Former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has admitted to aggressively urging the United States to revoke visas granted to the children of Chinese officials as part of his push for Western sanctions before the national security law took effect in Hong Kong.
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Lai told West Kowloon Court on Wednesday that he had suggested retaliatory measures against the overseas family members of those in power in Beijing and Hong Kong, an idea he earlier attributed to an American official, in a New York Times article published in May 2020.
On the 31st day of Lai’s verbal testimony in his marathon national security trial, prosecutors questioned him about his overseas political connections and attitude towards Western sanctions before Beijing imposed the national security law in June 2020.
The 77-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid newspaper has denied two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces and a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications.
The court earlier heard that the idea of sanctioning the children of mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officials was first proposed to Lai by Mary Kissel, an assistant to then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, when the former media owner visited Washington in July 2019.
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Lai appeared to incorporate the advice in an unpublished article dated August of that year, in which he said America could help Hong Kong by “denying student visas for children of leaders of Hong Kong and [Communist Party of China] who crack down on us”.