[Adrienne Arsenault] Where there is a will there is a Hong Konger with a way.
Blank sheets held up in protests this summer saying nothing but meaning everything
after Beijing imposed its national security law
banning certain slogans of protests.
Clever but only fleetingly effective.
Scared activists now scramble to erase
social media posts.
Those who can are leaving Hong Kong.
Because they know the arrests under the new harsh law have started.
Opposition figures and some student activists like Tony Chung
who was picked up seemingly for a Facebook post about independence.
But so the fear goes he won't be the last.
It's very sad.
People are panicked.
[Adrienne] Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai
long a supporter of the protest movement
accepts that he is watched every day.
I'm followed.
Just this morning my driver told me that you know look at the young kid you know on the left side
he's there every day and trying to see what time I leave home and all that.
You don't sound scared by that.
I can't be scared.
If i'm scared what can I do.
I cannot say anything, I cannot do anything because the the most skillful thing that the CCP can do
is to induce fear in you to subdue you.
[Adrienne] This is a man who walks his talk and not just as the owner of Apple Daily
a media outlet openly critical of the
CCP
the Chinese Communist Party and Hong
Kong's leadership.
Last summer when Hong Kong streets were places of promise and momentum
and the world was watching
Jimmy Lai was front and center.
Both organizing and participating in some of the protests
designed to push in part for democratic reforms.
That's among the reasons why he was arrested earlier this year.
It didn't silence him though.
If you say anything wrong or hurt the Chinese government
or you decide in a way that you disturb hostility to the CCP
you're liable to the crime of subversion.
Would you have believed it last year if someone had said to you
one year from now the national security
law will be in place?
No, nobody expected that.
This rush implementation of the national security law is actually a blunder
that CPP hasn't thought it through.
It's a great blow to its economy at the time when China's economy is in dire situation.
Is everything you're saying here, sir, 
 actually a violation of this new security law?
Yes.
And that doesn't worry you?
No.
Is there not a chance that you could be spirited away in the middle of the night to a prison in mainland China?
Yes.
But what can I do, just keep quiet?
[Adrienne] And so he's staying put.
Has told his family they can leave if they need to.
Has told his staff of the newspaper he doesn't want them to be martyrs
but they should do what they feel is
right.
So the criticism of Beijing goes on.
But Hong Kong, he suggests will effectively be finished
if the rest of the world, including countries like Canada, don't speak up.
If we are compassionate.
If we just let them do whatever
the dictatorial value the world one day will have to be changed to the image of China.
How mistaken we have been thinking that when China grow richer
will be more like us
and how wrong we have been?
[Adrienne] The more voices in Hong Kong that go quiet
the more his stands out.
He says his chief worry is for the young
who grew up in a Hong Kong a free expression
and now face an increasingly constrained future under Chinese control.
Multiple nations, including Canada, have cancelled extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
Go further, he says.
Offer political asylum to young activists
then keep pushing.
The leverage is you're united with all the country in the west.
That is the leverage all the other country has to do has to be united together to have the leverage.
[Adrienne] Canada isn't just any other country to Jimmy Lai.
His ties here are strong.
His twin sister and mother have lived in Ontario.
His family buying and building businesses
throughout Niagara-on-the-Lake.
So he worries about Canadians too.
My advice to the Canadians.
I think you have to you have to consider you'll be more cautious of what you do, what you say
if you want to still come to Hong Kong and have a business with Hong Kong.
You have to be more cautious.
You just can't do the same as you did before.
This is not the same.
[Adrienne] No it's not the same Hong Kong.
And for all his bravery, make no mistake
there are moments he is afraid and desperately sad.
Your sister in Niagara-on-the-Lake must
be very worried about you.
Well --
Well, yes they'll go on.
Thank you for letting me talk to your people.
 
