Lai sentenced, Beijing doubles down on HK security – Asian Media Report |
China’s ‘zero tolerance’ white paper to Takaichi’s all-powerful supermajority, opposite views on India-US trade deal, why BYD is beating Tesla, Cambodia war a key to Thai PM’s victory, and the K-pop path for Bad Bunny – news, opinion and analysis from across our region
On Monday, Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced political activist and former media owner Jimmy Lai Chee-ying to 20 years in prison for national security offences. On Tuesday, Beijing issued a white paper on HK national security.
South China Morning Post said that from the timing the message was clear: Beijing would have zero tolerance of any offences in its unrelenting fight to defend national security.
The Post reported that Lai, 78, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was set to spend the rest of his life behind bars after being found guilty of two conspiracy counts of collusion with foreign forces and a third conspiracy to print and distribute seditious articles.
The paper said Lai had used his newspaper and a network of international contacts to push for sanctions against the local and central governments. He would be 96 by the time of his earliest possible release. Six former Apple Daily senior executives received sentences of up to 10 years and two activists were jailed for more than seven years.
Global Times, an official newspaper, quoted HK Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu as saying the 12,000-word white paper, Hong Kong: Safeguarding China’s National Security under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems, delivered a stern warning to “traitors who endanger national security”.
The paper was of great significance and had come at exactly the right time, Lee said.
China Daily said in an editorial the white paper underscored the need for a legal shield to guard against threats posed by external and internal forces.
SCMP also editorialised, saying safeguarding national security did not come to an end with Lai’s imprisonment. It quoted from the white paper: “Safeguarding national security is a long-term and enduring task.”
The three papers also ran opinion pieces criticising Lai and defending the sentence but he gained support elsewhere in Asia.
The Indian Express said in an editorial Lai’s extraordinarily harsh sentence was the final nail in the coffin of the promise of One Country, Two Systems.
It said the court had described Lai’s offences as grave and premeditated. “Yet, by all accounts, his real crime has been the relentless championing of democracy,” the paper said.
And a commentary published by ucanews.com, the Catholic Asian news site, said Lai’s crimes were nothing more than the crimes of journalism – of daring to think differently from the Chinese Communist Party. It said Pope Leo XIV should publicly pray for Lai, a Catholic, and call for his release.
Empowered Takaichi to engage in robust diplomacy
Sanae Takaichi’s historic landslide victory in Japan’s national elections has put her in a very powerful position: she has won a supermajority of more than two-thirds of lower house seats, enabling her to override the upper house if it blocks any of her bills.
Her Liberal Democratic Party won 316 seats, giving it a higher proportion of lower house numbers than any other party in the postwar era, The Japan Times said. Its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, won 36. A two-thirds majority is 310 seats.
The result allows the coalition to override challenges that might emerge from its lack of an upper house majority.
A separate Japan Times story asked the question: is Takaichi on course to build an enduring administration, in the mould of her mentor, the........