🌍 Media tycoon Jimmy Lai on trial in Hong Kong

Hi Intriguer. Hong Kong is one of my favourite cities in the world. It actually boasts some incredible wilderness, with over 40% of the city designated as country parks and more than 250 islands nearby with sandy beaches and jungle hikes.

I feel lucky to have done a stint there as a diplomat back in 2019. This is especially so because I ended up witnessing the mass Hong Kong democracy protests that year.

A moment I’ll never forget was watching from my apartment as an estimated two million protestors marched through Hennessy Road, and thinking there’d been a sense of collective optimism for Hong Kongers.

But fast forward to 2023, and things couldn’t be more different – as former media mogul Jimmy Lai has no doubt learned. Today’s briefing leads with an update on his highly anticipated court appearance in Hong Kong.

– Helen Zhang, Co-Founder

PS – We’ll publish our last briefing for the year this Friday 22 December, before hitting your inboxes again with a special edition in the new year!

Calls for a ceasefire continue. The British and German foreign ministers, two staunch Israel allies, have used a joint article in yesterday’s Sunday Times to say they “support a ceasefire [in Gaza], but only if it is sustainable.” The two ministers also write that “too many civilians have been killed. The Israeli government should do more to discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians.” 

Red alert. Shipping giant Maersk has announced it’s suspending all cargo traffic through the Red Sea after continued attacks by Houthi groups. And that’s a worry, because 12% of global trade passes through the Red Sea. The UK and US say they downed 15 suspected Houthi drone attacks over the weekend.

Rejected (again). Chileans rejected a new conservative-leaning constitution in a vote yesterday, opting to keep their country’s current Pinochet-era document. A previous attempt to replace the constitution with a left-leaning draft also failed last year. Third time’s the charm? Unlikely – President Boric has said he won’t push for another attempt.

Kuwait Emir passes away. Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait, died at 86 years of age after a brief three-year rule of the country. His brother, 83, will succeed him at the helm.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

It’s hard to see this ending without a conviction and more jail time for Lai. The question is just how much more jail time, and on what basis.

In the meantime, there are a few factors that make this case really stand out. First, there’s Lai himself:

• While many other pro-democracy figures managed to escape abroad or have pled guilty, Lai has stayed and is fighting the charges

• He’s also one of the few Hong Kong tycoons who’s openly criticised Beijing, and

• Lai’s company is the first Hong Kong-listed firm to be targeted under Beijing’s new national security laws.

So there’s a lot here for Hong Kongers. And second, there’s the charges:

• The actions in question were once not only normal practice in Hong Kong, but actually won Lai several journalism awards

• The principles in question (like freedom of expression and an independent judiciary) also helped make Hong Kong itself successful as a regional finance hub, and

• The whole case will play further into US-China tensions, as prosecutors seemingly argue that the millions of Hong Kongers protesting in 2019 were doing Washington’s bidding, at Lai’s urging.

So there’s a lot here for the world, too.

Also worth noting:

• Lai is already serving time for earlier convictions related to a lease violation, a Tiananmen vigil, and the 2019 extradition bill protests.

• Beijing claims Lai was "a mastermind of the riots" and that he "blatantly colluded with external forces to undermine China’s national security". The case has been met with criticism in the UK, the US, and the EU, as well as The Committee to Protect Journalists, and even among Catholic bishops (Lai is a Catholic convert).

• In its annual World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders now ranks Hong Kong 140th out of 180 countries and territories, down from 18th two decades ago. China is ranked at 179th.

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…

1. 🇰🇵 North Korea: The North Korean military fired a short-range ballistic missile approximately 570km into the sea off Japan yesterday (Sunday). Pyongyang has tested more than 100 missiles since the beginning of 2022, each one a violation of international law.

2. 🇷🇸 Serbia: The Serbian Progressive Party of President Aleksandar Vučić has claimed a big win in the snap election Serbia held yesterday. The opposition Serbia Against Violence alliance, which emerged following two mass shootings in May, is projected to come in second.

3. 🇰🇭 Cambodia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has announced it will repatriate 16 ancient artefacts to Cambodia and Thailand. Cambodia’s culture ministry says it’s “eager for further returns and acknowledgements of the truth regarding our lost national treasures.”

4. 🇧🇧 Barbados: A Barbados-based company is partnering with a San Francisco-based health tech company to release dengue-fighting mosquitoes across the Caribbean. The Americas region has reported a record 4 million cases of dengue this year. 

5. 🇮🇷 Iran: Gunmen killed 11 people and wounded eight others at a police station in south-eastern Iran on Friday morning. State TV said the assailants were members of a Baluch separatist militant group.

EXTRA INTRIGUE

Your weekly roundup of the world’s funnier news

• Farmers in rural France have started to turn traffic signs upside down in protest at various grievances, causing confusion among many a motorist. 

• European Commission President von der Leyen’s latest address to parliament has been greeted by… a barking dog. The pooch was later revealed to be a service animal accompanying a visitor.

• The Doritos chip brand is releasing a limited edition nacho cheese chip spirit just in time for the holidays.

• Zimbabwe’s finance minister has been named ‘Best African Finance Minister of the Year’, prompting one local netizen to say it’s "akin to applauding a captain for steering a ship straight into an iceberg".

• A Venetian gondola has capsized after tourists refused to stop taking selfies and sit down.

• And Australia’s own Andrew 'The Annihilator' Ngai has won the Microsoft Excel World Championship in Vegas for a third year in a row.

PROFILE OF THE DAY

The Financial Times is reporting that Chinese spies ran former Belgian senator Frank Creyelman as an intelligence asset for more than three years. The evidence is laid out rather starkly in years of texts, including one from his Beijing handler saying pretty bluntly that “our purpose is to divide the US-European relationship”.

Over the years, Beijing reportedly instructed Creyelman to attack a researcher for his studies of Uyghur internment camps, disrupt a conference on Taiwan, and convince two members of the European Parliament to publicly state that the US and UK were undermining the EU’s energy security.

Interestingly, there’s little evidence Creyelman ever succeeded.

DAILY POLL

Yesterday’s poll: Do you think foreign policy should be taught in high schools?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧑‍🏫 Yes, and make it mandatory! (55%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✅ Yes, but optional only (41%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤔 No, it's better left for later (7%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)

Your two cents:

•  🧑‍🏫 H.J: “Teaching kids that their decisions have global impacts and how the global economy and political alliances work is increasingly important in a globalized world.”

• 🤔 S.H: “Anything that is systemically taught on a field which has a spectrum of opinions will not be able to accommodate such a wide diversity of ideas effectively, and there is a much higher likelihood of introducing personal biases instead.”

• ✅ R.J: “If anything needs to be mandatory it should be domestic policy and, more importantly, the importance of local/regional governments in one's day-to-day lives.”

To our surprise, this question generated the most responses ever (over a thousand!)