“For them, I am a troublemaker. It is hard for them not to clamp down on me and silence me.” On August 10, 2020, Jimmy Lai, entrepreneur and media mogul, was arrested in the wake of the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests that engulfed Hong Kong. But Lai wasn’t merely a billionaire business owner concerned with protecting his media empire; he was instead a stalwart defender of human dignity and freedom, and became an enduring symbol of resistance to Chinese communist oppression.
It is from Lai’s self-description as a “troublemaker” that Mark L. Clifford’s new book draws its name. Clifford’s vivid profile of Lai presents a figure whose life narrative intertwines seamlessly with Hong Kong’s post-revolutionary economic success and tumultuous struggle for freedom and independence.
There are sections of Troublemaker that read like intimate diary entries and conservations between friends, while others emulate Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, a political treatise that explored the nature, logic, and power structures of totalitarianism—and how such collectivist systems make dissidents of their own citizens. Lai, like Havel, is a political prisoner and freedom fighter. Clifford, writing from an outsider’s view, ventures beyond the present climate of repression in Hong Kong to peer into Lai’s past and soul, to show how his indomitable spirit and tenacity reflect the essence of the people of Hong Kong.
It is within this presentation of the complexity of Lai’s character, which reflects the contradictions within Hong Kong itself, that Clifford poses a question: Why didn’t he just leave? After all, Lai had the means to do. A billionaire business magnate, media mogul, and British citizen (despite the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997) certainly had the money, connections, and legal right to head for safe harbor in the U.K. Yet he chose to stay and fight for his people.
Though the exact date of his birth is contested, Jimmy Lai (and his twin sister, Si Wai) was (presumably) born on December 8, 1947, in Guangzhou, China, some 80 miles from Hong Kong. His early life was set within both poverty and the civil war between the Kuomintang-led forces and Maoist revolutionaries, which lasted until December 7, 1949, when the communists claimed total control of the mainland.
The Maoist consolidation of power and the crackdown on religious freedom and political liberty was swift, a project that culminated in the Great Leap Forward, leading to a mass exodus of Chinese from the mainland to Hong Kong in search of freedom and security. It is against this backdrop of suffering, political falsehoods, and ideological contradictions in the nascent People’s Republic of China that Clifford focuses Lai’s life story and explores the development of his civic consciousness and penchant for risk.
At the age of 12, detached from his family, Lai made a clandestine journey to Hong Kong, by way of Macau, in the hull of a fishing boat as an impecunious stowaway. Upon arrival, he was exposed to the squalid conditions of a squatter village in Kowloon where his aunt and uncle lived, one of the many in the British colony overburdened with the influx of refugees.
Central to Lai’s story is the spirit of work and “hustle culture” present in Hong Kong that allowed his risk-taking, entrepreneurial spirit to bloom. While working at various jobs in Hong Kong factories, Lai, still in his 20s, saw the economic downtown in 1973 not as a calamity but as an opportunity. From the money he made first working and then managing factories, he set his eyes on a bigger prize: owning his own business. He went on to acquire a bankrupt sweater factory, establishing the Comitex textile company in 1975. It was this same business acumen and relentless drive that propelled him to establish the first Hong Kong fashion giant, Giordano, in 1981, which made its way to mainland China in 1992.
Clifford offers insights not only into Lai the entrepreneur but also into the deeply personal moral considerations and conflicts that come with success. “Young people have many ideals but few scruples … they have more than enough drive, but they often ignore reality,” Lai wrote after his comical, yet ethically ambiguous, acquisition of the factory in Hong Kong that housed Comitex. (Hint: It involved paying off a soothsaying Taoist priest and some light deception. You’ll just have to buy the book to get the whole story.)
It is this capacity for self-reflection, to see business not as a purely transactional endeavor but as exerting a social impact, that shaped Lai’s quest to champion a normative set of human rights. Clifford emphasizes how Lai’s defense of human rights was predicated on both the free expression of individuals and the necessity of a free market. A true turning point for Lai was the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which motivated him to build a media empire in aid of his activism. Media is a consumer business, and Lai saw an opportunity to use media to sell freedom, Fanmai ziyou.
Launching Next magazine in 1990, Lai wrote a column within its pages to pursue the fight for economic freedom and prosperity he believed would lead to a greater demand for political freedom. “Yes, I am anti-communist. I am completely opposed to the Communist Party because I hate all things that restrict personal freedom,” Lai wrote in a 1994 column. “The basis of communist ideology is the absolute restraint of individual freedom.” For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Jimmy’s sharp tongue and triad of wealth, media influence, and independence made him a unique threat to their control of ideological narrative.
Clifford weaves all Lai’s achievements and goals into a rich tapestry of a story that renders Lai all the more captivating; he is impossible to narrowly classify. In founding Next Digital and the Apple Daily newspaper, Lai did not merely create a media empire; he forged a free press that directly challenged both the mainland narratives/propaganda and the gradual encroachment of Beijing’s authoritarian policies into Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous sphere.
The slow constriction of Hong Kong climaxes in Lai’s arrest and prosecutions under the sweeping National Security Law, instituted in 2020, under the trumped up charges of “collusion with foreign forces” and “sedition,” which Clifford recounts with a meticulous attention to detail. By situating Lai’s personal story within the grander context of the erosion of political independence, civil liberties, and the rule of law in Hong Kong, Clifford keeps the reader engaged, and moved.
Central to Lai’s activism is his journey into the Catholic faith, which began with his meeting his second wife, Teresa, herself a devout Catholic, and ended with his baptism in 1997 at Hong Kong’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Clifford presents Lai’s spirituality not as a mere personal source of solace but as bulwark against the approaching storm. Lai’s Catholic faith enabled him to cultivate a more profound source of strength and moral grounding, both key to his character.
Clifford’s erudite prose remains accessible and compelling throughout this biography, striking a balance that captivates the reader as both intellectually and emotionally profound. It is this approach that ensures a holistic portrayal of Jimmy as relatable, with his own imperfections, but also someone of extraordinary courage and will—a model of virtue.
In an era when the principles of democracy and human rights are increasingly under siege, Clifford’s Troublemakershows how Jimmy Lai’s unwavering defiance in the face of overwhelming adversity embodies the spirit of resistance that has historically precipitated transformative social change. His story has aroused global attention and opened discussions on the responsibility of the international community to defend human rights and democratic principles, teaching us all how to be good troublemakers.
