The China Thread

[Monoriu]

Apple Daily is a lot more than a newspaper.  It is a political player.  Evidence:

Hong Kong media boss distances himself from contentious Hunter Biden-China report
By Reuters Staff

(Reuters) - Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said he personally had "nothing to do with" a report on alleged China business links of the son of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, but admitted funds from his private firm had been used to fund it.

Lai, a prominent democracy advocate in Hong Kong and a staunch China critic, said on Twitter that he was "sorry" that his flagship newspaper, Apple Daily, had been implicated in an article by U.S. media outlet NBC.

In the article, NBC alleged that a 64-page document circulating on the internet about the purported connections of Hunter Biden to the Chinese Communist Party and his business dealings in China had "questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing".

The article cited the co-author of the "intelligence document", Christopher Balding, as saying the document had been "commissioned by Apple Daily", which the paper said in a statement were "false allegations".

Balding, an academic, didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

While Lai said that his newspapers had not personally commissioned the 64-page document, he admitted that his senior executive, Mark Simon, had "worked with the project".

"Mark used my private company's money to reimburse for the research he requested. It's only US$10,000 so he didn't have to have my approval," Lai added on Twitter.

"I know it is hard for anyone to believe that I didn't know about it and my integrity is damaged."

In a statement posted online, Simon said he had resigned because of the incident, and apologised for having "allowed damage to Jimmy on a matter he was completely in the dark on".

He gave no further details when contacted by Reuters.

The Apple Daily recently published two articles on Hunter Biden and his ties to a Taiwanese businessman who the paper said was a purported broker "enabling Hunter Biden's deals in mainland China over a decade".

But the paper said in a statement that these stories had been carried out by its own journalists in Taiwan with independent verification of their own findings, and were separate from the 64-page document.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics-idUSKBN27G089

Jimmy Lai wanted Trump to win in 2020 because he, and a lot of HK rioters, believed that Trump would be tough on China.  So he made stuff up about Hunter Biden. 



I also want to ask, if say CNN openly called for China and Russia to sanction the US, would the US government just sit idly by and allow it to continue to make such calls?  That's what Apple Daily did, call for sanctions against China and Hong Kong. 

[Jacob]

A lot of anti-CCP Chinese were pro-Trump and anti-Biden because they thought Trump would be tougher on China. Now that Biden is making Xi uncomfortable, and doing so unilaterally, many of those anti-CCP Chinese are changing their tune.

[Monoriu]

Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily, and a lot of HK people essentially revolted in 2019/20.  And they lost, completely.  Do they really expect that things will just continue as they are as though the revolt didn't happen? 

They knew that they engaged in an all or nothing gambit two years ago.  They went ahead, and lost.  They made their bed, and now have to sleep in it. 

Good riddance. 

[Monoriu]

The lamps are going out all over China. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

Apple Daily is a lamp?  Give me a break.  Aside from the lies on Hunter Biden to discredit his father, Apple Daily has a track record of "inventing news".

Many years ago, there was an ordinary HK family.  The wife murdered her two sons by throwing them out the window, literally.  She then followed and jumped to her death.  Apparently the husband had an affair. 

The Apple Daily reporter who covered this incident gave the husband US$640, on the condition that he would hire a prostitute and allow Apple Daily to take a picture of him grabbing the prostitute.  The goal is to create sensation to make the husband look as inhuman as possible. 

Jimmy Lai admitted that his corporation paid the bribes and made up the story. 

[Josquius]

Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily, and a lot of HK people essentially revolted in 2019/20.  And they lost, completely.  Do they really expect that things will just continue as they are as though the revolt didn't happen? 

They knew that they engaged in an all or nothing gambit two years ago.  They went ahead, and lost.  They made their bed, and now have to sleep in it. 

Good riddance. 

Something tells me this guy wasn't one of the rioters.
Though if there was a millionaire amongst them that's pretty awesome.
Rioters! = protestors

I also want to ask, if say CNN openly called for China and Russia to sanction the US, would the US government just sit idly by and allow it to continue to make such calls?  That's what Apple Daily did, call for sanctions against China and Hong Kong.

Sections of the media in other countries does this sort of thing all the time. It was particularly common at the time of the Iraq war.

[Berkut]

I also want to ask, if say CNN openly called for China and Russia to sanction the US, would the US government just sit idly by and allow it to continue to make such calls?

Yes, the US government would in fact sit idly by and allow it to continue.

It's bizarre to me that you would even ask that.

[Admiral Yi]

Sections of the media in other countries does this sort of thing all the time. It was particularly common at the time of the Iraq war.

Really?  I can't recall a single instance of someone in the US, or the larger West for that matter, calling for sanctions to be imposed by other countries against their own officials.

But I also can't imagine how it would be illegal.

[Monoriu]

From wiki -

The newspaper inclined toward supporting Donald Trump during the 2020 United States presidential election, which was believed to relate to his China-related policies. The paper published several opinion pieces, arguing "a vote for Trump is not only for the Americans' own interests, but it is also one that is for the survival of the free world", complaining the "leftist ideology permeated in Western academia and journalism".[106] The position of the newspaper and Jimmy Lai was echoed by many democracy activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan and exiled Chinese dissidents living in America.[107]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Daily

Do they really care about democracy?

[Josquius]

Note this was before trump turned against democracy.
That he was a cunt riding roughshod over established norms I don't expect to be too apparent to the average man in the street of HK.

Weird ad hom though. They supported trump in the election ergo its right they be banned....

Sections of the media in other countries does this sort of thing all the time. It was particularly common at the time of the Iraq war.

Really?  I can't recall a single instance of someone in the US, or the larger West for that matter, calling for sanctions to be imposed by other countries against their own officials.

But I also can't imagine how it would be illegal.

The  UK media has long been packed with stuff about how Iraq was an illegal war, Blair should face international sanctions and trial, etc...
Largely born out of the far left and the anti war movement but the mainstream media often picks up on it too as it gives them a nice stick to whack labour with.

[Berkut]

From wiki -

The newspaper inclined toward supporting Donald Trump during the 2020 United States presidential election, which was believed to relate to his China-related policies. The paper published several opinion pieces, arguing "a vote for Trump is not only for the Americans' own interests, but it is also one that is for the survival of the free world", complaining the "leftist ideology permeated in Western academia and journalism".[106] The position of the newspaper and Jimmy Lai was echoed by many democracy activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan and exiled Chinese dissidents living in America.[107]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Daily

Do they really care about democracy?

What is your point?

That it is ok to stifle the press if they say stuff you don't like?

[Monoriu]

What is your point?

That it is ok to stifle the press if they say stuff you don't like?

The point is, they are far from saints and they are not an objective paper seeking the truth. 

[Berkut]

What is your point?

That it is ok to stifle the press if they say stuff you don't like?

The point is, they are far from saints and they are not an objective paper seeking the truth. 

That is either true, not true, or something in between.

And in any of those cases, it doesn't actually matter as to whether or not it is ok to shut them down for not towing the CCCP line in Hong Kong, which we all know is the reason they were destroyed.

[Monoriu]

I still get plenty of media questions and complaints from anti-government media and websites.  Apple Daily is the largest riot-supporting paper, but is not the only one.  The others are still around. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily, and a lot of HK people essentially revolted in 2019/20.  And they lost, completely.  Do they really expect that things will just continue as they are as though the revolt didn't happen? 

They knew that they engaged in an all or nothing gambit two years ago.  They went ahead, and lost.  They made their bed, and now have to sleep in it. 

Good riddance.

Let me fix that for you and translate into what it really means without censorship:

Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily, and a lot of HK people essentially exercised the free speech rights guaranteed under the Basic Law.  And they lost, completely.  Did they really expect the neo-Maoists in charge of the Mainland to respect one country two systems? 

They knew that they engaged in an all or nothing gamble in trusting the PRC to keep its word back in 1997.  They went ahead, and lost.  Their bed was made for them, and now have to sleep in it. 

Sad end for a once great free city.

[FunkMonk]

Seriously Mono just go fuck yourself.