Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai admits to connecting Taiwan with ex-US officials: court

Ex-media boss also says he paid ex-US general to advise the self-ruling island’s government

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Jimmy Lai has taken the witness box to contest two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces and a third of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications. File photo: SCMP

Published: 8:05pm, 16 Jan 2025Updated: 10:03pm, 16 Jan 2025

Former Hong Kong media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has admitted to connecting three ex-US officials with the Taiwanese government to offer advice on foreign relations and strengthen ties with Washington, while denying claims he acted as a “middleman” to harm mainland China’s interests.

Lai also said on Thursday that he had relayed suggestions from two former United States officials to then Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen about the need to modernise the self-ruled island’s army, such as by hiring retired American generals to help put the military on track to secure up-to-date technologies.

Prosecutors cross-examined the founder of the now-closed Apple Daily tabloid newspaper at West Kowloon Court after the defence wrapped up its first round of questioning in Lai’s marathon national security trial.

Lai, 77, previously spent 26 days in the witness box contesting two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces and a third of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications.

Prosecutors were seeking to discredit Lai’s claim that he made no attempt to influence foreign policy concerning the mainland and Hong Kong before the national security law came into force in June 2020.

They drew the court’s attention to Lai’s “very close” connections with former deputy US defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz and American army general Jack Keane, whom the tabloid founder described as his friends.

Hong Kong police raid the offices of Apple Daily in 2020. Photo: Winson Wong