Hong Kong’s Man of Principle

These words, uttered in a plaintive cry by Jimmy Lai in the trailer for The Hong Konger, struck me and resonated deep inside. I know exactly what he means. While I am no business or media mogul, everything I am today—professionally, personally, spiritually—was forged in the anything-goes, free-wheeling wild west of a Hong Kong that once was.

Lai, a longtime outspoken critic of the Chinese government and founder of Next Media and Apple Daily (now defunct), is currently in prison in Hong Kong, charged under the controversial National Security Law that was enacted in 2020.

I first met Jimmy Lai in 1991, when I interviewed him for a local business magazine. I got to know him better a few years later, when I was with the editorial page of the Asian Wall Street Journal. I was impressed with him from the beginning because he was such a contrast to the typical Hong Konger. Back then, the people of Hong Kong prided themselves on being “very practical people.” It was the number one refrain used by locals to describe themselves.

What did it mean? Essentially, that they had no time for philosophy, principle, or deep thinking of any kind. The bottom line was about as far as their interests flowed. And one could hardly blame them. The vast majority had either fled, or been born to those who had fled, a brutal communist dictatorship in which the best one could hope for was mere survival.

Jimmy Lai fled that dictatorship too, at the age of twelve. But somehow, he was different. Somehow, his interests extended beyond mere survival, or even economic success and wealth. A single conversation with him was enough to see that he was unusually thoughtful and deeply interested in the big questions presented by life—a rarity in that place at that time.

I had come to Hong Kong after leaving college, to learn to be a journalist. I learned the hard way: by doing it and making a million mistakes along the way. And that’s kind of how Hong Kong worked: Folks just got it into their head to do something and then went out and did it. There was very little in the way of regulation, certification, or red tape, and there was a flat, low tax for those who made enough to pay any tax at all. Businesses sank or swam depending on how happy they made their customers. The enclave was hailed as the freest economy in the world, year after year.

The success of this “letting people do what they want with what is theirs” model spoke for itself: In the space of only ten years—between 1966 and 1976—real per-capita income grew by 5.7% annually, bringing the territory up from levels comparable to Mexico and Argentina into the ranks of the wealthiest countries on earth.

One of the indicators that has always impressed me is the number of businesses per capita. That number is currently around 200 per 1,000 residents—twice the number for the US and nearly ten times the number for New York City.

But some of Hong Kong’s most impressive successes are harder to quantify. Prior to the handover to the Chinese government, the colony had very few public welfare provisions. And yet, by any of the typical indicators, poverty there was no more of a problem than for any American city.

But the real story goes beyond what the numbers can tell: The kind of poverty that is common in the United States simply did not exist in Hong Kong. There were no ghettoes where children grew up surrounded by despair and violence—where the only opportunities for improvement were to be found in selling drugs or joining criminal gangs. Multiple generations might squeeze themselves into tiny public-housing flats, but the adults worked hard to earn a living and to make sure their children were educated and had promising futures. The whole inter-generational poverty trap, and the mentality of hopelessness that goes with it, was just not a part of Hong Kong society.

With some irony, all of this existed not because of “practically minded” leadership but because of the principled mindset of one man, Sir John Cowperthwaite, Hong Kong’s financial secretary from 1961 to 1971. During a period of tremendous international pressure and tumult for the colony, Cowperthwaite held to his principles of non-intervention in the economy and free trade with the outside world. The result was a safe haven for millions fleeing the brutality and privation of a centrally planned economy and an economic powerhouse to rival entire nations.

After having witnessed the workings of the freest economy on earth up close, after having lived in it, I’ve lost patience with those who are convinced that the massive structure of government intervention here in the US is somehow necessary or justified. It’s just hard to engage seriously with arguments that try to tell me that what I’ve seen with my own eyes is impossible, or that it is somehow detrimental to society.

Even in Hong Kong, it was hard to find people who appreciated the value of the ideas that were the foundation for the unique environment that they, their parents, or their grandparents risked so much to be a part of. The average Hong Konger always seemed to be far too busy making money to care about the ideas of liberty.

But Jimmy Lai cared. And still does. He understands those ideas and cares deeply about them. Unlike so many others in the territory, he appreciates that everything he has accomplished, everything he has built for himself, his family, and his community, is thanks to the ideas of individual liberty, made real in the firmament of that city.

When the government of China took back control of Hong Kong in 1997, it had its own ideas about how the city should operate: After witnessing the results of several decades of strictly socialist economics, the Communist leadership of China recognized that adhering to these collectivist principles would (and did) starve the country. They implemented economic reforms, freeing people up to feed themselves, to buy and sell, and ultimately to become prosperous—but not to speak freely or do anything that might be perceived as a threat to the government. The CCP would love to impose this model on Hong Kong, and that is indeed what they have aimed for since before the handover.

But Hong Kong’s magic did not come from the dreams of collectivist dictators. And it was never just a place where people could prosper. It was a place where they could pursue their dreams, where they could speak their minds, where a person could become anything they wanted to so long as they worked hard enough. Where a person could become Jimmy Lai.

What the Chinese leadership fails to understand—and probably wouldn’t care about if they did—is that Hong Kong is not only an engine of prosperity. It is not just a machine that produces wealth “for the good of the nation.” It is a society founded on individual freedom, and because of this foundation, it has not only flourished but become an expression of millions of hopes and dreams. What the Chinese government and the government of Hong Kong fail to recognize is that when they cage Jimmy Lai, they cage the spirit of Hong Kong itself.