When the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) takes center stage as the anchor sponsor of this fall’s Committee to Protect Journalists Annual Dinner, one name should remain unspoken: Jimmy Lai. Mentioning Lai in a New York City ballroom would ring hollow, given the WSJ’s news division has conspicuously ignored his trial—the most significant human rights case in Asia and a critical test of basic freedoms in Hong Kong, a city that still claims to be a global financial hub.
Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong media owner, writer, and champion of liberty—and my boss—is being prosecuted under the city’s draconian National Security Law. His media companies have been shuttered; his home for the past 1,707 days, a Hong Kong prison cell. Lai’s case has drawn intense global scrutiny, with over 30 major outlets—AP, AFP, Bloomberg, CNN, The New York Times, and nearly every UK news organization—covering it in the two days since the trial’s conclusion. Yet, the WSJ’s news pages remain silent.
The WSJ’s editorial board, however, has steadfastly supported Lai, a personal friend to several members and a figure whose busts of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman adorned his media group’s lobby. Their advocacy is organic, rooted in a shared passion for free markets and free people.
The WSJ’s news division, however, tells a different story. Apple Daily, Lai’s tabloid, and the WSJ were always distinct—our scrappy, in-your-face style clashed with their polished restraint. Still, the tension felt personal. In the mid-2000s, I invited the WSJ’s then-Asia Chief Editor for a day on Lai’s boat with journalists from other outlets. The rebuff was sharp, accompanied by criticism of Apple Daily and Next Magazine’s journalistic standards and our supposed failure to “understand China.”