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Sinkees kanna stewed and they don't even know. Still support the cooks overwhelmingly at every election.
The Rich Businessmen in HK Buay Tahan Liao...Lol :D
- Thread starter AhMeng
- Start date
Sinkees kanna stewed and they don't even know. Still support the cooks overwhelmingly at every election.
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- 113
These rich bastards toe the government line. Puts the blame on the protesters for the violence. The truth is that the HK Police attacked the protesters. The perpetrators of violence is the HK Police and their triad partners.
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Economist: Hong Kong's tycoons 'are the problem' underlying recent unrest
Huileng Tan
1 day ago
Stamp duty tax has tripled in some Aussie cities, time to scrap it
Australians on flat wages struggle to pay off their home loans
© REUTERS/Tyrone Siu Protest to demand authorities scrap a proposed extradition bill with China, in Hong Kong. As protests continue to roil Hong Kong, a widely followed economist has an idea about how to ease tensions: China, he said, needs to take power away from the city's tycoons and fix its property market.
The east Asian financial hub has been rocked by civil unrest in recent months with operations of Hong Kong International Airport severely disrupted this week due to a sit-in by protesters. The ongoing demonstrations in the city started as peaceful rallies against a single proposed law but have snowballed into a wider pro-democracy movement, with some even demanding full autonomy from Beijing and occasional outbreaks of violence.
Social discontent with stratospheric housing prices is playing a major part in the unrest, Andy Xie, an independent economist, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday.
"Hong Kong has been a pressure cooker for a long time," he said.
According to the Centa-City Leading Index, a widely used indicator of the city's residential price trends, property prices have appreciated 300% since 2003 when they tanked due to a disease epidemic.
But wages have largely stagnated in the same period, so "it's very difficult to see how young people can feel hope. They know they'll never be able to afford a place, so they cannot start a family. How can they get ahead in life? Desperation, and really a deep sense of unhappiness, is driving this unrest," said Xie.
Xie's comments come just as business leaders are coming out to voice their stand as protests start to take a toll on the Hong Kong economy.
On Sunday, property tycoons in Hong Kong issued a joint petition to newspapers calling on the public to cease illegal protests and allow the return of stability, the South China Morning Post reported.
CITIC Capital CEO Zhang Yichen, meanwhile, posted a notice appealing for the restoration of law and order that urges support for the Hong Kong government and police on his WeChat social media account on Wednesday. CITIC Capital is the alternative investment arm of Chinese financial conglomerate CITIC Group.
Last year, global chairty network Oxfam flagged a "particularly severe" wealth disparity in Hong Kong, which it said was the highest among all developed countries and regions.
Hong Kong is the world's most expensive city to buy a home, according to another report released in April.
Xie attributed the sky-high property price to the housing market being lead by local business leaders.
"The Hong Kong government is not really in charge (even though) most people think that they need to listen to Beijing, but perhaps more importantly, they are really influenced by the big property tycoons," said Xie.
Although the Hong Kong authorities have changed housing policies several times, "in the end, they favor tycoons, giving the land to the tycoons," the economist asserted.
But private developers "hold the land, not building much and they just try to squeeze the market and push the prices as much as possible," he said.
Xie said real estate developers benchmark their prices against the salaries and big bonuses of those who work in the financial sector, but that has priced out the vast majority of the local population.
"For ordinary people, you make an income about 5% of a financial guy and they think you should get 5% of an apartment, so they create something like a 'nano flat,'" he said, referring to tiny apartments in Hong Kong that can be the size of a parking space. "That is really crazy."
"They think that people will just take it lying down forever, (but) eventually, it blows up," said Xie, who was a former chief Asia-Pacific economist at Morgan Stanley.
"The key is that the political structure here is neither the Singapore situation where the government is on top, nor like Taiwan (where) it's a democracy and people can vote," said Xie, who recently penned an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post on the subject.
Hong Kong is "in between — just a bunch of business people calling the shots," he added.
Beijing needs to distance itself from the tycoons in Hong Kong, said Xie.
"Every time, there's a disturbance in Hong Kong, Beijing goes to these business guys for advice; you know something's very wrong," said Xie. "These guys are causing the trouble in Hong Kong, why are you going to them for advice every time?"
"They are the problem; they need to become regular business people, not having political power (and) running the place," said Xie.
In response to CNBC's request for comments on Xie's comments, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong said through its public relations agency that it "doesn't have any comments to share at this point."
—CNBC's Penny Chen contributed to this report.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/hom...ying-recent-unrest/ar-AAFPghJ?ocid=spartanntp
Huileng Tan
1 day ago
Stamp duty tax has tripled in some Aussie cities, time to scrap it
Australians on flat wages struggle to pay off their home loans
The east Asian financial hub has been rocked by civil unrest in recent months with operations of Hong Kong International Airport severely disrupted this week due to a sit-in by protesters. The ongoing demonstrations in the city started as peaceful rallies against a single proposed law but have snowballed into a wider pro-democracy movement, with some even demanding full autonomy from Beijing and occasional outbreaks of violence.
Social discontent with stratospheric housing prices is playing a major part in the unrest, Andy Xie, an independent economist, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday.
"Hong Kong has been a pressure cooker for a long time," he said.
According to the Centa-City Leading Index, a widely used indicator of the city's residential price trends, property prices have appreciated 300% since 2003 when they tanked due to a disease epidemic.
But wages have largely stagnated in the same period, so "it's very difficult to see how young people can feel hope. They know they'll never be able to afford a place, so they cannot start a family. How can they get ahead in life? Desperation, and really a deep sense of unhappiness, is driving this unrest," said Xie.
Xie's comments come just as business leaders are coming out to voice their stand as protests start to take a toll on the Hong Kong economy.
On Sunday, property tycoons in Hong Kong issued a joint petition to newspapers calling on the public to cease illegal protests and allow the return of stability, the South China Morning Post reported.
CITIC Capital CEO Zhang Yichen, meanwhile, posted a notice appealing for the restoration of law and order that urges support for the Hong Kong government and police on his WeChat social media account on Wednesday. CITIC Capital is the alternative investment arm of Chinese financial conglomerate CITIC Group.
Last year, global chairty network Oxfam flagged a "particularly severe" wealth disparity in Hong Kong, which it said was the highest among all developed countries and regions.
Hong Kong is the world's most expensive city to buy a home, according to another report released in April.
Xie attributed the sky-high property price to the housing market being lead by local business leaders.
"The Hong Kong government is not really in charge (even though) most people think that they need to listen to Beijing, but perhaps more importantly, they are really influenced by the big property tycoons," said Xie.
Although the Hong Kong authorities have changed housing policies several times, "in the end, they favor tycoons, giving the land to the tycoons," the economist asserted.
But private developers "hold the land, not building much and they just try to squeeze the market and push the prices as much as possible," he said.
Xie said real estate developers benchmark their prices against the salaries and big bonuses of those who work in the financial sector, but that has priced out the vast majority of the local population.
"For ordinary people, you make an income about 5% of a financial guy and they think you should get 5% of an apartment, so they create something like a 'nano flat,'" he said, referring to tiny apartments in Hong Kong that can be the size of a parking space. "That is really crazy."
"They think that people will just take it lying down forever, (but) eventually, it blows up," said Xie, who was a former chief Asia-Pacific economist at Morgan Stanley.
"The key is that the political structure here is neither the Singapore situation where the government is on top, nor like Taiwan (where) it's a democracy and people can vote," said Xie, who recently penned an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post on the subject.
Hong Kong is "in between — just a bunch of business people calling the shots," he added.
Beijing needs to distance itself from the tycoons in Hong Kong, said Xie.
"Every time, there's a disturbance in Hong Kong, Beijing goes to these business guys for advice; you know something's very wrong," said Xie. "These guys are causing the trouble in Hong Kong, why are you going to them for advice every time?"
"They are the problem; they need to become regular business people, not having political power (and) running the place," said Xie.
In response to CNBC's request for comments on Xie's comments, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong said through its public relations agency that it "doesn't have any comments to share at this point."
—CNBC's Penny Chen contributed to this report.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/hom...ying-recent-unrest/ar-AAFPghJ?ocid=spartanntp
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Singapore is basically HK Lite,,,HK issues will be singkieland issues too if the pap continue to pander to the rich,,
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2008
- Messages
- 1,295
- Points
- 113
Fortunately,I had withdrawn all my RA few years ago.
Pigeon hole fully paid.
4Room bought in 1970s cost $16,500.
Now=you all know the current market price.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2008
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- 1,295
- Points
- 113
Teehee... these rich landlords can suck thumbs now
So, no more Tantric sex?
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2008
- Messages
- 35,914
- Points
- 113
Don’t recall any posture from the tantric sex manual involving sucking thumbs...
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2013
- Messages
- 11,606
- Points
- 113
These are the fuckers firat to sellout. Because whatever happens to commoners will never hit them. Very few rich you should not kill
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Hong Kong billionaire tycoons call for end to protests as unrest affects their profits
BY SOUTH-EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT KATHRYN DISS IN HONG KONG
UPDATED ABOUT 10 HOURS AGO
Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp
A man in thick black rimmed glasses and a suit looking serious
PHOTO Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing has reportedly lost $3 billion since the protests began in June.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
Hong Kong's property tycoons are hurting, the share market is tanking and the tourism sector has taken a beating as the pro-democracy movement continues to strangle the city.
Key points:
Hong Kong's richest person Li Ka-shing has called for an end to the protests
The 10 richest people in Hong Kong have lost billions since the protests began in June
Hong Kong's economy grew at its slowest annual pace since 2008 in the second quarter
While the US-China trade war has fuelled some of the losses, weeks of violent protests have wreaked havoc for investor sentiment and caused huge reputational damage for the semi-autonomous territory as an economic powerhouse.
As the protest movement enters its 11th week with no signs of slowing down, analysts are predicting the financial hub is barrelling towards recession.
China deploys Jackie Chan to deal with Hong Kong
China deploys Jackie Chan to deal with Hong Kong
China has sent a huge military convoy to the border with Hong Kong, but conspiracy theories, propaganda and Jackie Chan may prove the most potent weapons.
Now the city's ultra-rich are calling for the protests to end.
The net worth of the 10 wealthiest tycoons, who derive their fortune from Hong Kong-listed companies, has shed billions since the protests started in June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index.
Hong Kong's richest person, 91-year-old business magnate Li Ka-shing, has become the latest billionaire to join the chorus speaking out.
Mr Li, nicknamed 'Superman' in Hong Kong, took out full-page ads in most local newspapers, urging a halt to the unrest "in the name of love".
It featured the Chinese word for "violence" with a red cross through it, flanked by slogans about loving China and loving Hong Kong.
The entrepreneur, who is worth approximately $39 billion, signed the ad with "from a Hong Kong resident, Li Ka-shing".
'In Hong Kong, property tycoons control the land'
As the protest movement drags on, there are concerns the property sector, which is a linchpin of the local economy, could be in danger.
Controlled by the mega-wealthy, Hong Kong is home to the most expensive real estate in the world, making it out of reach of many of its citizens.
Hong Kong high rise apartments lit up at night
PHOTO Hong Kong has been ranked as the world's least affordable housing market for nearly a decade.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
On average, a nano apartment — the size of a parking spot — costs about $1,475 per month to rent.
Most of the protesters taking to the streets are university students and young professionals.
They hold little hope of ever being able to afford their own home, so hitting the rich and powerful has become an aim of the movement.
"In Hong Kong, the property tycoons control the land supply," Shanghai-based analyst Andy Xie said.
"Beijing has relied on the tycoons in Hong Kong to govern the place, so the Government is not really in charge. All of the tycoons have a direct line to Beijing," Mr Xie said.
Hong Kong high rise apartments with people posing for pictures in front
PHOTO Tiny apartments the size of parking spaces in Hong Kong rent for nearly $1,500 a month.
REUTERS: ANN WANG
Whether the billionaires of Hong Kong will do Beijing's bidding remains to be seen.
"They think these tycoons will keep the peace in Hong Kong, which is not their objective. Their objective is to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible", Mr Xie said.
As their profits start to dive, more Hong Kong property magnates are criticising the protest movement.
Swire Pacific, one of Hong Kong's richest family-owned business empires, has issued a strongly worded statement condemning "illegal activities and violent behaviour," throwing its support behind the city's beleaguered government.
The family business, which dates back more than 200 years, is the largest shareholder in Cathay Pacific, owns luxury hotels, office towers and high-end shopping malls throughout the city.
Sun Hung Kai Properties, which is controlled by Asia's third-richest family, the Kwoks, has also called for the violence to stop and for social order to be restored.
A group of Hong Kong businessmen in suits greet each other in a read room
PHOTO The Kwoks, who are the third-richest family in Asia, have called for an end to Hong Kong's protests.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
Property tycoon, Peter Woo, the former chairman of developer Wheelock and Co, said the protesters should ease off because they had already succeeded in killing off the extradition bill.
"The economy will take a deep downturn before the end of the year. The property market will take a big tumble. It is very clear where the economy is going," Mr Xie said.
Very few people are currently buying property in Hong Kong, according to Mr Xie.
"If you look at the price data, it doesn't look like a collapsing situation. But the borrowing has collapsed, so when are the sellers going to give up and start slashing prices? It's hard to tell," he said.
Buggle Lau analyses data for one of Hong Kong's largest real estate firms, Midland Realty Services, and said prices had dropped about 2 per cent since the unrest began with the luxury market hardest hit.
"Developers have slowed down their new launches. Both buyers and sellers are adopting a wait-and-see approach," he said.
A Chinese man in a suit sitting in a wooden boardroom
PHOTO Residential transactions in Hong Kong dropped 50 per cent in August, according to analyst Buggle Lau.
ABC NEWS: ROBERT KOENIG-LUCK
Mr Lau said residential transactions dropped over 50 per cent this month, compared to the monthly average of the first seven months of this year.
"But we are not talking about a major collapse in the Hong Kong property market like in 1997," he said.
Travellers stay away from Hong Kong as protests rage
The tourism sector — usually Hong Kong's back-up when markets are underperforming — is also taking a beating, with travellers choosing to stay away.
A woman poses for a photo at a lookout over Hong Kong harbour
PHOTO Asian flight bookings to Hong Kong have fallen 20 per cent in the last several months.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
In the eight weeks to August 9, flight bookings to Hong Kong from Asian markets fell more than 20 per cent on the previous year, according to analytics firm, ForwardKeys.
Long-haul bookings from mid-June to mid-August were down almost 5 per cent on the same period last year.
"Hitting the sixth-busiest airport in the world definitely has an impact and those images went viral," hotel group Ovolo founder Girish Jhunjhnuwala said.
Rich shoppers abandon Hong Kong
Rich shoppers abandon Hong Kong
It's a city built on luxury and glamour. But as Hong Kong's democracy movement gets bigger, the uber-rich visitors who prop up its economy are staying away.
Ovolo runs a chain of boutique hotels in Hong Kong and has expanded its business into several Australian states.
"The impact now has reached a peak. When it first started it wasn't affecting it so much but I think the recent events have definitely had an impact on tourism into Hong Kong," he said.
The hotel chain has noticed an increase in cancellations, particularly in group bookings.
"Usually at this time we should be looking at 80 to 90 per cent occupancy and at this hotel we're probably down around 60 to 65 per cent," Mr Jhunjhnuwala said.
Government says protests more damaging than SARS
The Hong Kong Government has warned the downturn could go deeper than the SARS epidemic of 2003, and 2008's global financial crisis.
But despite its warnings and pleas to protesters to stop, there are few signs of things cooling, with millions of pro-democracy protesters again turning out to march the streets on Sunday night.
A huge crowd of people fill a park in Hong Kong
PHOTO Hong Kong's protests show no sign of slowing down, with millions of demonstrators marching on the weekend.
AP VIA APPLE DAILY
The Hong Kong Government announced last week it would pump billions into its economy in a bid to avert a recession.
The stimulus package, worth about $2.4 billion, is aimed at helping safeguard jobs and provide relief to "people's financial burden".
The political unrest is weighing on economic performance with Hong Kong's main market index, The Hang Seng, dropping to its lowest level since January last week amid the airport chaos.
The territory's flagship carrier, Cathay Pacific, is trading at 10-year lows.
Hong Kong's economy grew by just 0.6 per cent in the second quarter — the weakest rate in a decade — compared with the first quarter of 2019.
A contraction in the July-September quarter would tip the city of about 7 million people into recession.
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NEWS HOME
Hong Kong billionaire tycoons call for end to protests as unrest affects their profits
BY SOUTH-EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT KATHRYN DISS IN HONG KONG
UPDATED ABOUT 10 HOURS AGO
Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp
A man in thick black rimmed glasses and a suit looking serious
PHOTO Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing has reportedly lost $3 billion since the protests began in June.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
Hong Kong's property tycoons are hurting, the share market is tanking and the tourism sector has taken a beating as the pro-democracy movement continues to strangle the city.
Key points:
Hong Kong's richest person Li Ka-shing has called for an end to the protests
The 10 richest people in Hong Kong have lost billions since the protests began in June
Hong Kong's economy grew at its slowest annual pace since 2008 in the second quarter
While the US-China trade war has fuelled some of the losses, weeks of violent protests have wreaked havoc for investor sentiment and caused huge reputational damage for the semi-autonomous territory as an economic powerhouse.
As the protest movement enters its 11th week with no signs of slowing down, analysts are predicting the financial hub is barrelling towards recession.
China deploys Jackie Chan to deal with Hong Kong
China deploys Jackie Chan to deal with Hong Kong
China has sent a huge military convoy to the border with Hong Kong, but conspiracy theories, propaganda and Jackie Chan may prove the most potent weapons.
Now the city's ultra-rich are calling for the protests to end.
The net worth of the 10 wealthiest tycoons, who derive their fortune from Hong Kong-listed companies, has shed billions since the protests started in June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index.
Hong Kong's richest person, 91-year-old business magnate Li Ka-shing, has become the latest billionaire to join the chorus speaking out.
Mr Li, nicknamed 'Superman' in Hong Kong, took out full-page ads in most local newspapers, urging a halt to the unrest "in the name of love".
It featured the Chinese word for "violence" with a red cross through it, flanked by slogans about loving China and loving Hong Kong.
The entrepreneur, who is worth approximately $39 billion, signed the ad with "from a Hong Kong resident, Li Ka-shing".
'In Hong Kong, property tycoons control the land'
As the protest movement drags on, there are concerns the property sector, which is a linchpin of the local economy, could be in danger.
Controlled by the mega-wealthy, Hong Kong is home to the most expensive real estate in the world, making it out of reach of many of its citizens.
Hong Kong high rise apartments lit up at night
PHOTO Hong Kong has been ranked as the world's least affordable housing market for nearly a decade.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
On average, a nano apartment — the size of a parking spot — costs about $1,475 per month to rent.
Most of the protesters taking to the streets are university students and young professionals.
They hold little hope of ever being able to afford their own home, so hitting the rich and powerful has become an aim of the movement.
"In Hong Kong, the property tycoons control the land supply," Shanghai-based analyst Andy Xie said.
"Beijing has relied on the tycoons in Hong Kong to govern the place, so the Government is not really in charge. All of the tycoons have a direct line to Beijing," Mr Xie said.
Hong Kong high rise apartments with people posing for pictures in front
PHOTO Tiny apartments the size of parking spaces in Hong Kong rent for nearly $1,500 a month.
REUTERS: ANN WANG
Whether the billionaires of Hong Kong will do Beijing's bidding remains to be seen.
"They think these tycoons will keep the peace in Hong Kong, which is not their objective. Their objective is to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible", Mr Xie said.
As their profits start to dive, more Hong Kong property magnates are criticising the protest movement.
Swire Pacific, one of Hong Kong's richest family-owned business empires, has issued a strongly worded statement condemning "illegal activities and violent behaviour," throwing its support behind the city's beleaguered government.
The family business, which dates back more than 200 years, is the largest shareholder in Cathay Pacific, owns luxury hotels, office towers and high-end shopping malls throughout the city.
Sun Hung Kai Properties, which is controlled by Asia's third-richest family, the Kwoks, has also called for the violence to stop and for social order to be restored.
A group of Hong Kong businessmen in suits greet each other in a read room
PHOTO The Kwoks, who are the third-richest family in Asia, have called for an end to Hong Kong's protests.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
Property tycoon, Peter Woo, the former chairman of developer Wheelock and Co, said the protesters should ease off because they had already succeeded in killing off the extradition bill.
"The economy will take a deep downturn before the end of the year. The property market will take a big tumble. It is very clear where the economy is going," Mr Xie said.
Very few people are currently buying property in Hong Kong, according to Mr Xie.
"If you look at the price data, it doesn't look like a collapsing situation. But the borrowing has collapsed, so when are the sellers going to give up and start slashing prices? It's hard to tell," he said.
Buggle Lau analyses data for one of Hong Kong's largest real estate firms, Midland Realty Services, and said prices had dropped about 2 per cent since the unrest began with the luxury market hardest hit.
"Developers have slowed down their new launches. Both buyers and sellers are adopting a wait-and-see approach," he said.
A Chinese man in a suit sitting in a wooden boardroom
PHOTO Residential transactions in Hong Kong dropped 50 per cent in August, according to analyst Buggle Lau.
ABC NEWS: ROBERT KOENIG-LUCK
Mr Lau said residential transactions dropped over 50 per cent this month, compared to the monthly average of the first seven months of this year.
"But we are not talking about a major collapse in the Hong Kong property market like in 1997," he said.
Travellers stay away from Hong Kong as protests rage
The tourism sector — usually Hong Kong's back-up when markets are underperforming — is also taking a beating, with travellers choosing to stay away.
A woman poses for a photo at a lookout over Hong Kong harbour
PHOTO Asian flight bookings to Hong Kong have fallen 20 per cent in the last several months.
REUTERS: BOBBY YIP
In the eight weeks to August 9, flight bookings to Hong Kong from Asian markets fell more than 20 per cent on the previous year, according to analytics firm, ForwardKeys.
Long-haul bookings from mid-June to mid-August were down almost 5 per cent on the same period last year.
"Hitting the sixth-busiest airport in the world definitely has an impact and those images went viral," hotel group Ovolo founder Girish Jhunjhnuwala said.
Rich shoppers abandon Hong Kong
Rich shoppers abandon Hong Kong
It's a city built on luxury and glamour. But as Hong Kong's democracy movement gets bigger, the uber-rich visitors who prop up its economy are staying away.
Ovolo runs a chain of boutique hotels in Hong Kong and has expanded its business into several Australian states.
"The impact now has reached a peak. When it first started it wasn't affecting it so much but I think the recent events have definitely had an impact on tourism into Hong Kong," he said.
The hotel chain has noticed an increase in cancellations, particularly in group bookings.
"Usually at this time we should be looking at 80 to 90 per cent occupancy and at this hotel we're probably down around 60 to 65 per cent," Mr Jhunjhnuwala said.
Government says protests more damaging than SARS
The Hong Kong Government has warned the downturn could go deeper than the SARS epidemic of 2003, and 2008's global financial crisis.
But despite its warnings and pleas to protesters to stop, there are few signs of things cooling, with millions of pro-democracy protesters again turning out to march the streets on Sunday night.
A huge crowd of people fill a park in Hong Kong
PHOTO Hong Kong's protests show no sign of slowing down, with millions of demonstrators marching on the weekend.
AP VIA APPLE DAILY
The Hong Kong Government announced last week it would pump billions into its economy in a bid to avert a recession.
The stimulus package, worth about $2.4 billion, is aimed at helping safeguard jobs and provide relief to "people's financial burden".
The political unrest is weighing on economic performance with Hong Kong's main market index, The Hang Seng, dropping to its lowest level since January last week amid the airport chaos.
The territory's flagship carrier, Cathay Pacific, is trading at 10-year lows.
Hong Kong's economy grew by just 0.6 per cent in the second quarter — the weakest rate in a decade — compared with the first quarter of 2019.
A contraction in the July-September quarter would tip the city of about 7 million people into recession.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2018
- Messages
- 31,182
- Points
- 113
Why pro-democracy troublemaker Jimmy Lai is the only Hong Kong multi-millionaire standing up to China
By Jenni Marsh, CNN
Updated 0512 GMT (1312 HKT) August 28, 2019
Hong Kong (CNN)Jimmy Lai has been a public target for decades.
It all started after the Hong Kong business tycoon — a refugee from China — reinvented himself in the mid-1990s as the founder of the city's provocative, anti-Beijing tabloid, Apple Daily.
One of the advertisements that introduced the newspaper to the world made Lai's point in the bluntest of ways: By showing Lai sitting in a dark warehouse with a red apple on his scalp, being pelted with incoming arrows fired by a shadowy figure.
Since then, Lai's role as one of Hong Kong's most prominent rabble-rousers has threatened his fortune, subjected him to death threats and made him a symbol of the city's tensions with mainland China.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city was guaranteed its own legal system and certain democratic freedoms until 2047, when it will likely return in total to Beijing. Over the past three months, millions have flooded Hong Kong's highways in marches against Beijing's perceived encroachment on those treasured freedoms.
Apple Daily has become the city's biggest official champion of that movement. The newspaper of the protesters. Its strident front pages rally citizens to go out and march, it has given away posters to raise at demonstrations, and it regularly taunts the government for its failures.
In a town of tycoons, Lai is the only multi-millionaire who seems prepared to openly jeopardize his fortune for Hong Kong's freedom. The 70-year-old is frequently seen at the marches, in the pouring rain or blazing summer heat.
To his supporters, Lai is a brave democracy fighter. But his detractors say that Lai and his muckraking publication are a black hand for the United States and cause chaos. In recent years, firebombs have been lobbed at his gated home, anobituary claiming he died from AIDS has run in a rival publication and Lai's political donations have subjected him to an anti-corruption case. Lai denied wrongdoing, and the case against him was ultimately dropped.
Jimmy Lai met with US Vice President Mike Pence in July 2019.
That Lai has ties with the United States is undeniable. Last month, he flew to Washington to discuss with US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton how fundamental Hong Kong's freedom is to the US' standoff with China.
"The (new) Cold War is actually a rivalry of competing values," Lai says, framing the current US-China trade war as a standoff of between democracy and authoritarianism. "We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China. We are fighting their war in the enemy camp."
It's a battle Lai says he's prepared to die for.
Chinese refugee
Lai had already led an extraordinary life by the time he founded Next Digital group, which owns Apple Daily, in the 1980s.
As the Great Chinese Famine gripped mainland China in 1960, Lai smuggled himself out of the southern mainland province of Guangdong and into Hong Kong in the bottom of a fishing boat. He arrived in the city at the age of 12 and dirt poor.
Lai says he became an odd jobs guy at a textile factory, making 60 Hong Kong dollars ($7) a month and living in an apartment with 10 others in the slum neighborhood of Sham Shui Po -- still one of Hong Kong's most impoverished districts.
The Hollywood Knitwear Factory in Kwun Tong in the 1970s when Hong Kong's textile industry was booming.
On his first day, he recalls how coworkers took him for breakfast. Relief from "the anxiety of hunger" was overwhelming, says Lai. "This freedom was the first feeling I had about Hong Kong and it never disappointed me," Lai says. "Never, until now."
"Hong Kong was a land of opportunity," Lai says of that era.
Within two decades, Lai had learned English, worked his way up the factory floor to the position of salesman and decided to start his own retail line. On one trip to New York during fabric sampling season, he bought a pizza. Written on the napkin was the name Giordano.
That became the name of his wildly successful, casual men's clothing chain, which made Lai his first fortune.
"I was stupid enough to think that if I called it Giordano, people would think that it's an Italian brand name," he says. It worked. By 1992, the group had 191 outlets, made 9 million garments annually and had a turnover of 1.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($211 million).
Shoppers pass a Giordano retail store on a rainy day in Hong Kong, 22 March 2005.
"He's kind of a legend in terms of his business success," says Clement So, associate dean in the school of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "Not only for what he did in the news media but in other kinds of industry."
Business was booming, but two things happened in the late 1980s that would derail the course of Lai's life.
First, on June 4, 1989, tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to disperse young pro-democracy protesters, changing China forever. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands.
Lai says he wasn't political at the time, "but I always had a very strong yearning for freedom because of my experience in China."
Hong Kong was still under British rule but barreling towards reunification with China in 1997. As the city watched the Tiananmen crackdown in horror, Giordano began producing T-shirts with pro-student slogans.
Around the same time, Lai says he got divorced from his first wife. "I thought I was a very eligible guy," he says. "That was something shocking to me."
Shortly afterward, Lai was interviewed by local journalist Theresa Lai. The pair fell in love and married. Next, he became a media baron.
An Apple a day
Today Lai lives in a white, gated house in an upmarket nook of Kowloon. Security staff are stationed outside the property. Paparazzi from rival newspapers photograph all who leave and enter, putting pressure on Lai's personal life and looking for signs that he meets with pro-US figures.
Inside, melodious Chinese hwamei birds chirp in tall white cages, dramatic art works adorn the walls, while giant bromeliads and orchids brighten each corner. "I love flowers," says Lai, with intermittent clips of an upper-class British accent, as he enjoys a breakfast of strawberries and egg sandwiches served on china platters.
The figure he cuts at home, where he regularly hosts politicians, journalists and influential figures to discuss Hong Kong's democratic future -- or lack of it -- is in stark contrast to his reputation as a brash, instinct-driven, ex-factory manager whose formal education ended in primary school.
That public persona began in 1994, when Lai published an incendiary column in a magazine owned by his Next Digital group, describing then Chinese Premier Li Peng, known as the "butcher of Beijing" for his role in the Tiananmen crackdown, as "the son of a turtle's egg with zero IQ" — a profoundly offensive slur in Chinese.
Jimmy Lai with his Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper which sparked a price war when it launched in 1995.
Beijing responded then as it might do now. It penalized his clothing business.
Lai says Giordano's licenses were revoked across much of mainland China. In 1994, Lai sold his stake in the company, and the following year he launched Apple Daily, with a 100 million Hong Kong dollar promotional campaign, two years before the British handed the city back to China.
"It's my nature to be a rebel -- to be a revolutionary," Lai says. "I express it in business. Whenever I am in business, I create something different from the norm. That's the reason why I have been successful more than other people. I don't believe in incremental improvement."
On news stands, Lai sparked a citywide price war, virtually giving away the sensational title at two Hong Kong dollars (25 cents), the price vendors charged to sell it. "Other papers quickly imitated without much success," says So. "The style of writing, the use of big photos. The pagination. Everything. There was a term called 'Apple-ization.'"
The newspaper became the city's most-talked about outlet -- a reputation it has maintained through its pioneering Apple Extra platform, which controversially animates breaking news events from murders to protests. The publication also found big success in Taiwan, a self-governed Chinese democracy which Beijing claims as its own territory. "Apple Daily was very lucrative in the beginning," says Willy Lam, a professor in history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
By 2008, Lai was worth $1.2 billion, according to the Forbes rich list.
Jimmy Lai protests during 2014's Umbrella Movement for democracy in Hong Kong.
With other media moguls unwilling to risk the commercial fall out of facing off with Beijing post-1997, Apple Daily became the city's sole publication regularly criticizing China. "They were so afraid of the Communists, they left me an independent media market almost to myself," Lai says.
The paper's uncompromising stance, which critics say can lack the editorial balance of including the opposing side's viewpoint, coincided with swathes of Hong Kong's media becoming more pro-Beijing.
"Nobody trusts the media. You don't trust the police. They don't trust the government," Tien says.
Societal fragmentation has been a theme of the current unrest, as protesters and police have faced off in a series of violent clashes that have been reported from vastly different perspectives across the media.
Some Hong Kongers back Beijing. Many are pro-democracy. Others describe themselves as "blue ribbon," meaning they support the police. Supporters of the movement and more liberal people identify as "yellow ribbon."
Many make a point of defining themselves as Hong Kongers, rather than broadly Chinese, to distinguish their identity from that of those living across the border -- the birthplace of many of their parents or grandparents.
For Lai, a Hong Konger is someone from a small Chinese island who shares the values of the West. "The Hong Kong identity this time ... has really emerged much more into our consciousness," he says. "We identify as Hong Konger like never before."
A black hand for the US
In early 2018, a 19-year-old Hong Kong resident allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan and returned to the city before being arrested. There was nothing Taiwanese police could do; Hong Kong had no extradition agreement with Taiwan, or any Chinese territory.
In March 2019, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a solution: an update to the city's fugitive laws that would allow criminals to be extradited to Taiwan -- and mainland China.
Lai was in the United States when the bill was announced and was warned by a US politician over breakfast about the danger it posed. "I really alerted myself," remembers Lai. "I looked at it again and said, 'Shit, this is horrible.' I knew it was going to be a big thing."
He was right. The bill ended up sparking nearly three months of often violent demonstrations in Hong Kong, with more than 800 mostly young people arrested on charges including rioting. Protesters have paralyzed the city's airport on two occasions.
Speaking to Lai it seems that many of his defining moments were sparked by America. The name "Giordano" came from a New York pizza house napkin; when the brand initially struggled to make money, a trip to McDonald's inspired Lai to streamline its offerings, as the US burger chain had done; Apple Daily was modeled on the USA Today.
His top aide in Hong Kong, Mark Simon, is the son of a former CIA employee.
That last detail never fails to tantalize onlookers. For decades, one of the key charges against Lai has been that he is a CIA stooge, and the Apple Daily a tool of the United States.
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Earlier this month, China's state-run media branded Lai and three other well-known pro-democracy figures in the city as Hong Kong's "Gang of Four" -- a reference to the group that tried to overthrow Mao Zedong and seize power from the Communist Party in the 1970s.
The People's Daily claimed Lai was part of a quartet of "secretive middlemen and modern traitors," as Beijing tried to blame the unrest in Hong Kong on foreign forces.
The pro-Beijing lawmaker Tien, for one, believes that Washington pumps money into Hong Kong's democracy movement to provide a "continuous force to destabilize China," although he admits he has no evidence to substantiate this claim.
Lai calls the idea of a US-funded color revolution "ridiculous."
"If the US is funding this the evidence would be so self-evident," he says. "You can't find even one person to stand up and say, 'Hey, I got money from the US.'"
But he does view Washington as a key ally for Hong Kong -- as that early warning on the extradition bill proved. When Lai returned from that trip, he began raising the alarm. Journalists at first weren't too ruffled, he says.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam shakes hands with China's President Xi Jinping after being sworn in as the territory's leader in 2017.
"Lam was flying high before this extradition law," says Lai. "Xi Jinping was taking her hand (at public events), she was walking in front with him, she really wanted to do something great for her boss. She knew this was a great opportunity. And actually it was almost. Because people really didn't pay attention to it at first."
But the business community was more alarmed. "All of them have had to pay something to get the protection of the people that control them in mainland China," says Lai. More than that, they understood the law could be used by Chinese contacts as a tool for blackmail; if a Chinese partner wanted to control their Hong Kong counterpart they could potentially report them to the authorities across the border, where there is a 99% conviction rate.
Opposition to the bill slowly mounted, starting with a march of 12,000 people on March 31, led by Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller who says he was kidnapped from Hong Kong by mainland Chinese agents in 2015, after selling tomes critical of Beijing. China has denied abducting him.
Lam steamed ahead.
The marches continued: 160,000 people, then 1 million. Still the bill remained set to go through the city's top legislative body, Legco, in early June. Finally an estimated 2 million people took to the streets on June 16. The bill was suspended, but it was too late to quell the anger it had stirred.
Tien concedes it's unlikely that Washington engineered a 2-million-man march, but as demonstrators increasingly wave American flags in the protests -- something Lai says is just a publicity play to attract international TV cameras -- the pro-Beijing politician wants an independent inquiry into whether the CIA is funding a color revolution in the city.
A senior US administration official has denied that Washington is sponsoring or inciting the demonstrations, and President Donald Trump also appeared to reject the suggestion last week, when he tweeted that "many are blaming me, and the United States, for the problems going on in Hong Kong. I can't imagine why?"
Freedom over fortune
Founding Apple Daily, and taking on Hong Kong's fight for democracy, gave Lai "a meaning in life that I never had" as a textile tycoon. "The mission," he says, "it has such a wonderful meaning."
The city's other tycoons have avoided wading into the crisis. "If you're a business person in Hong Kong, it is difficult to avoid the China market," says Lam, the history professor. "And once you are in the China market your investment becomes a hostage, which the Chinese government is never shy of using as a means to exert influence."
The closest that Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing, who is worth over $31 billion according to Forbes, has got to commenting on the political crisis was publishing two cryptic messages in the many of the city's newspapers this month (Apple Daily wasn't one of them). The cryptic nature of his advice to exercise caution was unmistakable -- across the city, readers speculated about whether he was addressing the protesters or Beijing, or both.
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"No other tycoon is willing to" be so outspoken against China as Lai, says Clement So, the Chinese University of Hong Kong professor. "That's what has made Lai so unique."
That outspokenness doesn't come without dangers.
In 2015, Molotov cocktails were hurled at the headquarters of Next Media and Lai's home in the early hours of the morning. "We're not shocked. Unfortunately, violence has become a regular feature of Hong Kong now in the political discourse. That's just a simple fact," Mark Simon, Lai's assistant, told CNN at the time.
Today, Lai has a personal security detail at his home, but the self-confessed troublemaker says he has never forgotten what it was like to be poor, and he has no intent on abandoning the masses in the crusade they share with him for democracy.
"The young people see no future for themselves -- everything is expensive," says Lai. "Even to live in a small room is too expensive for them." The land of opportunity that entrepreneurs like Lai and Li Ka-shing thrived in when they arrived in Hong Kong has long disappeared.
"With this extradition law people thought, Okay, that's the last straw, we have to fight. We have to fight in front of this last frontier," he says.
That fight might not be good for the finances of Apple Daily.
The extent of Lai's personal wealth today is unknown, but he fell off the Forbes Hong Kong Rich List in 2009. Big corporations with interests in mainland China, such as Cathay Pacific or Li's CK Hutchison Holdings, never advertise in Apple Daily. Hong Kong's previous chief executive, CY Leung, who the publication has long antagonized for his close ties to Beijing, regularly posts pictures on his Facebook page of companies that advertize in Apple Daily. "Apple Daily is public enemy number 1 for CY Leung," says Lam, the history professor.
Former Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung posts photographs to his Facebook page of companies that advertize with Apple Daily.
Operating in this political landscape, coupled with a general decline in print sales and advertising, has squeezed Apple Daily financially. The newspaper's circulation is now 200,000 a day, two-thirds of what it was a decade ago, with 1.5 million readers online. Its daily ad revenue has halved over the past three years. Next Digital has posted a net loss for the past three years.
Earlier this year, the newspaper introduced a pay wall of three Hong Kong dollars for access until September. Next month, the publication is hoping that people will pay 50 Hong Kong dollars a month to subscribe.
"The timing is good for Apple Daily because people want news," says Clement So, the media expert. "Lai would like to get financial support from online readers, if he can do it would throw him a lifeline. But if not successful, it is a real worry whether he cannot sustain his operation in the long run."
Meanwhile, bootstrapping online outlets, such as Stand News and HKC News, are growing competitors in the pro-democracy space. By shooting chat shows on smartphones and employing a small staff, they keep overheads low enough to avoid needing Beijing-tied advertisers.
2047 on the horizon
To many, the year 2047, when Hong Kong will likely return to full Chinese rule,once felt like a futuristic date. But now that it is just 28 years away, it's something Hong Kongers can imagine in their lifetime. The fight for democracy has become more urgent, more controversial -- but potentially less achievable, as China's economic rise gives Beijing more political power to resist democracy.
"I don't know where (the protests are) going to end," Lai says, "but one thing I know, with the world watching over us ... I think Trump, the US, cannot back off (from supporting Hong Kong) now. They can only go further and further. Not financially, but politically and morally."
Earlier this month, Pence said that chances of a trade deal with China would diminish if Hong Kong's laws were violated by Beijing, and criticized the country's human rights violations as antithetical to American ideals. Trump also tweetedthat Chinese President Xi Jingping should meet with protesters.
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I know President Xi of China very well. He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a “tough business.” I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting?
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If mounting international pressure coincides with an economic slowdown and job losses, China could change, speculates Lai. "That doesn't mean that the Communist Party will collapse," he adds. "But it might mean that Xi would have to step down and a more liberal government will take over and slowly we will be on the right way." But there is no sign of this happening anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's economy is taking a hit across the tourism, aviation and retail sectors from the disruption. Michael Tien, the pro-Beijing lawmaker, says that sales for his retail business were down 40% in August. "Nobody feels good anymore to come out and consume," he says. The Hong Kong government has announced a $2.4 billion stimulus package to help the economy grow amid the unrest.
For Lai, if the financial hub's economy has to suffer for freedom, so be it: The prospect of a struggle doesn't give people "an excuse not to fight."
"If we fight, we might have a miracle happen," he says. "If we don't fight, we have to submit to the tyranny. I just think that if we have been able to eliminate slavery we have the ability to eliminate tyranny, too. That's hopeful."
By Jenni Marsh, CNN
Updated 0512 GMT (1312 HKT) August 28, 2019
Hong Kong (CNN)Jimmy Lai has been a public target for decades.
It all started after the Hong Kong business tycoon — a refugee from China — reinvented himself in the mid-1990s as the founder of the city's provocative, anti-Beijing tabloid, Apple Daily.
One of the advertisements that introduced the newspaper to the world made Lai's point in the bluntest of ways: By showing Lai sitting in a dark warehouse with a red apple on his scalp, being pelted with incoming arrows fired by a shadowy figure.
Since then, Lai's role as one of Hong Kong's most prominent rabble-rousers has threatened his fortune, subjected him to death threats and made him a symbol of the city's tensions with mainland China.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city was guaranteed its own legal system and certain democratic freedoms until 2047, when it will likely return in total to Beijing. Over the past three months, millions have flooded Hong Kong's highways in marches against Beijing's perceived encroachment on those treasured freedoms.
Apple Daily has become the city's biggest official champion of that movement. The newspaper of the protesters. Its strident front pages rally citizens to go out and march, it has given away posters to raise at demonstrations, and it regularly taunts the government for its failures.
In a town of tycoons, Lai is the only multi-millionaire who seems prepared to openly jeopardize his fortune for Hong Kong's freedom. The 70-year-old is frequently seen at the marches, in the pouring rain or blazing summer heat.
To his supporters, Lai is a brave democracy fighter. But his detractors say that Lai and his muckraking publication are a black hand for the United States and cause chaos. In recent years, firebombs have been lobbed at his gated home, anobituary claiming he died from AIDS has run in a rival publication and Lai's political donations have subjected him to an anti-corruption case. Lai denied wrongdoing, and the case against him was ultimately dropped.
Jimmy Lai met with US Vice President Mike Pence in July 2019.
That Lai has ties with the United States is undeniable. Last month, he flew to Washington to discuss with US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton how fundamental Hong Kong's freedom is to the US' standoff with China.
"The (new) Cold War is actually a rivalry of competing values," Lai says, framing the current US-China trade war as a standoff of between democracy and authoritarianism. "We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China. We are fighting their war in the enemy camp."
It's a battle Lai says he's prepared to die for.
Chinese refugee
Lai had already led an extraordinary life by the time he founded Next Digital group, which owns Apple Daily, in the 1980s.
As the Great Chinese Famine gripped mainland China in 1960, Lai smuggled himself out of the southern mainland province of Guangdong and into Hong Kong in the bottom of a fishing boat. He arrived in the city at the age of 12 and dirt poor.
Lai says he became an odd jobs guy at a textile factory, making 60 Hong Kong dollars ($7) a month and living in an apartment with 10 others in the slum neighborhood of Sham Shui Po -- still one of Hong Kong's most impoverished districts.
The Hollywood Knitwear Factory in Kwun Tong in the 1970s when Hong Kong's textile industry was booming.
On his first day, he recalls how coworkers took him for breakfast. Relief from "the anxiety of hunger" was overwhelming, says Lai. "This freedom was the first feeling I had about Hong Kong and it never disappointed me," Lai says. "Never, until now."
This freedom was the first feeling I had about Hong Kong and it never disappointed me. Never, until now
JIMMY LAI, FOUNDER APPLE DAILY
After the Communists assumed power of China in 1949, Hong Kong's population swelled by 1,000 people a day during the 1950s as Chinese migrants flooded over the border. Most were "daring and entrepreneurial" survivors willing to take risks, Lai recalls. His twin sister was one of the so-called freedom swimmers, who literally swam from China to the city. She went on to become a major property developer in Canada.JIMMY LAI, FOUNDER APPLE DAILY
"Hong Kong was a land of opportunity," Lai says of that era.
Within two decades, Lai had learned English, worked his way up the factory floor to the position of salesman and decided to start his own retail line. On one trip to New York during fabric sampling season, he bought a pizza. Written on the napkin was the name Giordano.
That became the name of his wildly successful, casual men's clothing chain, which made Lai his first fortune.
"I was stupid enough to think that if I called it Giordano, people would think that it's an Italian brand name," he says. It worked. By 1992, the group had 191 outlets, made 9 million garments annually and had a turnover of 1.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($211 million).
Shoppers pass a Giordano retail store on a rainy day in Hong Kong, 22 March 2005.
"He's kind of a legend in terms of his business success," says Clement So, associate dean in the school of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "Not only for what he did in the news media but in other kinds of industry."
Business was booming, but two things happened in the late 1980s that would derail the course of Lai's life.
First, on June 4, 1989, tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to disperse young pro-democracy protesters, changing China forever. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands.
Lai says he wasn't political at the time, "but I always had a very strong yearning for freedom because of my experience in China."
Hong Kong was still under British rule but barreling towards reunification with China in 1997. As the city watched the Tiananmen crackdown in horror, Giordano began producing T-shirts with pro-student slogans.
Around the same time, Lai says he got divorced from his first wife. "I thought I was a very eligible guy," he says. "That was something shocking to me."
Shortly afterward, Lai was interviewed by local journalist Theresa Lai. The pair fell in love and married. Next, he became a media baron.
An Apple a day
Today Lai lives in a white, gated house in an upmarket nook of Kowloon. Security staff are stationed outside the property. Paparazzi from rival newspapers photograph all who leave and enter, putting pressure on Lai's personal life and looking for signs that he meets with pro-US figures.
Inside, melodious Chinese hwamei birds chirp in tall white cages, dramatic art works adorn the walls, while giant bromeliads and orchids brighten each corner. "I love flowers," says Lai, with intermittent clips of an upper-class British accent, as he enjoys a breakfast of strawberries and egg sandwiches served on china platters.
The figure he cuts at home, where he regularly hosts politicians, journalists and influential figures to discuss Hong Kong's democratic future -- or lack of it -- is in stark contrast to his reputation as a brash, instinct-driven, ex-factory manager whose formal education ended in primary school.
That public persona began in 1994, when Lai published an incendiary column in a magazine owned by his Next Digital group, describing then Chinese Premier Li Peng, known as the "butcher of Beijing" for his role in the Tiananmen crackdown, as "the son of a turtle's egg with zero IQ" — a profoundly offensive slur in Chinese.
Jimmy Lai with his Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper which sparked a price war when it launched in 1995.
Beijing responded then as it might do now. It penalized his clothing business.
Lai says Giordano's licenses were revoked across much of mainland China. In 1994, Lai sold his stake in the company, and the following year he launched Apple Daily, with a 100 million Hong Kong dollar promotional campaign, two years before the British handed the city back to China.
"It's my nature to be a rebel -- to be a revolutionary," Lai says. "I express it in business. Whenever I am in business, I create something different from the norm. That's the reason why I have been successful more than other people. I don't believe in incremental improvement."
It's my nature to be a rebel -- to be a revolutionary ... I don't believe in incremental improvement."
JIMMY LAI, FOUNDER OF APPLE DAILY NEWSPAPER
He applied the mass-market ethos of Giordano to his newspaper: It was low cost, populist and sensational. Modeled visually on USA Today, it "shook the media landscape in Hong Kong in a revolutionary way," says Clement So, the Chinese University of Hong Kong associate dean. The paper didn't care for balanced reporting: This was advocacy journalism, with a strong dose of saucy celebrity gossip.JIMMY LAI, FOUNDER OF APPLE DAILY NEWSPAPER
On news stands, Lai sparked a citywide price war, virtually giving away the sensational title at two Hong Kong dollars (25 cents), the price vendors charged to sell it. "Other papers quickly imitated without much success," says So. "The style of writing, the use of big photos. The pagination. Everything. There was a term called 'Apple-ization.'"
The newspaper became the city's most-talked about outlet -- a reputation it has maintained through its pioneering Apple Extra platform, which controversially animates breaking news events from murders to protests. The publication also found big success in Taiwan, a self-governed Chinese democracy which Beijing claims as its own territory. "Apple Daily was very lucrative in the beginning," says Willy Lam, a professor in history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
By 2008, Lai was worth $1.2 billion, according to the Forbes rich list.
Jimmy Lai protests during 2014's Umbrella Movement for democracy in Hong Kong.
With other media moguls unwilling to risk the commercial fall out of facing off with Beijing post-1997, Apple Daily became the city's sole publication regularly criticizing China. "They were so afraid of the Communists, they left me an independent media market almost to myself," Lai says.
The paper's uncompromising stance, which critics say can lack the editorial balance of including the opposing side's viewpoint, coincided with swathes of Hong Kong's media becoming more pro-Beijing.
Basically, today people choose their media depending on what is their political affiliation
MICHAEL TIEN, PRO-BEIJING LAWMAKER
"Basically, today people choose their media depending on what is their political affiliation," says Michael Tien, a pro-Beijing lawmaker and fellow textile tycoon whose G2000 clothing chain has more than 700 outlets globally. That echo chamber has, in turn, led Hong Kong society itself to become more polarized, even between "husband and wife, between parents and kids, between friends," says Tien.MICHAEL TIEN, PRO-BEIJING LAWMAKER
"Nobody trusts the media. You don't trust the police. They don't trust the government," Tien says.
Societal fragmentation has been a theme of the current unrest, as protesters and police have faced off in a series of violent clashes that have been reported from vastly different perspectives across the media.
Some Hong Kongers back Beijing. Many are pro-democracy. Others describe themselves as "blue ribbon," meaning they support the police. Supporters of the movement and more liberal people identify as "yellow ribbon."
Many make a point of defining themselves as Hong Kongers, rather than broadly Chinese, to distinguish their identity from that of those living across the border -- the birthplace of many of their parents or grandparents.
For Lai, a Hong Konger is someone from a small Chinese island who shares the values of the West. "The Hong Kong identity this time ... has really emerged much more into our consciousness," he says. "We identify as Hong Konger like never before."
A black hand for the US
In early 2018, a 19-year-old Hong Kong resident allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan and returned to the city before being arrested. There was nothing Taiwanese police could do; Hong Kong had no extradition agreement with Taiwan, or any Chinese territory.
In March 2019, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a solution: an update to the city's fugitive laws that would allow criminals to be extradited to Taiwan -- and mainland China.
Lai was in the United States when the bill was announced and was warned by a US politician over breakfast about the danger it posed. "I really alerted myself," remembers Lai. "I looked at it again and said, 'Shit, this is horrible.' I knew it was going to be a big thing."
He was right. The bill ended up sparking nearly three months of often violent demonstrations in Hong Kong, with more than 800 mostly young people arrested on charges including rioting. Protesters have paralyzed the city's airport on two occasions.
Speaking to Lai it seems that many of his defining moments were sparked by America. The name "Giordano" came from a New York pizza house napkin; when the brand initially struggled to make money, a trip to McDonald's inspired Lai to streamline its offerings, as the US burger chain had done; Apple Daily was modeled on the USA Today.
His top aide in Hong Kong, Mark Simon, is the son of a former CIA employee.
That last detail never fails to tantalize onlookers. For decades, one of the key charges against Lai has been that he is a CIA stooge, and the Apple Daily a tool of the United States.
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Earlier this month, China's state-run media branded Lai and three other well-known pro-democracy figures in the city as Hong Kong's "Gang of Four" -- a reference to the group that tried to overthrow Mao Zedong and seize power from the Communist Party in the 1970s.
The People's Daily claimed Lai was part of a quartet of "secretive middlemen and modern traitors," as Beijing tried to blame the unrest in Hong Kong on foreign forces.
The pro-Beijing lawmaker Tien, for one, believes that Washington pumps money into Hong Kong's democracy movement to provide a "continuous force to destabilize China," although he admits he has no evidence to substantiate this claim.
Lai calls the idea of a US-funded color revolution "ridiculous."
"If the US is funding this the evidence would be so self-evident," he says. "You can't find even one person to stand up and say, 'Hey, I got money from the US.'"
But he does view Washington as a key ally for Hong Kong -- as that early warning on the extradition bill proved. When Lai returned from that trip, he began raising the alarm. Journalists at first weren't too ruffled, he says.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam shakes hands with China's President Xi Jinping after being sworn in as the territory's leader in 2017.
"Lam was flying high before this extradition law," says Lai. "Xi Jinping was taking her hand (at public events), she was walking in front with him, she really wanted to do something great for her boss. She knew this was a great opportunity. And actually it was almost. Because people really didn't pay attention to it at first."
But the business community was more alarmed. "All of them have had to pay something to get the protection of the people that control them in mainland China," says Lai. More than that, they understood the law could be used by Chinese contacts as a tool for blackmail; if a Chinese partner wanted to control their Hong Kong counterpart they could potentially report them to the authorities across the border, where there is a 99% conviction rate.
Opposition to the bill slowly mounted, starting with a march of 12,000 people on March 31, led by Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller who says he was kidnapped from Hong Kong by mainland Chinese agents in 2015, after selling tomes critical of Beijing. China has denied abducting him.
Lam steamed ahead.
The marches continued: 160,000 people, then 1 million. Still the bill remained set to go through the city's top legislative body, Legco, in early June. Finally an estimated 2 million people took to the streets on June 16. The bill was suspended, but it was too late to quell the anger it had stirred.
Tien concedes it's unlikely that Washington engineered a 2-million-man march, but as demonstrators increasingly wave American flags in the protests -- something Lai says is just a publicity play to attract international TV cameras -- the pro-Beijing politician wants an independent inquiry into whether the CIA is funding a color revolution in the city.
A senior US administration official has denied that Washington is sponsoring or inciting the demonstrations, and President Donald Trump also appeared to reject the suggestion last week, when he tweeted that "many are blaming me, and the United States, for the problems going on in Hong Kong. I can't imagine why?"
Freedom over fortune
Founding Apple Daily, and taking on Hong Kong's fight for democracy, gave Lai "a meaning in life that I never had" as a textile tycoon. "The mission," he says, "it has such a wonderful meaning."
The city's other tycoons have avoided wading into the crisis. "If you're a business person in Hong Kong, it is difficult to avoid the China market," says Lam, the history professor. "And once you are in the China market your investment becomes a hostage, which the Chinese government is never shy of using as a means to exert influence."
The closest that Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing, who is worth over $31 billion according to Forbes, has got to commenting on the political crisis was publishing two cryptic messages in the many of the city's newspapers this month (Apple Daily wasn't one of them). The cryptic nature of his advice to exercise caution was unmistakable -- across the city, readers speculated about whether he was addressing the protesters or Beijing, or both.
Global Times
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'Best cause could lead to worst end.' Richest man in #HongKong #LiKashing calls for end of violence on local newspaper. (Photo: Screenshot of HK Commercial Daily website) #香港
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"No other tycoon is willing to" be so outspoken against China as Lai, says Clement So, the Chinese University of Hong Kong professor. "That's what has made Lai so unique."
That outspokenness doesn't come without dangers.
In 2015, Molotov cocktails were hurled at the headquarters of Next Media and Lai's home in the early hours of the morning. "We're not shocked. Unfortunately, violence has become a regular feature of Hong Kong now in the political discourse. That's just a simple fact," Mark Simon, Lai's assistant, told CNN at the time.
Today, Lai has a personal security detail at his home, but the self-confessed troublemaker says he has never forgotten what it was like to be poor, and he has no intent on abandoning the masses in the crusade they share with him for democracy.
"The young people see no future for themselves -- everything is expensive," says Lai. "Even to live in a small room is too expensive for them." The land of opportunity that entrepreneurs like Lai and Li Ka-shing thrived in when they arrived in Hong Kong has long disappeared.
"With this extradition law people thought, Okay, that's the last straw, we have to fight. We have to fight in front of this last frontier," he says.
That fight might not be good for the finances of Apple Daily.
The extent of Lai's personal wealth today is unknown, but he fell off the Forbes Hong Kong Rich List in 2009. Big corporations with interests in mainland China, such as Cathay Pacific or Li's CK Hutchison Holdings, never advertise in Apple Daily. Hong Kong's previous chief executive, CY Leung, who the publication has long antagonized for his close ties to Beijing, regularly posts pictures on his Facebook page of companies that advertize in Apple Daily. "Apple Daily is public enemy number 1 for CY Leung," says Lam, the history professor.
Former Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung posts photographs to his Facebook page of companies that advertize with Apple Daily.
Operating in this political landscape, coupled with a general decline in print sales and advertising, has squeezed Apple Daily financially. The newspaper's circulation is now 200,000 a day, two-thirds of what it was a decade ago, with 1.5 million readers online. Its daily ad revenue has halved over the past three years. Next Digital has posted a net loss for the past three years.
Earlier this year, the newspaper introduced a pay wall of three Hong Kong dollars for access until September. Next month, the publication is hoping that people will pay 50 Hong Kong dollars a month to subscribe.
"The timing is good for Apple Daily because people want news," says Clement So, the media expert. "Lai would like to get financial support from online readers, if he can do it would throw him a lifeline. But if not successful, it is a real worry whether he cannot sustain his operation in the long run."
Meanwhile, bootstrapping online outlets, such as Stand News and HKC News, are growing competitors in the pro-democracy space. By shooting chat shows on smartphones and employing a small staff, they keep overheads low enough to avoid needing Beijing-tied advertisers.
2047 on the horizon
To many, the year 2047, when Hong Kong will likely return to full Chinese rule,once felt like a futuristic date. But now that it is just 28 years away, it's something Hong Kongers can imagine in their lifetime. The fight for democracy has become more urgent, more controversial -- but potentially less achievable, as China's economic rise gives Beijing more political power to resist democracy.
"I don't know where (the protests are) going to end," Lai says, "but one thing I know, with the world watching over us ... I think Trump, the US, cannot back off (from supporting Hong Kong) now. They can only go further and further. Not financially, but politically and morally."
Earlier this month, Pence said that chances of a trade deal with China would diminish if Hong Kong's laws were violated by Beijing, and criticized the country's human rights violations as antithetical to American ideals. Trump also tweetedthat Chinese President Xi Jingping should meet with protesters.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1162002141172633600
If President Xi would meet directly and personally with the protesters, there would be a happy and enlightened ending to the Hong Kong problem. I have no doubt! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1161774305895694336 …
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
I know President Xi of China very well. He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a “tough business.” I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting?
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If mounting international pressure coincides with an economic slowdown and job losses, China could change, speculates Lai. "That doesn't mean that the Communist Party will collapse," he adds. "But it might mean that Xi would have to step down and a more liberal government will take over and slowly we will be on the right way." But there is no sign of this happening anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's economy is taking a hit across the tourism, aviation and retail sectors from the disruption. Michael Tien, the pro-Beijing lawmaker, says that sales for his retail business were down 40% in August. "Nobody feels good anymore to come out and consume," he says. The Hong Kong government has announced a $2.4 billion stimulus package to help the economy grow amid the unrest.
For Lai, if the financial hub's economy has to suffer for freedom, so be it: The prospect of a struggle doesn't give people "an excuse not to fight."
"If we fight, we might have a miracle happen," he says. "If we don't fight, we have to submit to the tyranny. I just think that if we have been able to eliminate slavery we have the ability to eliminate tyranny, too. That's hopeful."
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Li Ka Shing is making mountains out of molehills
Hong Kong’s Richest Man Diversified His Empire Years Before Political Crisis
By
Xiaoying Zhao
August 28, 2019, 5:00 AM GMT+8
Li Ka-shing Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
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CKH HOLDINGS
68.55
HKD
-0.75-1.08%
1113
CK ASSET HOLDING
55.00
HKD
+0.70+1.29%
CL1
WTI Crude
55.78
USD/bbl.
+0.85+1.55%
GNK
GREENE KING PLC
840.00
GBp
-0.40-0.05%
As Hong Kong’s fortunes swelled alongside mainland China’s, the city’s richest man was already investing elsewhere. That move has shielded Li Ka-shing’s flagship company from the brunt of the tumult now enveloping the city.
CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., which encompasses the Li family’s assets including ports, telecommunications and retail, counted on its home base for only 10% of revenue last year. The share was 16% in 2015 following the separation of its property business eventually into CK Asset Holdings Ltd. in a reorganization of the group.
Years of diversification into Europe, North America and Australia have made CK Hutchison the least exposed among Hong Kong conglomerates to the months-long political protests against Beijing’s grip over the semi-autonomous city. After tumbling to a seven-year low this month, the shares of the company have pared some of their losses, outperforming local peers in the past week.
Hong Kong Adds $2.4 Billion in Stimulus as Protests Hit Economy
Li, 91, saw the risks of placing all his bets in one place and started diversifying 25 years ago to “ensure he’s out of Hong Kong when everything hits the fan,” said Richard Harris, chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based Port Shelter Investment Management. “Li does stand out as easily the smartest of the big guys in Hong Kong.”
Representatives for CK Hutchison and CK Asset didn’t respond to requests for comments.
After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Li -- called “Superman” by his admirers for his investment calls -- started to look for assets outside China. He bought Canada-based Husky Oil Ltd. and expanded his telecommunications business into the U.K. and Australia. Last year, the energy and telecom businesses accounted for 33% of CK Hutchison’s profit before interest and tax.
The family’s real estate arm is more exposed. With about 73% of CK Asset’s revenue coming from Hong Kong and mainland China, Li’s son and successor, Victor, is following in his father’s footsteps by looking overseas to expand the property business.
Hong Kong protest impact widens with rents forecast to fall
Earlier this month, CK Asset agreed to pay 2.7 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) for Greene King Plc, which operates more than 2,700 British bars, restaurants and hotels. Shaun Tan, an analyst at UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong, said the group has been looking into “giant acquisitions overseas” for more than a year.
Yet, some of Li’s investments outside China are facing geopolitical risks. After the U.K. voted in June 2016 to exit the European Union, Li said the country and Europe would face “considerable challenge” for two to three years, an assessment that’s been borne out by events. CK Hutchison shares have dropped 24% since the June 2016 referendum, compared with a 23% gain in the Hang Seng benchmark as of the Aug. 26 close in Hong Kong.
H.K.‘s Kwok family has the most to lose as protests rage
The elder Li’s early efforts to go global contrasted his peers, who remained relatively local, said Joseph Fan, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Nobody can predict the long future but foresight and balancing between diversification and localization is really important,” said Fan, a specialist in governance of family-owned businesses in Asia. He said companies with a substantial stake in Hong Kong and mainland China should “seriously think about what they can do elsewhere.”
— With assistance by Matt Turner
Hong Kong’s Richest Man Diversified His Empire Years Before Political Crisis
By
Xiaoying Zhao
August 28, 2019, 5:00 AM GMT+8
- Li Ka-Shing’s CK Hutchison is less reliant on city’s fortunes
- Only 10% of company’s revenue came from Hong Kong last year
Li Ka-shing Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
LISTEN TO ARTICLE
3:21
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In this article
1
CKH HOLDINGS
68.55
HKD
-0.75-1.08%
1113
CK ASSET HOLDING
55.00
HKD
+0.70+1.29%
CL1
WTI Crude
55.78
USD/bbl.
+0.85+1.55%
GNK
GREENE KING PLC
840.00
GBp
-0.40-0.05%
As Hong Kong’s fortunes swelled alongside mainland China’s, the city’s richest man was already investing elsewhere. That move has shielded Li Ka-shing’s flagship company from the brunt of the tumult now enveloping the city.
CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., which encompasses the Li family’s assets including ports, telecommunications and retail, counted on its home base for only 10% of revenue last year. The share was 16% in 2015 following the separation of its property business eventually into CK Asset Holdings Ltd. in a reorganization of the group.
Years of diversification into Europe, North America and Australia have made CK Hutchison the least exposed among Hong Kong conglomerates to the months-long political protests against Beijing’s grip over the semi-autonomous city. After tumbling to a seven-year low this month, the shares of the company have pared some of their losses, outperforming local peers in the past week.
Hong Kong Adds $2.4 Billion in Stimulus as Protests Hit Economy
Li, 91, saw the risks of placing all his bets in one place and started diversifying 25 years ago to “ensure he’s out of Hong Kong when everything hits the fan,” said Richard Harris, chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based Port Shelter Investment Management. “Li does stand out as easily the smartest of the big guys in Hong Kong.”
Representatives for CK Hutchison and CK Asset didn’t respond to requests for comments.
After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Li -- called “Superman” by his admirers for his investment calls -- started to look for assets outside China. He bought Canada-based Husky Oil Ltd. and expanded his telecommunications business into the U.K. and Australia. Last year, the energy and telecom businesses accounted for 33% of CK Hutchison’s profit before interest and tax.
The family’s real estate arm is more exposed. With about 73% of CK Asset’s revenue coming from Hong Kong and mainland China, Li’s son and successor, Victor, is following in his father’s footsteps by looking overseas to expand the property business.
Hong Kong protest impact widens with rents forecast to fall
Earlier this month, CK Asset agreed to pay 2.7 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) for Greene King Plc, which operates more than 2,700 British bars, restaurants and hotels. Shaun Tan, an analyst at UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong, said the group has been looking into “giant acquisitions overseas” for more than a year.
Yet, some of Li’s investments outside China are facing geopolitical risks. After the U.K. voted in June 2016 to exit the European Union, Li said the country and Europe would face “considerable challenge” for two to three years, an assessment that’s been borne out by events. CK Hutchison shares have dropped 24% since the June 2016 referendum, compared with a 23% gain in the Hang Seng benchmark as of the Aug. 26 close in Hong Kong.
H.K.‘s Kwok family has the most to lose as protests rage
The elder Li’s early efforts to go global contrasted his peers, who remained relatively local, said Joseph Fan, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Nobody can predict the long future but foresight and balancing between diversification and localization is really important,” said Fan, a specialist in governance of family-owned businesses in Asia. He said companies with a substantial stake in Hong Kong and mainland China should “seriously think about what they can do elsewhere.”
— With assistance by Matt Turner
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Hong Kong Protests Fuel One Media Tycoon’s Turnaround Plan
undefined
Jimmy Lai is hoping support for the pro-democracy movement will save his publishing empire.
By
Sheridan Prasso
30 August 2019, 12:01 GMT+8
Jimmy Lai’s office is unusual for a Hong Kong tycoon. It has none of the ivory carvings, Chinese porcelains, or heavy rosewood chairs meant to convey wealth and success in this part of the world. Only a few pieces of furniture are squeezed into a small room at Next Digital Ltd.’s headquarters in an industrial park.
That’s because Lai, whose publications have championed Hong Kong’s three-month-old democracy movement, and who’s been labeled a traitor by the Chinese government, isn’t a typical tycoon. Where other wealthy Hong Kong businessmen have sought to distance themselves from the protests traumatizing the city, Lai has embraced them. “The more Hong Kong is being encroached by China, the more resonance we have for the people to relate to us, and that has definitely made us more popular,” he says one afternoon in August, explaining how the demonstrations have helped fuel a turnaround plan for his media empire.
Next Digital, which publishes Apple Daily newspapers and Next magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has been losing money for years, hurt not only by the same forces sweeping the media industry worldwide but also by an advertising boycott ordered by officials in Beijing over the company’s support for previous anti-China protests. While the company was already planning to charge readers for its online content, the upheaval couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. More than 1 million people registered to pay 38¢ to keep access to the websites when they went behind a paywall in mid-August. Monthly charges of $6.40 begin on Sept. 2.
“We are a beacon for the idea of freedom and democracy,” says Lai, 71, whose publications have been unabashedly critical of Beijing since before the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. On a Sunday in August, when an estimated 1.7 million people turned out for a demonstration, the front page of Apple Daily, the second-largest paper in Hong Kong, blared, “See You Today in Victoria Park.”
JIMMY_LAI_PROTEST_CMS_02_1
Lai (center) holds a banner as he marches during a protest in Hong Kong on Aug. 18.PHOTOGRAPHER: JUSTIN CHIN/BLOOMBERG
Since protesters took to the streets in June, Apple Daily (no relation to the U.S. technology company) has been sending people with cameras to the front lines of clashes with police and broadcasting live online from tear gas battles, night vigils, and peaceful marches. Daily page views have doubled on demonstration days, to an average 80 million, according to company data, as people log on to find out what’s going on and as Chinese communities in London, New York, Sydney, and Vancouver tune in.
Early enthusiasm for the subscription model offers hope that Next Digital can survive. Shares jumped 132% in a two-week period in June after the company said more than 6 million people had registered for basic access. The stock is up 59% since the protests began in early June, compared with an overall drop of 4% in the Hang Seng index.
The story of Lai’s rise stands out even among the self-made tycoons of his era. He was born in China’s Guangdong province to a once-wealthy family that lost everything after communists took power. In 1959, at age 12, he made a decision that would define his life. That year was the beginning of the Great Famine, which would kill tens of millions of people. When a foreigner coming from Hong Kong handed Lai a chocolate bar as a tip for carrying his suitcase at a train station, Lai decided to smuggle himself by boat into the city that promised a better life.
He slept in the garment factory where he found work, learned the trade, and bought his own factory with some partners using money he’d made in the stock market. He spent time in New York in the 1970s selling his garments, then decided it was silly to allow Western companies to enjoy the brand markup from his clothes. He returned to Hong Kong in 1980 to create his own clothing empire, Giordano, a retail chain similar to the Gap, with outlets across Asia.
The bloody crackdown against student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, hardened Lai against his birthplace. He started Next magazine in March 1990 to serve as a loudspeaker to broadcast democracy to Chinese readers on the mainland and undermine the communist system. It became the most widely read weekly in Hong Kong. In an editorial in 1994, Lai told Chinese Premier Li Peng, considered the man most responsible for ordering the Tiananmen massacre, to drop dead, calling him “the son of a turtle egg with zero IQ.”
The outrage in China led to authorities closing some Giordano stores and threatening to shut the rest unless Lai sold his interest. He did, making $187 million and missing the Asian financial crisis that crushed retailers across the region. Lai used the money to expand his media empire, starting Apple Daily in 1995. “I’m somebody who’s a revolutionary,” he says. “If there were no June 4th, I’m sure I would not be in the media business.”
Lai fretted about Hong Kong’s fate at the time of the July 1, 1997, handover to China. Speaking with a group of visitors who’d stopped by his home the evening before, he said he was worried that everything his adopted city stood for would be destroyed.
Two decades later, he sees alarming signs that his nightmare scenario is becoming real: the dismissal of dissenting voices from the legislative body, harsh punishments for protesters, attempts to introduce a pro-China curriculum in schools, and a proposed extradition bill that would allow Hong Kong residents to be tried in China. Resisting, and using his media empire to do so, is the only thing he says he can do to slow the process of full reunification, which is set to occur by 2047 no matter what the protesters achieve. “You have got to live for something,” he says. “That responsibility gives me a lot of meaning.”
Lai credits his free-market, anti-government-intervention ideals to an “obsession with books that inspire my passion for freedom.” He cites economists and philosophers including Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, and Milton Friedman, with whom Lai traveled as part of a fact-finding trip to China in 1993 to observe the country’s transition to capitalism with Chinese characteristics. It was his last trip to the mainland.
Anti-communist and pro-democracy causes aren’t the only topics Next publications cover. Over the years, Apple Daily built a reputation for scoops involving government corruption and tabloid-style coverage of entertainers and movie stars—a recent one concerned a Cantopop star cheating on his wife. Until 2012, it regularly published reviews of pornography. The language can be crude.
Next Digital makes no apologies. “Apple Daily has the voice of Hong Kong,” says Mark Simon, Next’s group director, who functions as Lai’s gatekeeper and consigliere. “It doesn’t have the voice of the Chinese university faculty lounge. Hong Kong is a place where people wear T-shirts that say, ‘Go f--- your mother.’” Next Digital’s editorial staff of 600 “latch on to a story and don’t let go till they’ve wrung it to the bone,” says Simon.
Yet the company has been punished for going too far. After Lai participated in the pro-democracy protests that blocked Hong Kong’s business district for 79 days in 2014, China’s liaison office in Hong Kong began phoning advertisers, telling them that any further advertising in Apple Daily would hurt their business on the mainland, according to Simon. The city’s then-chief executive publicly called on all Hong Kong-focused businesses to boycott the newspaper. As the movement dragged on and began losing public support, so did Apple Daily.
Next has had other setbacks. It tried to start a television channel in Taiwan in 2012 but couldn’t get a license from the government, controlled then by the pro-Beijing Kuomintang party. It tried to sell Next magazine in Hong Kong in 2017 to a restaurateur who never paid. To survive, Next has sold buildings it owned in Taiwan and drawn one-fifth of a HK$500 million ($64 million) line of credit from Lai, who has other business interests, including 14 hotels in Canada.
Investor David Webb, Next’s second-largest shareholder as of last year, says it’s an open question whether people will want to pay for news in a world where they’re used to getting it online for free. He sold shares last year after they were diluted by an employee stock incentive program. “They do still put enough resources into reporting that they do regularly break news,” Webb says. “The proof will be known in the next few months.”
The week the subscription fee was announced, fewer than 3,000 people canceled rather than be charged the monthly rate. A fair estimate of the revenue that could come from subscribers, says Royston Chow, Next Digital’s chief financial officer, is about HK$500 million a year, twice the paper’s advertising revenue last year.
While many in Hong Kong support democratic parties, most of the city’s dozen other newspapers lean pro-Beijing or openly champion the Communist Party. “It’s difficult to withstand the political pressure and survive financially being a pro-democracy media organization in Hong Kong,” says Yuen Chan, a senior lecturer at City, University of London who previously taught journalism at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Demographics alone should support multiple pro-democracy newspapers, she says. “But it’s not a normal media landscape.”
It’s definitely not normal for a media executive to see pro-China protesters outside his home twice a day. The orderly, elderly demonstrators arrive by bus, shout for a few minutes, then are driven away. Direct attacks have included several Molotov cocktails thrown over the gate surrounding Lai’s rented home in an upscale part of town. Visitors there are regularly chased and photographed for Chinese propaganda videos seeking to prove that he’s a “black hand” controlled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to channel funding to the demonstrators.
“This is crazy,” Lai says. “There are 2 million demonstrators on the streets of Hong Kong. How much money would I have to give to get 2 million people to come out?” He says that while he does donate to pro-democracy parties and politicians in Hong Kong’s legislature, he hasn’t given one penny of his own money to support the protesters. “Next media is supporting the movement,” he says, “that’s it.” It’s also odd, he notes, that China is seeking to blame old-guard leaders like him for the protests, which are driven by young people in a seemingly leaderless movement.
That said, Lai and Martin Lee, founding chairman of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy party, have solicited help from the U.S. government. Lee traveled to Washington in May to meet members of Congress and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Lai met with Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence in July. “We share the same values,” Lai says, “and we are fighting their war.”
Over lunch at his home, where Lai pours cup after cup of warm rice wine, he talks about his meeting with Pompeo. Lai and his wife are Catholics. When Lai entered Pompeo’s office, he says, the secretary of state told him he’d put aside his daily Bible reading because that day’s passage was long and he didn’t want to keep Lai waiting. Pompeo then asked what the U.S. could do to help. “Pray for us,” Lai says he answered, his eyes tearing up as he recalls the moment, knowing those prayers may take more decades to answer than he has left.
Before the late-August protest in Victoria Park, Lai and Lee milled around near a stage where young people were shouting into microphones to rev up the crowd. The old men weren’t asked to come up. “This is their show,” Lai shrugged. He, Lee, and other members of the old guard clutched the edges of a white banner, which demanded, among other things, that China grant the city democracy, and set off with the other protesters in a heavy downpour. “People want to prove that we will persist, we’re not cowed by fear,” Lai said. “We’re not giving up.”
undefined
Jimmy Lai is hoping support for the pro-democracy movement will save his publishing empire.
By
Sheridan Prasso
30 August 2019, 12:01 GMT+8
Jimmy Lai’s office is unusual for a Hong Kong tycoon. It has none of the ivory carvings, Chinese porcelains, or heavy rosewood chairs meant to convey wealth and success in this part of the world. Only a few pieces of furniture are squeezed into a small room at Next Digital Ltd.’s headquarters in an industrial park.
That’s because Lai, whose publications have championed Hong Kong’s three-month-old democracy movement, and who’s been labeled a traitor by the Chinese government, isn’t a typical tycoon. Where other wealthy Hong Kong businessmen have sought to distance themselves from the protests traumatizing the city, Lai has embraced them. “The more Hong Kong is being encroached by China, the more resonance we have for the people to relate to us, and that has definitely made us more popular,” he says one afternoon in August, explaining how the demonstrations have helped fuel a turnaround plan for his media empire.
Next Digital, which publishes Apple Daily newspapers and Next magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has been losing money for years, hurt not only by the same forces sweeping the media industry worldwide but also by an advertising boycott ordered by officials in Beijing over the company’s support for previous anti-China protests. While the company was already planning to charge readers for its online content, the upheaval couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. More than 1 million people registered to pay 38¢ to keep access to the websites when they went behind a paywall in mid-August. Monthly charges of $6.40 begin on Sept. 2.
“We are a beacon for the idea of freedom and democracy,” says Lai, 71, whose publications have been unabashedly critical of Beijing since before the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. On a Sunday in August, when an estimated 1.7 million people turned out for a demonstration, the front page of Apple Daily, the second-largest paper in Hong Kong, blared, “See You Today in Victoria Park.”
JIMMY_LAI_PROTEST_CMS_02_1
Lai (center) holds a banner as he marches during a protest in Hong Kong on Aug. 18.PHOTOGRAPHER: JUSTIN CHIN/BLOOMBERG
Since protesters took to the streets in June, Apple Daily (no relation to the U.S. technology company) has been sending people with cameras to the front lines of clashes with police and broadcasting live online from tear gas battles, night vigils, and peaceful marches. Daily page views have doubled on demonstration days, to an average 80 million, according to company data, as people log on to find out what’s going on and as Chinese communities in London, New York, Sydney, and Vancouver tune in.
Early enthusiasm for the subscription model offers hope that Next Digital can survive. Shares jumped 132% in a two-week period in June after the company said more than 6 million people had registered for basic access. The stock is up 59% since the protests began in early June, compared with an overall drop of 4% in the Hang Seng index.
The story of Lai’s rise stands out even among the self-made tycoons of his era. He was born in China’s Guangdong province to a once-wealthy family that lost everything after communists took power. In 1959, at age 12, he made a decision that would define his life. That year was the beginning of the Great Famine, which would kill tens of millions of people. When a foreigner coming from Hong Kong handed Lai a chocolate bar as a tip for carrying his suitcase at a train station, Lai decided to smuggle himself by boat into the city that promised a better life.
He slept in the garment factory where he found work, learned the trade, and bought his own factory with some partners using money he’d made in the stock market. He spent time in New York in the 1970s selling his garments, then decided it was silly to allow Western companies to enjoy the brand markup from his clothes. He returned to Hong Kong in 1980 to create his own clothing empire, Giordano, a retail chain similar to the Gap, with outlets across Asia.
The bloody crackdown against student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, hardened Lai against his birthplace. He started Next magazine in March 1990 to serve as a loudspeaker to broadcast democracy to Chinese readers on the mainland and undermine the communist system. It became the most widely read weekly in Hong Kong. In an editorial in 1994, Lai told Chinese Premier Li Peng, considered the man most responsible for ordering the Tiananmen massacre, to drop dead, calling him “the son of a turtle egg with zero IQ.”
The outrage in China led to authorities closing some Giordano stores and threatening to shut the rest unless Lai sold his interest. He did, making $187 million and missing the Asian financial crisis that crushed retailers across the region. Lai used the money to expand his media empire, starting Apple Daily in 1995. “I’m somebody who’s a revolutionary,” he says. “If there were no June 4th, I’m sure I would not be in the media business.”
Lai fretted about Hong Kong’s fate at the time of the July 1, 1997, handover to China. Speaking with a group of visitors who’d stopped by his home the evening before, he said he was worried that everything his adopted city stood for would be destroyed.
Two decades later, he sees alarming signs that his nightmare scenario is becoming real: the dismissal of dissenting voices from the legislative body, harsh punishments for protesters, attempts to introduce a pro-China curriculum in schools, and a proposed extradition bill that would allow Hong Kong residents to be tried in China. Resisting, and using his media empire to do so, is the only thing he says he can do to slow the process of full reunification, which is set to occur by 2047 no matter what the protesters achieve. “You have got to live for something,” he says. “That responsibility gives me a lot of meaning.”
Lai credits his free-market, anti-government-intervention ideals to an “obsession with books that inspire my passion for freedom.” He cites economists and philosophers including Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, and Milton Friedman, with whom Lai traveled as part of a fact-finding trip to China in 1993 to observe the country’s transition to capitalism with Chinese characteristics. It was his last trip to the mainland.
Anti-communist and pro-democracy causes aren’t the only topics Next publications cover. Over the years, Apple Daily built a reputation for scoops involving government corruption and tabloid-style coverage of entertainers and movie stars—a recent one concerned a Cantopop star cheating on his wife. Until 2012, it regularly published reviews of pornography. The language can be crude.
Next Digital makes no apologies. “Apple Daily has the voice of Hong Kong,” says Mark Simon, Next’s group director, who functions as Lai’s gatekeeper and consigliere. “It doesn’t have the voice of the Chinese university faculty lounge. Hong Kong is a place where people wear T-shirts that say, ‘Go f--- your mother.’” Next Digital’s editorial staff of 600 “latch on to a story and don’t let go till they’ve wrung it to the bone,” says Simon.
Yet the company has been punished for going too far. After Lai participated in the pro-democracy protests that blocked Hong Kong’s business district for 79 days in 2014, China’s liaison office in Hong Kong began phoning advertisers, telling them that any further advertising in Apple Daily would hurt their business on the mainland, according to Simon. The city’s then-chief executive publicly called on all Hong Kong-focused businesses to boycott the newspaper. As the movement dragged on and began losing public support, so did Apple Daily.
Next has had other setbacks. It tried to start a television channel in Taiwan in 2012 but couldn’t get a license from the government, controlled then by the pro-Beijing Kuomintang party. It tried to sell Next magazine in Hong Kong in 2017 to a restaurateur who never paid. To survive, Next has sold buildings it owned in Taiwan and drawn one-fifth of a HK$500 million ($64 million) line of credit from Lai, who has other business interests, including 14 hotels in Canada.
Investor David Webb, Next’s second-largest shareholder as of last year, says it’s an open question whether people will want to pay for news in a world where they’re used to getting it online for free. He sold shares last year after they were diluted by an employee stock incentive program. “They do still put enough resources into reporting that they do regularly break news,” Webb says. “The proof will be known in the next few months.”
The week the subscription fee was announced, fewer than 3,000 people canceled rather than be charged the monthly rate. A fair estimate of the revenue that could come from subscribers, says Royston Chow, Next Digital’s chief financial officer, is about HK$500 million a year, twice the paper’s advertising revenue last year.
While many in Hong Kong support democratic parties, most of the city’s dozen other newspapers lean pro-Beijing or openly champion the Communist Party. “It’s difficult to withstand the political pressure and survive financially being a pro-democracy media organization in Hong Kong,” says Yuen Chan, a senior lecturer at City, University of London who previously taught journalism at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Demographics alone should support multiple pro-democracy newspapers, she says. “But it’s not a normal media landscape.”
It’s definitely not normal for a media executive to see pro-China protesters outside his home twice a day. The orderly, elderly demonstrators arrive by bus, shout for a few minutes, then are driven away. Direct attacks have included several Molotov cocktails thrown over the gate surrounding Lai’s rented home in an upscale part of town. Visitors there are regularly chased and photographed for Chinese propaganda videos seeking to prove that he’s a “black hand” controlled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to channel funding to the demonstrators.
“This is crazy,” Lai says. “There are 2 million demonstrators on the streets of Hong Kong. How much money would I have to give to get 2 million people to come out?” He says that while he does donate to pro-democracy parties and politicians in Hong Kong’s legislature, he hasn’t given one penny of his own money to support the protesters. “Next media is supporting the movement,” he says, “that’s it.” It’s also odd, he notes, that China is seeking to blame old-guard leaders like him for the protests, which are driven by young people in a seemingly leaderless movement.
That said, Lai and Martin Lee, founding chairman of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy party, have solicited help from the U.S. government. Lee traveled to Washington in May to meet members of Congress and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Lai met with Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence in July. “We share the same values,” Lai says, “and we are fighting their war.”
Over lunch at his home, where Lai pours cup after cup of warm rice wine, he talks about his meeting with Pompeo. Lai and his wife are Catholics. When Lai entered Pompeo’s office, he says, the secretary of state told him he’d put aside his daily Bible reading because that day’s passage was long and he didn’t want to keep Lai waiting. Pompeo then asked what the U.S. could do to help. “Pray for us,” Lai says he answered, his eyes tearing up as he recalls the moment, knowing those prayers may take more decades to answer than he has left.
Before the late-August protest in Victoria Park, Lai and Lee milled around near a stage where young people were shouting into microphones to rev up the crowd. The old men weren’t asked to come up. “This is their show,” Lai shrugged. He, Lee, and other members of the old guard clutched the edges of a white banner, which demanded, among other things, that China grant the city democracy, and set off with the other protesters in a heavy downpour. “People want to prove that we will persist, we’re not cowed by fear,” Lai said. “We’re not giving up.”
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