From the second alleged torture victim Andy Li (李宇軒) took to the witness stand in the trial of media magnate Jimmy Lai (黎智英) last week, Hong Kong authorities were finished in a way they never have been before.
Yes, they had already unleashed the city’s police to brutalize its citizens with batons and rubber bullets. Yes, they had already arrested more than ten thousand people for the mere act of supporting democracy. Yes, they had already humiliated themselves pretending that everything from inflamed adductor muscles to T-shirts are crimes against the state. And, yes, they were already credibly accused of torture.
However, there are always some people and businesses who are willing to overlook this kind of thing: the Louis Vuitton x Pharrell Williams collaborations that are forever on call to set up propaganda shows for the Chinese Communist Party; the Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 spokespeople who deny that censorship is an issue; the Inter Miamis of this world who will sportswash any regime until it turns on them; and the gravy train of 2,000 influencers that can tell whatever story you like — for a fee and a free bed for the night.
All you need to give these people is an excuse. That way, their short attention spans and willful gullibility can hopefully rub off onto their audiences, associates and fans, who might then visit and pour money into Hong Kong like it was 2018. I mean, if the city really is so bad like the media says, how come a nice guy like David Beckham is over there? A government that spends $1 million on giant, “chubby,” heart-shaped balloons doesn’t sound much like a police state to me. Were there not, like, two massive “double happiness” ducks in the harbor the other day, man?
The approach works as long as everybody pretends: Hong Kong authorities masquerade that their behaviors accord with reasonable laws. Pharrell and co. make belief that the city is just as vibrant and fashionable and freedom-filled as it ever was or ever could be. And the rest of us give them all the benefit of the doubt.
What the strategy cannot withstand is a blatant torture victim standing in plain sight, which is exactly what has happened with Andy Li, a young man who has done nothing more to deserve the infliction of pain than administer funds for a pro-democracy movement. In a high-profile trial, followed around the globe, prosecutors have dragged him out of a mental asylum to provide testimony that has reportedly emerged from the months he spent in a Chinese prison, where screams were regularly heard from his cell.
Not only is this morally repugnant in the most abhorrent way — a new low even for Hong Kong’s rulership — but it is also monumentally stupid, not least because it is superfluous. A guilty verdict for Lai has already been decided from Beijing and other witnesses pressured to concoct a story to convict him with.
Hong Kong could have withdrawn Li from the proceedings, still delivered exactly the same outcome with exactly the same low quality of evidence and feigned to the world that respect for the most basic of human rights was upheld. Instead, prosecutors bundled him into the show trial anyway, which is to say that they are no longer even pretending torture is unacceptable to them.
Therein goes the last straw that the drowning Hong Kong government could have vaguely flailed its arms towards. If authorities do not pretend, nobody else can either. So there are no more excuses and no more benefits of the doubt for anybody who works with them. The “Chubby Heart” balloons, like the double-happiness ducks, have all gone pop.
If, for example, Hong Kong truly wants to approach Taylor Swift on her next Asian tour, it will have to do so as an accomplice to suspected torture and hope she considers that on-brand, while any YouTuber or Insta model who henceforth posts video-shorts on the city’s behalf has a willingness to do dungeon cover-ups etched on their resume forever. The same goes for investment ministers, other politicians or CEOs looking to wheedle their way into the Hong Kong government’s rather thin-looking good books.
Andy Li had no hiding place in a Chinese jail. From this point forward, neither does anybody who tries to wash the blood away from what happened to him there.
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