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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.
The most important news event of this past week wasn't the fact that Bitcoin dropped below $30,000. It also wasn't the New York mayoral primary, though condolences to Andrew Yang. And it certainly wasn't the new infrastructure deal announced by President Biden. The most important news event of the past week was the forced closure of a newspaper in Hong Kong called Apple Daily.
You've probably never heard of Apple Daily. I knew of it, but only vaguely. It was like Hong Kong's version of the New York Post, but combined with William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. So it was a tabloid, absolutely. But it was also something more. It was a voice for freedom. In today's show, why the fate of Apple Daily matters to you. And a firsthand look from a young reporter inside the paper on its very last day. I'm Barry Weiss, and this is Honestly.
Now maybe you're thinking, we hear about horrendous stories from China all the time. How they're running internment camps for Uyghur Muslims. How they're indoctrinating their citizens with censorship and propaganda. How they're disappearing people. How they're using cutting-edge technology to spy on their own citizens.
So why does a little newspaper shutting down even rate next to such atrocities? In China, we have a Chinese Communist Party that I would argue is a threat to the Chinese people and a threat to the world.
I put that question to Mark Simon, a 20-year executive for Apple Daily and a right hand to the newspaper's owner and publisher, Jimmy Lai. Hong Kong was a Western and open society that was successful, incredibly peaceful. And it was basically crushed because the Chinese Communist Party, and in particular Xi Jinping,
They can't stand the example of a successful Chinese society that is not reliant, dependent, and really has no history with the Chinese Communist Party. And what Mark says echoes a sentiment I heard once from a China correspondent. He
He put it this way. What's going on in Hong Kong right now is that the Chinese Communist Party walked over in broad daylight, put a bag over the head of Hong Kong's democracy, threw it in the trunk, and just drove away. The Chinese Communist Party is already shaping so much of what we touch and see and watch and experience.
We see it in Hollywood movies that are altered to appease Chinese censors. We see it in these staged videos that fill TikTok and YouTube. Videos of people pretending to be happy Uyghurs in a naked attempt to conceal the truth of their persecution. We see China's influence when movie stars like John Cena grovel about calling Taiwan a country, or when basketball players like LeBron James suddenly go mute on the issue of social justice when it comes to the world's greatest threat to human freedom.
If you want proof of how what happens in Beijing doesn't stay in Beijing, just think about the once-in-a-century pandemic that we all just lived through. It was China that lied to the world about the nature of COVID-19. And when Chinese scientists tried to blow the whistle on how deadly the pandemic was, China disappeared those people. In other words, we don't need to live in mainland China to be affected by the policies and the decisions and the choices of the Chinese Communist Party.
I want you to imagine if one day policemen rushed into the Wall Street Journal newsroom, that they took all of the laptops there, and that they arrested the entire masthead of the paper and told everyone else sitting in the room that they might be next. That is what just happened at Apple Daily. If China is willing, as that reporter put it, to walk out in broad daylight and throw Hong Kong's freedoms in the dark trunk of a car in full view of the world, crushing the free press, crushing dissent,
you have to ask yourself, what or who will come next? The snuffing out of Hong Kong's freedoms, it didn't happen all at once. Britain learned long ago that Hong Kong people know best what is good for Hong Kong. The British had controlled Hong Kong as a colony until the mid-1990s, when they officially handed over the island to China. Now, Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong.
That is the promise, and that is the unshakable destiny. The deal was supposed to go like this. Hong Kong would be a part of China, but it would retain its own legal, financial, and governmental systems. This policy was known as one party, two systems.
But from the very beginning, China didn't keep up its end of the bargain. The CCP was always meddling. It's a long history. The first thing was 2003, the anti-subversion law, when they tried to put that in. Go back to 2009, where they basically offered a political deal and they didn't do it. There's all these steps that they're supposed to be taking, and they've never taken those. The Chinese just say no. They interfered in Hong Kong's laws, in Hong Kong's politics.
and even in Hong Kong schools. It's certain art exhibits are not allowed. Universities don't want certain professors. So it's constantly this pushing down in society that people felt everywhere. Then in 2014, when the CCP announced changes to Hong Kong's electoral system, changes that basically meant that they and not the voters were going to decide who could run for office in Hong Kong and who couldn't, the people of Hong Kong took to the streets to push back.
That particular law inspired what became known as the Umbrella Revolution. Overnight, that umbrella, from being a household item, suddenly transformed into a symbol of defiance and solidarity. The whole world realized that Hong Kong people will not keep silence under the suppression of President Xi and the chief executive...
They flooded the streets. They occupied the public square outside of the government headquarters for 79 days. They went on hunger strikes. And they showed the CCP that their creeping power would not go on unchecked. In 2019, they were put to the test once again. The government passed a law that allowed China to extradite people from Hong Kong to the mainland, potentially denying them a fair trial or due process. And once again, the people of Hong Kong took to the streets.
These protests were way larger than even the Umbrella Movement had been. Some of the marches were nearly 2 million people strong. That's about a quarter of Hong Kong's population. Imagine the equivalent in the U.S. It would be 82 million people taking to the streets. But those mass protests, they didn't stop the creeping influence of the CCP over Hong Kong. Last year, Beijing forced what it called a national security law on Hong Kong.
National security, it sounds anodyne, but it's anything but. Right as Hong Kong was united in these incredibly powerful demonstrations, the CCP made it effectively illegal to protest. Citizens can be arrested and sentenced with no trial for merely writing pro-democracy op-eds or holding signs in public with pro-democracy slogans. Anyone deemed to incite hatred against the CCP can be imprisoned. Secret police have been deployed to walk the streets and spy on local businesses.
At this very moment, pro-democracy advocates are sitting in jail cells and in solitary confinement. Other leaders have disappeared. Throughout all of this, as China slowly tightened its grip on Hong Kong and its freedoms, there was one paper that refused to shut up.
Apple Daily is run by my boss and my friend. I've worked for the guy for 21 years, coming up on 22, Jimmy Lai. Apple Daily was started in 1995 by a man named Jimmy Lai. He's a guy whose story deserves a blockbuster. He learned about everything from the streets of Hong Kong as a young man. Lai fled mainland China at 12 years old as a stowaway on a fishing boat.
And he got work in Hong Kong in a sweatshop. And so it became very, very difficult for him to understand the differences of why Hong Kong was in one situation and
and China was in the other. Like, well, you work hard in China, you have nothing. You work hard in Hong Kong, you have all this delicious food. Why is it good over here in Hong Kong? And why isn't it good in China? Jimmy threw himself into every opportunity he could. And eventually, he made his way from Hong Kong to the textile business in New York.
And then he's in New York and he's in his early 30s and he's like, okay, what's going on? And somebody hands him a book and he said, the light went on. It was there that other people that worked in the garment business exposed him to free market thinkers that would change his life. People like Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper and Milton Friedman.
Lai says that reading those books were his economic awakening. He became a Hayekian. And this is a guy who didn't have any formal schooling past the age of maybe eight. By the 1980s, he was back in Hong Kong where he was building out his version of The Gap. It was a major retailer called Giordano.
Then came the massacre in Tiananmen Square. On the streets leading down to the main road to Tiananmen Square, furious people stared in disbelief at the glow in the sky, listening to the sound of shots. I don't want to be too crude, but he said, I hated the bastards. He said, I knew evil when I saw it. He said, they're just evil. The troops have been firing indiscriminately, but still there are thousands of people on the streets who will not move back.
That's when he went from his economic awakening, an intellectual awakening, to his political awakening. He immediately started selling pro-democracy shirts, Tiananmen shirts, just in his stores. He immediately was making them in China, bringing them to Hong Kong and selling them. He sent medical supplies up to China. You know, do they need anything? What do they need? This and that. This is what put him on the radar screen for the Chinese Communist Party. After Tiananmen, there was no turning back for Jimmy Lai.
The CCP forced him to sell his clothing company, and he had certainly had enough money that he could have left Hong Kong. But instead of leaving town or shrinking from the public eye, he doubled down, and he decided to build a pro-democracy media empire. This is what the first edition of his Apple Daily promised to its readers. We are convinced that Hong Kongers who are accustomed to freedom will not stay silent in the face of unreasonable restrictions and unfair treatment.
For Hong Kongers, he wrote, are born with a passion for freedom. Beijing has labeled him a traitor and a troublemaker, and he's been a target for years. The home of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was attacked early Thursday morning by a firebombing. Over the years, Jimmy Lai's house was firebombed. His company office was ransacked.
He was the target of an assassination attempt. Lai is known as a staunch supporter of democracy for Hong Kong. But he never stopped talking openly about freedom, and he never stopped criticizing the CCP. America has a vital interest in Hong Kong. Washington simply cannot allow China to tell the U.S., we want your money.
In 2014, during the Umbrella Movement, which was led basically by teenagers, this billionaire, he took to the streets to fight with them.
And in 2019, as millions of Hong Kongers marched against the new extradition law, Lai's paper, Apple Daily, it printed posters for them to carry. Since 2018-19, it's been the political broadsheet of the Hong Kong democracy movement. Now, Jimmy Lai knew that when the national security law passed last year, that it would not end well for him or for his newspaper. We know what the communists want to do. So if we're taken down,
We're going to go down beating our chest, as somebody said. You know what I'm saying? We are going to go down hard. So we're going to fight it. Last May, he gave an interview to Reuters where he said, What I have, this place gave me. I will fight on until the last day. It will be an honor if I sacrifice. Jimmy at that time knew. We talked about it. He said, this will be...
If they get this law, it'll be the end of Apple Daily. So we got to keep it going. And Jimmy would tell people all the time, get out. Get out now. It's 1949. Then Jimmy would be told, why don't you get out? Why don't you get out? And he had an answer that I think would surprise somebody. He would say, I don't want to be an asshole. And somebody would say, how do you mean that? He goes, if I leave now and I leave all these young people here, what kind of guy am I?
Now, the other thing you have to remember with Jimmy is he's a devout Catholic. He's a very religious guy. He's not looking to be a martyr. But Jimmy Lai is in jail because of choice. He had multiple opportunities to leave. He was warned that it was time for him to leave. The same thing applied to Apple Daily before we were closed. He had one rule. He said no martyrs.
When it looks like they're finally coming for us, when it looks like it's all over, he said, don't feel anybody owes anything to me. He said, you've done your jobs. Go do your jobs in another manner. Go be a reporter someplace else. But he was very clear. He said, we will fight to the end and we will make them close us down. We are not going to walk away.
Right now, Jimmy is in a jail cell in Hong Kong where he is sitting out a 14-month sentence for the crime of unauthorized assembly. But his Apple Daily continued to print, including a handwritten note Jimmy sent from jail a few months ago. It said, in part, He added,
The era is falling apart before us, and it is time for us to stand tall and keep our heads high. But this week, after 26 years, the symbol of Hong Kong's swashbuckling anti-communist free press printed its final edition. I think the West is going to have to really consider how we treat Hong Kong and how we look at Hong Kong in the future. Because
If it turns into what the Chinese want it to turn into, how in the world is it our benefit to work with them in the future? I just don't see it. And the killing of Apple Daily is really the largest blow against Hong Kong as a Western civil society. Up next, a young Apple Daily reporter who was there on the last days of a free press in Hong Kong.
Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network. Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.
There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election. We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer. Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts. It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer. Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. You can hear me as well.
I can hear you great. That's right. That's right. Late Thursday evening in Los Angeles, I got on the phone with a reporter from Apple Daily. Thank you so, so much. I know it's been a crazy week and I'm so appreciative to you for making the time. Yeah, thank you. She spoke to me, but she didn't want me to disclose her name or her identity. I imagine that given that you're a reporter, you've interviewed lots of people who haven't wanted you to use their name for a variety of reasons.
And today you're in the position of you not wanting us to use yours. And I guess I wanted to start there and ask you why. It's like a police state now in Hong Kong. So everything is so unusual. So reporters, especially those who are working in Apple Daily, are now being targeted because our media company is pro-democratic and they think we are trying to do something to
how to say that in English, to destroy the stability of Hong Kong. But actually, I think what we are doing is just to speak the truth and to speak what Hong Kong people really want to say and express to the Hong Kong government.
And have you always wanted to be a reporter? Yes, I have always been wanting to be a reporter because I think it's a very meaningful job. And it's actually not a job. Like, I don't work it for earning money because I'm not sure how it goes in other places apart from Hong Kong. But actually, you know, being a reporter has only very low salary. But I think...
Why we would like to be a reporter is because we want to speak the truth and we want to uphold justice and freedom and democracy like everyone does all around the world as a reporter. And Apple Daily is my first and I think it's my only one media company that I would ever work in Hong Kong. Why would that be the only paper that you would want to work for in Hong Kong?
I mean, this is the only newspaper in Hong Kong that can speak the voice of Hong Kong people. Like printed media, they will just speak or write what the government wants them to do. And we are the only print media that will interview the protesters to let their real opinions show up in Hong Kong. So I think this is very precious. And I think this is what we call freedom of speech and freedom of press.
In your reporting in 2019 and just covering the increasingly repressive environment in Hong Kong, did you witness people get arrested? Did you witness violence? Oh yeah, sure. Like all the time. And then so as a reporter, it's very heartbreaking and it somehow makes me want to give up.
at some moment because it's like a real pressure on every reporter. It really tears us up actually. And actually last year when 200 policemen went into our company and later our boss got arrested and actually at that time I have given the resign letter to my boss actually because I feel like I cannot stand it anymore. It's like
I feel like I have some, I'm not sure if it is PTSD. I think it's not that serious, actually. But I just feel like my whole life got torn up. And I just feel so emotional every day. But then afterwards, I feel like, well, this is like my responsibility. And it's very hard to give up this job. If one reporter give up at this time, and then there will be fewer reporters.
reporter in Hong Kong. So you actually were thinking about resigning and wrote your resignation letter, but then ultimately decided not to? Yeah. What did your family think of your work as a reporter? Were they proud of the fact that you worked at Apple? So actually, my whole family, my parents and my little brother, they are all working for the government.
So when I got the chance to work in Appleday three years ago, I think my whole family got so mad. And even my mom, she always put on some interview letters on my desk when I go back home because she wants me to work for the government as well.
So, but of course I won't listen to them. Yeah. I never listened to my parents actually. And I don't think we need to listen to our parents. Um, but it's very interesting because, uh, uh, I think my dad is someone who really supports the government. So I already give up on him, you know, but my mom has actually changed a lot because of the protests in 2019. And, um,
She actually sent me a message on the last day of Apple Daily. So it was on Wednesday, and then she sent me a message, and she said...
I'm really so proud of you. You have really done a great job. And I just want to hug you and cry together. Because, you know, that night, a lot of Hong Kong people cried together just because of the death of Apple Daily. So it's like so crazy, you know. Yeah. She is a Hong Kong people. And I think she actually represents a lot of
normal Hong Kong people who maybe at first they dislike Apple Daily for its stance because especially in the very old days of Apple Daily, many Hong Kong people think it is a very unhealthy newspaper, you know. But I think under these circumstances, after 2019, we really speak the truth and we speak those things that no one dares to speak.
And it changed a lot of perception of Hong Kong people towards Apple Daily.
I remember that my boss, he had our last meal in Apple Daily in the canteen last night. And then he said that he feels very, very proud that Apple Daily ends in this way because a lot of Hong Kong people support us. I think like for other print media, if they...
have a death like this, no one will cry for it. But they will cry for Apple Day. I'm sorry. I just feel so sad, you know. I'm so sorry. Wait for a moment.
Because a lot of colleagues actually cried a lot this week because we saw that our bosses and all the colleagues were sent into jail and it's just so ridiculous. I mean, we are just reporters, you know, and all the things we did is all right. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Please don't be sorry.
I'm really moved by hearing that your mom, who maybe was critical of the paper, texted you that she was proud of you and texted and understood the symbol of what this newspaper meant. Yeah. And what its closure means about what's happening to Hong Kong.
My understanding is that over the past two weeks, there's been like another major raid in the newsroom with five executives getting arrested. Were you there that day? And did you witness it?
Actually, no, because when I woke up, the first thing that I saw on my phone was the notification saying that our two colleagues were arrested. It's last Friday, right? Yes. It's like a year already. It's like so many things happened within this week. Okay, so it's on last Friday.
Because the policemen were in our company and they block all entrances and exits, so I feel we can't go inside if we were not in the company at that moment. So I went back there by 4 or 5 p.m. that day. And then when I got back to my seat, I found that my seat was
It's like raped it. It's like totally raped it. And they took my hard disk. Actually, they took 44 hard disks and I am one of them. So they took, did they take your computer? Yes, yes. What was the last story that you were working on before they took your computer and your hard drive? Do you remember?
Oh, okay. The last story is about some education stories. And it's very interesting that because I have saved my transcript on the drive in Word document, you know, and then after they took my drive, I realized that I have to redone the whole thing.
Oh my God. So the transcript is like 10,000 Chinese words and I have to retype all of them. And it's really stressful because on Monday, we are told that the last day
We heard this news on this Monday. So I have to redone the whole thing in a super crazy pace because I have to rush before the death of our newspaper. I saw some video online of really moving video of people applauding the editors. And I saw pictures of what looked like dozens, maybe hundreds of people on staff on the roof of the building.
Did you participate in all of that? Yes, yes. I'm one of them. We went onto the roof and then, because we know that there are a lot of readers and supporters were standing outside our company and they were waving the mobile phone lights and
saying something like cheer up we will keep fighting for Apple Daily they keep shouting stuff like this to encourage the people who are working in Apple Daily and then we can actually really hear them it's a very touching moment and then we turn on our lights as well and we also shout things like Hong Kongers keep going and never give up something like that
The last thing I want to ask you is for people that are listening to this that maybe had never heard of Apple Daily or don't know that much about Hong Kong, what do you want them to understand about what this newspaper means and what its closing signifies for where Hong Kong is heading?
Freedom of press is really so important to uphold justice and democracy in a society. And if you do not have this power, so who can speak the truth and who can monitor the government and the people who are in charge and have power? So no one can do that afterwards.
I mean, I really respect my colleagues. They just want to keep going. Even if they have to be sent into jail, they will still hold their pencil very tightly. And even when they imagine that maybe tomorrow I'll be sent into jail, what they are thinking in their mind is that they want to finish what they haven't finished. They want to finish the whole article or even they want to finish the article even if they are in the jail, you know.
This really touched me. I can see the persistence of my colleagues in Apple Daily. And I feel like they really get my respect. And people all around the world should respect these very brave journalists as well. So I hope people not only in Hong Kong can understand what happens in Apple Daily and also treasure what they have in their own home country as well. Yeah.
I just want to say that I have the most profound and deep respect for you and for all of your colleagues. And one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you is because the values that you are articulating so movingly and powerfully right now, the values that democracy is based on that are being taken away from you and other Hong Kong people right now,
are the ones that I think too many people in my country often take for granted. And so it's very powerful to hear them articulated by someone who is sacrificing for them. So I want to thank you so much. And whenever you decide you want to pick up your pencil again, you have a home with me. Thank you so much.
If I could leave America with one thought, it would be this. Before we go, one last word from Jimmy Lai. Do not underestimate your moral strength and promote your values instead of apologizing for them, especially when you deal with crime. Thank you. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again soon.