Jimmy Lai’s Sentencing and Hong Kong’s Judicial Pivot

The twenty-year custodial sentence given to Jimmy Lai Chee-ying by the Hong Kong High Court on 9th of February 2026 - occurring just a week from Sir Kier’s visit to Beijing - represents a shift in Hong Kong’s judicial development. Mr Lai was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious material.

The 78-year-old, who arrived in Hong Kong at the age of 12 after stowing away in the bottom of a fishing boat, went on to found the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. Apple Daily openly backed pro-democracy protests in both 2014 and in 2019 where the protests took a more violent turn. Mr Lai, who has been a British national from 1996, was convicted under the National Security Law following a trial that many observers and the British foreign office have condemned as “politically motivated”. As noted by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper this sentence, is effectively a life term given his advanced age and his reported deteriorating wellbeing[1]. This marks the most severe legal strike against Hong Kong’s civil society and independent media.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun responded that ‘China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the blatant slander … of Hong Kong’s judiciary’. In the verdict the judiciary noted that Mr Lai’s “deep resentment and hatred for the Chinese Communist Party led him down a thorny path”[2]. John Lee, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive welcomed the verdict, adding that Lai’s actions had “harmed the fundamental interests of the nation and the wellbeing of Hong Kong residents”.

From the perspective of Beijing, the enforcement of the national security law represents a necessary correction to legal weaknesses that allowed the 2019 civil unrest to threaten national stability. In this framework, the protection of One Country supersedes the procedural autonomy of Two Systems. The conclusion of the trial is seen by many to mark a death knell to the One Country, Two Systems framework that previously demarcated Hong Kong’s legal and political setting from the mainland. The sentencing matters for several structural reasons.

Judiciary and Economic Priorities

The trial is a departure from Hong Kong’s common-law tradition, in that the trial was overseen by three government-vetted judges rather than a jury. It draws its legal authority from Safeguarding National Security Ordinance in Hong Kong’s Article 23 of Basic Law, through which harsher sentences for national security offences can be levied. Trials under this statutory law can now be held without juries, and with judges who are drawn from a group selected by the Chief Executive for their perceived alignment with national security. 

This represents a movement of the judiciary from an independent arbiter to an instrument of executive policy, heightening the risk profile for international firms relying on legal predictability. Such risk, complicates efforts to reposition Hong Kong’s comeback as a thriving financial centre and its ability to interface with more liberal economies. This effectively contributes to the ongoing ‘mainlandisation’ of Hong Kong’s economy, entrenching the reversal of Hong Kong’s role as not the world’s access gateway to China, but China’s access gateway to the world. A majority of new listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange are Chinese companies and the capital invested comes from mainland investors through stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen. China could therefore effectively continue benefitting from this jurisdictional arbitrage presented from Hong Kong’s common law framework and One Country, Two Systems status as a legal de-risking mechanism. In processing outbound capital through a jurisdiction that is perceived to hold international standards of arbitration and finance, the Chinese state can achieve necessary interfacing without sacrificing domestic sovereignty.

Lowering Threshold of Dissent

The criminalisation of editorial decisions at Apple Daily as "sedition" establishes a restrictive precedent for any entity providing critical analysis of Chinese policy, which could be determined as sedition or subversion against the Central People’s Government. No less disturbing as of late, was the arrest by Hong Kong Police of those demanding an independent investigation into the tragic fire in Tai Po, which killed at least 168 people. On February 12^th police confirmed that three individuals have been charged under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (Article 23) for "seditious intent" regarding their comments on the fire. This group includes Miles Kwan, a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who was expelled after being arrested for starting a petition demanding government accountability for the blaze. Foreign media outlets were summoned into a meeting with China’s national security office in Hong Kong and warned to not spread “false information, distorting and smearing the government's disaster relief” in the immediate and longer-term aftermath of the blaze.

Mr Lai's conviction was for overtly opposing Chinese and Hong Kong authorities and addresses his efforts to persuade foreign nations to levy sanctions against the territory. These new arrests suggest that the threshold for expressions of dissent have been lowered to a much milder determination by the government and evidences the extent to which Article 23 can be wielded to uphold domestic security.

Geopolitical Consequences

Mr Lai’s status as a British citizen has transformed his case into a flashpoint in Sino-British friction. The failure of the British government to secure even consular access demonstrates a greatly diminishing leverage over Hong Kong’s internal administration. As raised by Lord Swire, the continued presence of two British non-permanent judges on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, Lord Neuberger and Lord Hoffman, is a subject of parliamentary scrutiny[3]. The United Kingdom will likely continue with diplomatic protests, and the summoning of the Chinese ambassador, though direct intervention remains unlikely. To Beijing, the verdict is a "definitive restoration of the rule of law" against foreign interference.

Bitesize Facts on the Court Case:

I.    As of early 2026, the conviction rate for national security law cases remains near 100%, with the judiciary increasingly adopting the "Mastermind" (主謀) classification to justify maximum penalties.

II.   Mr Lai has been in prison in the Lai Chi Kok Reception Center and Stanley Prison continuously since December 2020.

III.  Mr Lai’s trial under Hong Kong’s National Security Law started in in December 2023. Closing arguments were in August 2025. The trial lasted 156 days, and Mr Lai was on the witness box for 52 days.

IV.   Mr Lai is a British citizen - he holds a full British passport and no other passport.

V.   Mr Lai faced two charges of conspiracy under Article 29 of the National Security Law (‘Collusion with a Foreign Country or with External Elements to Endanger National Security’) and one charge of sedition. The prosecution alleged:

1. In Count 1 - the sedition charge - that Mr Lai conspired to make 161 seditious publications, largely newspaper articles in the newspaper Apple Daily.

2. In Count 2 - under the national security law - that Mr Lai engaged in substantially the same conspiracy as in Count 1, with the object of requesting a foreign country or an institution, organisation or individual to impose sanctions or other hostile activities against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or the People’s Republic of China.

3. In Count 3 - under the national security law - that Mr Lai conspired with other individuals to request foreign countries to levy sanctions or other hostile activities against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or the People’s Republic of China.

VI. The court stated, in passing the twenty-year sentence, that eighteen years of the sentence will be served consecutively with a separate case heard at the District Court - a fraud conviction, which has been widely condemned. Sentences (that is under the national Security laws) do not attract any form of remission for good conduct: the normal remission being one third.

VII. Lai’s co-defendants, including two activists and six former Apple Daily employees, received sentences ranging from six years and three months to ten years.

Bibliography:

[1] ‘Foreign Secretary Responds to Jimmy Lai Sentencing’ (GOV.UK) <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-responds-to-jimmy-lai-sentencing> accessed 20 February 2026.

[2] ‘IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE CRIMINAL CASE NO 51 OF 2022’ <https://hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HCCC000051D_2022-1.pdf> accessed 20 February 2026.

[3] ‘Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence - Hansard - UK Parliament’ (20 February 2026) <https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-02-09/debates/57DC9F4C-4417-4411-8D2E-C6AA173CCC15/JimmyLaiPrisonSentence> accessed 20 February 2026.