Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai (center) leaves the Kowloon City police station on 28 Feb, 2020 after being granted bail following his arrest earlier in the day. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG – Jimmy Lai Chee-ying – founder of the now-defunct Apply Daily – pushed for “anti-China” news to be published in the tabloid’s English version to stir up anti-China sentiment in the United States, hoping to obtain shelter for the newspaper from the US, and getting the US to be hostile to China, the publication’s former publisher Cheung Kim-hung told a Hong Kong Court on Wednesday. 

More messages and instructions issued by Lai were revealed on the 15th day of the former media mogul’s trial on charges relating to conspiracy to collude with foreign force to endanger national security, and sedition.

Cheung, the first accomplice-turned-prosecution-witness to testify at the trial, had earlier revealed Lai had donated millions of dollars to fund activists and anti-China campaigns.

READ MORE: 'Jimmy Lai targeted US readers as political lever for US politics’

On the fifth day of Cheung’s testimony, he said Lai had explicitly instructed that the tabloid’s English-language edition did not need to provide a balanced view to foreign readers. Positive perspectives of China also had to be excluded from published articles. Lai believed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, people in the US needed “anti-China sentiment the most”.

Lai initiated and personally designed a petition campaign calling for Apple Daily readers to sign a joint letter to then-US president Donald Trump on the newspapers's social media platform, said Cheung

“When we choose writers, we don’t have to think about giving foreigners a balanced view of what happens here. We only concentrate on our Apple Daily’s Hong Kong views, a general view of the ‘yellow side’ … We’re not trying to strike a balance, but the point of view of the people on the side of protecting Hong Kong. This is the voice the world wants to know,” Lai told the editorial team in a chat group called “English News”, created by himself, the court heard.

Asked by the defense why the English version of Apple Daily did not need balanced reports, Cheung said Lai only wanted foreigners to know what he wanted to show, which was the “yellow side” (the anti-government side) of the story.

Alex Lee Wan-tang – one three judges adjudicating in the case – asked whether Lai wanted only negative reports about China. Cheung agreed, saying “the English version was much more radical, I would say.”

The National Security Law for Hong Kong was one of the reasons that prompted Apple Daily to launch its English-language edition in May 2020, Cheung said. The law was enacted on June 30, 2020.

The launch of the English-language version also coincided with the pandemic, which Lai saw as an opportunity for the publication to create China’s image as a suppressor of human rights and a concealer of pandemic-related information, Cheung said.

In line with Lai’s editorial policy, only negative news concerning China would be selected for translation from Chinese into English. “Lai wanted to give the United States more reasons to take hostile actions against China,” Cheung said.

Cheung further revealed that Lai had instructed his personal assistant, Mark Simon, to invite US officials and politicians to subscribe to the English-language edition of Apple Daily, including then-vice president Mike Pence and then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The aim, according to Cheung, was to provide the newspaper with significant “political protection”, as well as publicity and support. 

Armed police stand guard next to an armored vehicle outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts during a trial against Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who stands accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, in Hong Kong on Dec 18, 2023. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)

At Tuesday's court hearing, Cheung said Lai initiated and personally designed a petition campaign calling for Apple Daily readers to sign a joint letter to then-US president Donald Trump on the newspapers's social media platform. The letter urged Trump to impose sanctions on China and "rescue Hong Kong" as the NSL was about to be implemented. On May 24, 25 and 27, Apple Daily published statements on its front page, appealing to readers to sign the letter. 

Lai believed the campaign would apply international pressure on China and trigger hostile actions against Beijing, such as sanctions. Lai also personally arranged for the letter to be drafted and the layout designed under his instructions, Cheung added.

Cheung was made editor-in-chief of Apple Daily in April 2011, and was promoted to publisher in 2016. The newspaper was founded in 1995 and closed down in June 2021. Cheung had previously held positions at several of Lai’s publications for decades. He had started working as the business editor of Lai’s Next Magazine in 1991.

Cheung, who was arrested in June 2021, pleaded guilty in November 2022 to colluding with external elements to endanger national security, along with five other former Apple Daily executives.

READ MORE: Foreign interference in Lai’s case a disgrace doomed to failure

Lai’s trial began on Dec 18 last year, and is expected to last about 80 days. He faces one count of conspiracy to print, publish, sell, offer for sale, distribute, display or reproduce seditious publications, and two counts of conspiracy to collude with external forces to endanger national security. The sedition charge and one of the collusion charges were also brought against three Apple Daily-related companies. Another collusion charge against Lai has been left on the court file at the prosecution’s request.