Jimmy Lai

Jimmy Lai’s life has been defined and bookended by the actions of the Chinese Communist Party.

As a boy, his family lost just about everything in the Communist Party takeover. As an adult, the Chinese-born British citizen built clothing and media empires that embodied his sharp criticism of China’s authoritarian rule in Hong Kong and his relentless advocacy for press freedom. In February 2026 the Chinese government sentenced the 78-year-old Lai to 20 years in prison for those positions.

Early years

Lai was born in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1947, two years before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over the country. His father was a businessman and his family was wealthy, but they lost their home and business to the CCP. His distraught father attempted suicide before leaving for Hong Kong, then a British colony. His mother was sent to a labor camp, and young Jimmy was left to care for his siblings. To help provide for his family, he worked ferrying luggage at a railway station. One day a passenger from Hong Kong tipped the young porter with a piece of chocolate, inspiring the boy to imagine Hong Kong as a place of sweetness and goodness. When he was just 12, he stowed away on a fishing boat headed to the colony. Once there, Lai landed work at a glove factory, and in 1975, when he was in his late 20s, he opened his own knitwear manufacturing business. Six years later he began a casual clothing chain called Giordano, which he grew into an international retail company before selling it in 1996. Jimmy Lai was a multimillionaire, on his way to becoming a billionaire.

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Pro-democracy activism

Like much of the world, Jimmy Lai watched in horror when, in June 1989, the Chinese government cracked down on student-led protests, killing hundreds of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Lai had his clothing company print T-shirts calling for the resignation of Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader at the time. In 1990 Lai entered the world of publishing, launching Next Magazine. He sometimes used the publication to criticize Chinese leaders, at one point writing that the Chinese premier and architect of the Tiananmen crackdown, Li Peng, should “drop dead.” In 1994 the Chinese government shuttered the Giordano store in Beijing, and 11 more stores closed in Shanghai over the following two years, leading Lai to sell the company and focus on publishing.

In 1995 he started a Chinese-language tabloid newspaper called Apple Daily, whose slogan was “an apple a day keeps the liars away.” The paper was born just two years before China retook possession of Hong Kong from Britain—echoing Lai’s own birth two years before the Communists had taken over China a half-century earlier.

Apple Daily and Next Magazine continued to criticize the Chinese government after the 1997 British handover. At a time when many in the business community tried to avoid antagonizing the Chinese government, Lai’s publications ran images that readers often brought to anti-government protests—including one that featured Hong Kong’s leader, Tung Chee-hwa, getting hit in the face with a pie.

Lai himself joined pro-democracy demonstrations in 2014, which were called the Umbrella Movement because the protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from police pepper spray. Lai was arrested briefly during those protests. When demonstrators again took to the streets to protest proposed harsh new laws in 2019, Lai participated again, and Apple Daily published stories clearly siding with the protesters. The next year, after China imposed a national security law meant to crack down on dissent in Hong Kong, Lai told the Associated Press that “Hong Kong is dead,” adding, “If I have to go to prison, I don’t mind. I don’t care. It won’t be something I can worry about, I’ll just relax and do what I have to do.” He was soon arrested and has been in custody since December 2020, mostly in solitary confinement.

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In June 2021 Chinese police, which had previously raided the offices of Apple Daily, again raided the publication; the company’s board announced the following week that it would cease publication.

Conviction and sentencing

In December 2025 Lai was convicted of sedition and collusion with foreign forces by three government-approved judges, who claimed that there was “indisputable evidence” of his work to undermine national security. Among the evidence used against him was the fact that he had traveled to the United States in 2019 to meet with U.S. Vice Pres. Mike Pence. One of the judges said that Lai’s “only intent” was the downfall of the CCP. In February 2026 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the harshest punishment ever meted out in a national security case in Hong Kong. In a statement, Reporters Without Borders condemned the sentence: “Today, the curtain falls on press freedom in Hong Kong.” The Washington Post reported at the time that “almost every prominent opposition figure in Hong Kong is either in jail or in exile.” The United Nations called for Lai’s release on humanitarian grounds.

Several countries have also called for Lai’s release. During a visit to China in January 2026, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping to release Lai, who is a British citizen. The British government said that Lai’s sentence demonstrated how China’s national security law has “criminalised dissent, prompting many to leave the territory.” Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, defended the sentence, claiming that Lai had used “Apple Daily to poison the minds of citizens.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the punishment “an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case. It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.”

Family members are hopeful that U.S. Pres. Donald Trump will use his influence to secure Lai’s release. Trump gave them reason for that during his 2024 presidential campaign, declaring, “100 percent I’ll get him out. He’ll be easy to get out.” Following Lai’s conviction, the president said he felt “so badly” about it and that he had asked Xi to consider releasing him. Lai’s children said in a call with reporters after his sentencing that Trump’s planned visit to China could be the key to getting their father released. That trip was originally scheduled for April 2026 but has been delayed because of the war with Iran.