On December 15, a Hong Kong court found media tycoon Jimmy Lai guilty on all three charges in his landmark national security trial: two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” and one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications.” The 78-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, who has been detained for over 1,800 days across multiple criminal cases, faces the prospect of spending his remaining years behind bars.

The 855-page verdict caps a trial that spanned more than 150 court days across two years. Lai, whose health has reportedly deteriorated in solitary confinement, was labeled by the court as the “mastermind” behind conspiracies to undermine national security. The verdict drew extensively on Lai’s conduct before the National Security Law (NSL) took effect – even though the law supposedly does not apply retroactively. The court has blurred the distinction between non-retrospective principles and the actual consideration of facts, further eroding the reputation of Hong Kong’s courts and the rule of law.

Both Hong Kong and the Chinese authorities have long warned against “fake news” circulating about Lai’s trial and developments in the territory. Yet the Lai verdict reveals something more troubling: local courts are endorsing authorities engaged in information manipulation about Lai and Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The ruling represents more than just another conviction in a city where dissent is no longer tolerated. It is a capstone in the ongoing effort to rewrite the history of Hong Kong and its pro-democracy movement – using the once-respected courts as the final word in this narrative revision.

The Toolkit of Cognitive Warfare

For years, China’s cognitive warfare against Hong Kong has operated on several fronts. First, it promotes the narrative that Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement was merely foreign interference. This is the “mastermind” theory, portraying activists as foreign proxies rather than citizens exercising collective political agency. Second, it advances political relativism, suggesting that Chinese authoritarian governance deserves equal respect as Western liberal democracies and that authoritarian........

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