WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Hillsdale Interview: Mark Simon

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Mark Simon, Jimmy Lai’s business partner and Chairman of his board, joins Lillian Ferrell on WRFH to provide update on Lai's plight of now over 1,000 days in jail and offers some insightful testimony as to the state of affairs in Hong Kong and mainland PRC.From 11/20/23 

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lillian Farrell. With me today is Mr. Mark Simon, who is Jimmy Lay's business partner and chairman of his board. For those who are unfamiliar with his story, who is Jimmy Lay? Jimmy Lai is currently a man sitting in prison in Hong Kong.

Jimmy is a political prisoner, but he is probably the most significant political prisoner in Asia at this point in time. time. Jimmy is a publisher. He is a businessman at one point in time. He was on the Forbes billionaire list, but Jimmy's a fighter for freedom and democracy. And he has a long history of that, close to over 31 years of that, that we know of, and he really tells you he came in. He came of age in 1989 in the Tiananmen democracy movement in China, where he began to support that. He was not there. He was in Hong Kong. He is, then became a leader in the Hong Kong democracy movement.

But Jimmy's real thing is he's a journalist. He's a publisher. He's a media company. And I worked for him in that group. It's called Next Digital, Next Media. And we owned a paper called Apple Daily. Apple Daily was the largest Chinese paper in the world outside of China. And I'm sure people would consider Taiwan and Hong Kong part of China,

but not owned by the government. government. So it's the largest Chinese media company, news media company in the world not owned by China, the Chinese government. And that meant one thing. That meant that Jimmy had problems with the Chinese government, the communist regime in Beijing. And for those sins, Jimmy is in prison. And he remains there to this day waiting for his trial on national security charges, which could see him jailed. He's 76 years old, foreseeably the rest of his life, because the penalty could be life imprisonment, minimum 10 years. So speaking to his trial, what is the current status of Mr. Lai's trial? Mr. Lai is currently serving a jail sentence for other charges,

political charges, and also what we can, you know, what everybody considers really other trumped-up charges. But he has been on waiting for trial for national security violations by the new Hong Kong law from 19, from just from 2020. Mr. Lai's trial has been postponed three times. He is now looking at a new trial date of December 18th. Whether that goes forward or not, we don't know. It looks like it could be progressing. If I had to bet, I wouldn't put money on it.

But when that trial takes off, that'll be a 75 to 85-day trial. That's how long it is. That's days in court. So that's going to stretch out probably well into March, maybe early April. I mean, late March, early April. And that trial is on national security charges for basically endangering the national security of Hong Kong by being in favor of democracy. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lillian Farrell, and I'm talking with Mr. Mark Simon.

Being that Mr. Lai is a British national, has the British government taken a stand on the case at all? first of all, we had to convince the British government that Mr. Lai was a British national. The United States is unique. If you hold a U.S. passport, you're considered a U.S. citizen. The Brits have dual nationality and multiple nationality. So it's not uncommon to have people in the U.K. who hold a British passport, an Irish passport, a Hong Kong passport. So what they have to do is they have to determine, in totality, what are you? Well, Jimmy Lai has never owned another travel document in his life other than, than one issued by the British government. Because when he was in Hong Kong, he had a British,

a Hong Kong travel document issued by the British government. And then he became a full British citizen. He's not a partial or temporary British. He's a full British citizen in 1994. And so after the British government determined to this, and then after a lot of pressure on our part and other friends of ours part, the British government has finally started to move literally in the last four or five months to start put pressure on the Chinese and to take up his case. However, the Chinese say he is a Chinese citizen. You have to remember, China, the CCP, claims everybody by ethnicity. So if you're a Chinese person, they claim you as a Chinese citizen.

Okay. What is the current state of affairs of communist censorship in Hong Kong? It's 100% controlled. There is still an international press. that is there, they struggle to do their jobs, but they do do it. Hong Kong is an international financial center or was. I mean, quickly becoming not one. The free flow of information, press freedom is vital to everything.

You can snap together toys. You can make iPhones in Fujin. You can do all these factory things. I hate to say it without a free press. In other words, you don't need intellectual engagement other than a very high level. However, when you're at information, when you're at financial center, information is everything. So at this point in time, information in Hong Kong on the financials, on international affairs, still flows rather freely. However, reporting on local or China issues in Hong Kong runs the risk of a violation of national security.

and without a doubt, whether it's the Senator Protect Journalism, reporters with signs frontiers, reporters outbrothers, Penn, everyone fully agrees, there really is no more free press in Hong Kong now for reporting on Hong Kong and China. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lillian Farrell, and I'm talking with Mr. Mark Simon. What impact has Mr. Lai's story had on the people?

in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China? Well, in China, I'll answer that one first. In China, Mr. Lai is not really that well known. Okay. Because the intellectual class knows him, and the elites know him, because they travel and they see things. But the Chinese, you do have basically the wall. And it's the firewall, the Great Firewall.

Information doesn't really get in there because of the way the Great Firewall works. So people might have heard his name. I bump into mainland Chinese friends of mine. They hear about him. In Hong Kong, it's had a tremendous effect. Jimmy ran the largest pro-democracy paper there and largest news media group.

He was very well liked. He basically didn't have a lot of enemies. Jimmy has always been seen for what he's seen. He's pro-democracy. He's pro-press freedom. He's pro-free markets. Everybody knows that in Hong Kong. And he has the added advantage of he's fighting the government that pretty much everybody in Hong Kong hates.

And you have to remember, we've had close to 400,000 people since 2019 leave Hong Kong. This is a city of about 7.5 million people. So imagine, like, basically 6% of your city, and these are a lot of your best and your British needs, are leaving. And so people are leaving. They vote with their feet. They're leaving. So overall, Jimmy is quite popular. Now, I would be remiss to say there is a portion of Hong Kong, and I'd say from what I remember, the polls, those who vote pro-government, which is 25 or 30%.

Yeah, they just wish that Jimmy would just go away because he's troubled. It's like any dissonant. There's always people, and they're please be quiet, please be quiet. And they don't like him. There's not as many pro-China people anymore as there used to be, though, because they're all paying the price for it now. And it's one of the things, freedom is something. that most people unfortunately take for granted too often. It's one of the things, I mean, I've spent most of my life overseas.

I come back here and I say, well, people say, oh, this will never happen here. I'm going, you know, I've been in a number of countries and traveled a lot in my life and, you know, I've been in media business for a long time. It can pretty much happen anywhere, you know, if people aren't, I wouldn't use the term vigilant, but if people just aren't doing what they should be doing, which is, you know, monitoring their officials, supporting a free press. You know, free press is, it's, like I say, it's unfortunately in this country we have,

they're too liberal, they're too conservative, this, and that they don't understand the value of a free press and that the free flow of information and the disinfectant that it has on communist, not just communism, but on corruption. Absolutely. What precedent does this case set for the future of media and news outlets? outlets in China? Well, there is none. I mean, one of the things the Chinese do very often, I'm known as rather a hardliner,

it's not uncommon, you'll meet somebody go, oh, I work for China Daily. Oh, I work for CTGN, which is the Chinese. And that's not a journalist. That's a propagandist. The Communist Party controls everything in China. And sometimes we've been lulled into this thing. Well, they're not communist. They're capitalists.

They just, you don't like the system orderly. No, they're communist. They are a Maoist organization. And what we forget is this. When people say they're Marxist, Leninist, they're not really. They're Leninist Marxist. And Lenin is about controlling power and controlling the political process of which the media is the first thing. Now, the thing is when you talk about this to people in America, it sounds like you're kind of, you belong on some fringe world.

But the funny thing is when you're dealing with China, I'm a pretty conservative person. If I had my left-wing friends from Hong Kong and other places sitting next to me, they would probably say the same thing. There is no free press in China. There's an international press, but that's been greatly restricted. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lillian Farrell, and I'm talking with Mr. Mark Simon. Are you hopeful about the outcome of Mr. Lies' upcoming security trial?

No, he's going to be guilty. He's already guilty. I mean, it's a done deal. We saw his last couple of trials, and his last trial there was like literally comments by the judge that would shoot just at the end of the day, if you were like in a trial in the U.S. or in the UK or it would have just been summary dismissal, that's it. And the judge would like, would be openly hostile to the prosecution. Then at the end of the day, the verdict's still the verdict. Look, somebody says, oh, justice delayed is justice tonight. No, there is not. No, there is not. not going to happen with Jimmy. He is going to be found guilty. There's no other verdict. The issue really will be is what's the sentence. And do they think, okay, he's 76 years old. We do not want him to die in jail. He's in okay health, but he's diabetic, you know, and so we'd like him to, we'd like to find a way out of this, which they have a history of doing that. Being a child during the communist, the Chinese communist revolution, was there a particular moment? Was there a particular moment that shaped Mr. Lies' stance against communism? Well, Jimmy came from a family of upper, upper middle class.

It wasn't a rich family, but they were upper middle class. His father was an merchant. And so he lost everything. There's two stories he tells. The first story is they had a house, and it was a nice house. And when the communists took over in 47, they subdivided the house. And he and his sister, sisters got put with their mother in the upstairs where they had like a, It was like the one place with it.

It was like the main bedroom. But they lost access to the rest of the house and four other families were moved in there. And so as a young, as even that age, he said it became very clear to him who the bad guys were. And that was the very first thing. The second thing that really happened much later in life

with Jimmy in terms of his full understanding of anti-communism was early in his business career Jimmy was given a copy. He was a vivacious reader. He really was. Even then he told me, he used to read everything. He learned early on because he didn't speak English.

He learned the people who make the most money speak English and read English. So he was reading everything. He was in New York. Jimmy was very close with the Jewish community because he was in the garment business. The guy said, Jimmy, you're talking garbage. Read this.

And it was Hayek, Road to Surfdom. And Jimmy said he instinctively had always just like the communist. When he read Hayek, I think he said he read it eight to ten times in a two weeks in a two week period. Instinctively, at that point in time, he knew why. He knew why they were evil. He knew what they meant to deny people. And that's the hard, that's the hard, hard thing.

What's the underlying reasons of their evilness? And what's the freedoms that we aspire to. And that's what Jimmy really is. What an incredible story. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lillian Farrell, and I'm talking with Mr. Mark Simon. What led Mr. Lai to the Catholic Church, and what role does Catholicism play in his life and business?

Jimmy was always curious about faith. There was no doubt about it. The thing that I think guided Jimmy to the church sooner later than it was, essentially his wife, Teresa. And his wife, Teresa, he was married once before that, and were guys, three wonderful children because of it. But he and his first wife separated. He met this Catholic, Hong Kong, very educated woman, Francophile, wonderful person. And she's a devout Catholic. And her families are devout Catholics. And Jimmy, because Jimmy just essentially, he said the logic of the church

won him over. That's what he said, the logic of the church. And then he converted just before just before the handover in 1997 because he said, look, I might as well get right with God. And then what happened was, it was most interesting. Instead of just being content, Jimmy has been on really a journey. The guy reads everything. I mean, I'm not kidding you. He, you know, he can discuss anything in the church. He's very, interested in everything religious-based. That's why people like George Weigel and other writers, the guys at the pillar, have taking him up because he's not just an emotional Catholic.

He's a thinking Catholic. He thinks it all the way through. Cardinal Zinn, the famous Cardinals in from Hong Kong, is probably his best friend. Cardinals have best friends, too. And Jimmy and Cardinal are best friends. And Cardinal was telling people, oh, I go see Jimmy in jail. It's such a pain sometimes because he's read so much and he's got all these theological questions for me. I have to go back and look them up and I have to make sure I get them right and write them down because, you know, what he wants to talk about.

Jimmy came to the Catholic Church and I think he found comfort in it. And then after that, he found intellectual stimulation in it. And through that, he finds strength. How does Mr. Lai feel about his sons being targeted and persecuted as a result of this case? It makes, I know, I was in communication with him and the boys were arrested, the two boys, and he's sick to his stomach over. They're grown men. In other words, like your father, if your child, you feel awful, but, you know, they're both fathers. They're both fathers with children.

And originally, it's quite bad. And it's just, it's a very communist thing to do. In other words, they're both charged. Neither of them have been taken. to trial. Both of them are completely out on bail. Both of them have some freedom of movement, but they have to check in. They have to. In other words, it's just they hold this above them. And Jimmy knew why they were targeted. And the charges they're targeted on are just ridiculous. But they're holding them. And they're holding those charges in case they need

some, it's a form of leverage. And Jimmy's other son, Sebastian, who is out and leading the campaign for him, and I hope him to introduce him to Hillsdale in the future. Sebastian has also been targeted. But Jimmy is, you know, he's aware of a lot of people who've been targeted because of him. And so it's the one thing I know that eats at him because when they were, when they were targeted and they were arrested, he and I talked several times about it. And I could tell it really upset him. And he told me as upset him. That's heartbreaking.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.0.1. 7FM. I'm Lillian Farrell and I'm talking with Mr. Mark Simon. What advice would you give to those inspired by Jimmy and willing to fight for their beliefs despite possible consequences? First of all, have a basis in what you believe. I'm not trying to be offensive here, but don't virtue signal it. Don't say everybody's for this. I'm going out. Have a basis for what you believe. It's one of the reasons I'm kind of here at Hillsdale. I'm in interested in Hillsdale. You guys have a unique education program here that I've heard about for years and a lot of people respect where you guys delve deeply into the rationale. You guys have a sense,

I wouldn't use the word classics, but you have a basics. Find some reason that is basically why things, you know, what things, what things are. Why is the reason? Now, sometimes it could be something that deeply touches you. So, for example, if you're there and there's something happens to you and you want to oppose it, but have a basis for it. And I'll tell you why, I'm almost 60. I've been doing this for like, you know, close to over 25 years now. I was a business and a businessman, basically. But what I find with young people in human rights who burn out is they're caught up in the moment. It's like anything. So when you have a cause, I don't want to say it's like a marriage where you spend, but understand the basic. What is it the fundamental thing that you can do? And the reason why

once you fundamentally understand what you can do to fix it and you understand what drives you, then you're a more capable person for solution. It's like I tell somebody, I deal with a lot of human rights activists all over. I've been active in Myanmar. I've been active in the Philippines, Indonesia, you know, not North Korea. I don't do much in China other than when people come out because China is China. And we don't, you know, we have Hong Kong and stuff like that. And one of the things is if you don't have a gallows sense of humor a little bit,

it gets really hard. But that sense of humor, the reason why you feel that you can do that and you get away with it is because you have a deeper understanding of the problem. You know what I'm saying? And once you know that, then you can do that. In many ways, working human rights is almost like working, I hate to say it, with disease. You know, you have to have a basis because disease is not going away. Human rights violations will always be with us.

but I would just tell people, don't be, don't be light about it. Understand what this is. And also understand that when you get involved, there's people paying real prices. So you've got to make sure that if you're going to take action, you're going to help those people. That's incredible advice. What important lessons do Americans have to glean from Mr. Lai's case in regards to personal freedoms and liberties? I think the first thing is, is that I live, you'll learn that you live in a system and then one day that system changes on you. Now, Hong Kong, I live, I'm unique in the, for a lot of people, I was in Hong Kong pre-97 under the Brits.

So it wasn't a democracy, but we had a democracy, a benevolent, a benevolent democratic dictator. The keyword is democratic in the UK. And that switched overnight one day, boom, July. first, it switched. We got the communist Chinese. And then, in fairness to Zhang Jimin and Hu Jintal, the leaders, we essentially had benevolent, Chinese communist overlords. Now, they didn't give you, they didn't give you much, but they basically allowed the rule of law, press freedom. Pretty much everything stayed along there. It'd be hard to really criticize those guys. Well, then we got another guy named Jiang Jim, I mean, Xi Jinping came in. He had a different view. He's a lininous

Marxist in the hardest sense. My point to somebody, my point is for Americans overseas, I mean, for Americans in the U.S., what Jimmy Lai learned and what a lot of people in Hong Kong learned was when you have somebody who looks like they're moving on your rights, who you think instinctively that this person would take my rights away, they probably will. And so for Americans, I think sometimes to sit there and wait for someone to do it is a mistake because then it's too late. We've seen whole institutions. We've seen all types of things all over the world. Basically, people wake up one day and they're a little bit less free, you know.

And also the other thing, too, is that watch the language. The language is everything. Language is everything. How people talk, how people say things. When you hear people start to play with the language, then you've got to watch out. when people start changing things, when they start talking about. We were having a conversation the other day when they were talking about, how brave is that person?

How brave is this person? Like I read something the other day. They said, she's taking a brave stance. And she's taking a brave stance for this. And I'm thinking to myself, the issue she's taking a brave stance on, I go, who is opposed to saving the environment? I mean, is there some guy out there going, I'm Captain Chainsaw, you know what I'm saying?

And she was being praised as for taking a brave stance on the environment. It's one of these sub-leberties. Bravery is charging a machine gun nest. Bravery is Jimmy Lai. Bravery is the young people in Hong Kong who we were telling them, you're going to be arrested and you're going to go to jail for a long time. That's bravery. So when you hear people change the language,

because of course the language they were changing was to basically taking this brave stance and so therefore we should back her and therefore you should. lose certain economic freedoms. So watch the language. The language is very important. Our guest has been Mr. Mark Simon and I'm Lillian Farrell on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.