The group, all of whom had pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiring to collude with foreign forces, were handed jail terms ranging between six years and nine months, and 10 years.

Professor Sonny Lo, who is with the politics department at the University of Hong Kong, said the prosecution of Lai and his counterparts was “ultimately about ensuring national security” rather than a concerted effort to impinge on the city’s press freedom.

“Whether Western countries react to this politically – if or how they will lobby China on Lai – remains to be seen,” he added.

Lai’s children, who live abroad, denounced the judges’ decision in their father’s sentencing.

“This draconian prison sentence is devastating for our family and life-threatening for my father,” said his son Sebastien.

The “heartbreakingly cruel sentence” ensures that Lai “will die a martyr behind bars”, his daughter Claire said.

In mitigation, Lai’s lawyer had pleaded for leniency on the basis of the activist’s advanced age and poor health. His ailments include hypertension, diabetes, cataracts and an ocular vein blockage.

But the Hong Kong police’s National Security Department on Feb 9 said claims of his frail health were “exaggerated” and that the sentence was “appropriate” for his offences.

Hong Kong’s top judge, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung, has said that demands for Lai’s release “strike at the very heart of the rule of law”, after the tycoon’s children lobbied foreign governments and international human rights organisations for help.

Lai has been in jail almost continuously since December 2020. His trial began on Dec 18, 2023, and ran for 156 days.