The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic

An extraordinary life story—from rags to riches to political prisoner—sheds light on Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy in this rousing biography. Journalist Clifford (Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World) recaps the life of businessman Jimmy Lai, whose boyhood in 1950s China imbued him with a lasting hatred of communism before he fled at the age of 12 to live with family in Hong Kong, where he built a garment-manufacturing and retail empire by way of hard work, business acumen, personal charisma, and shady panache (“Women, whiskey and weed” was his formula for making buyers receptive, Clifford reports). In the 1990s, Lai swerved into publishing with a weekly magazine, Next, and a newspaper, Apple Daily; they featured business news, scandal-sheet muckraking, racy pictures, salacious gossip—Apple Daily ran reviews of prostitutes—and columns in which Lai vented his dislike of the communist government in Beijing. After China’s 1997 takeover of Hong Kong, Lai became a stalwart of the city’s pro-democracy movement, bankrolling dissident groups; he was arrested on national secruity charges in 2020 and has been in prison ever since. Clifford, who was on the board of directors of Lai’s company, paints an appealing portrait of a colorful, ebullient figure full of charm and moxie who in prison becomes near-saintly, enduring persecution with patient humility. It’s a spirited profile in defiance. (Dec.)