Xi Jinping, the party boss in the People’s Republic of China, hopes he can make an example of the jailed Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai as a court weighs his fate in a show trial intended to buttress Beijing’s control over the former British colony. 

The Hong Kong chief executive, John Lee, summoned to Beijing, said Mr. Xi had seized the moment to say the policies of “the central authorities,” presumably the ruling Chinese Communist Party, had “consolidated Hong Kong society’s strong confidence in jointly forging a better future under the guidance of ‘one country, two systems.’”

That’s according to the Communist Chinese news agency, Xinhua. The timing of the message underscores the importance Mr. Xi attaches to the trial of an editor whose paper, Apple Daily, had sharply criticized Beijing ever since the massacre of protesters on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in June 1989. 

In the face of intense international criticism, the court is expected to rule Friday on the demand of Mr. Lai’s defense team to drop the most serious charge he faces — that of sedition. The ordeal of Mr. Lai, who’s been in jail awaiting trial since August 2020, was not likely, however, to end easily or quickly.

“There is zero chance of anything other than a conviction for Mr. Lai,” said Mark Simon, who served as close consultant for Mr. Lai and his enterprises before his arrest, followed by the shutdown of Apple Daily a year later. Mr. Xi clearly fearsMr. Lai as the leader, the influencer, and the symbol of the democratic forces that rose up in Hong Kong several years ago.

Through the highly popular Apple Daily, Mr. Lai had upset  Beijing by protesting China’s  repression of democracy and dissent as guaranteed by the agreement reached between China and Britain before Hong Kong’s  reversion to Beijing in 1997.

Mr. Lai is “singular in the view of the Chinese Communist Party as the leading democratic activist,” Mr. Simon told the Sun. “The entire narrative is that of a color revolution led by Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily in collusion with foreign forces.  There’s no way they can walk it back. Nor do I think there is an inclination on their part to do so. “ 

Indeed, the case serves the interests of the Hong Kong chief executive, Mr. Lee, who’s “in need of a bogeyman,” said Mr. Simon, while Hong Kong endures numerous problems. “The economy is failing, people are leaving, the birth rate has dropped through the floor,” said Mr. Simon.

A sign of the government’s unpopularity is the low turnout for recent elections for members of a district council – evidence, said Mr. Simon, of “exactly what the Hong Kong people think of the government.”

Although a conviction may be inevitable, it’s still possible Mr. Lai will get off with a suspended sentence or probation. The former press baron has a British, not a Chinese, passport, making his case of special interests to British authorities, already upset by Beijing’s flouting of the deal for Hong Kong to govern itself for 50 years. 

Now the British are demanding routine “consular access,” routine in the case of any of its citizens being held in jail by a foreign government. “Once you send him abroad, his importance diminishes quite quickly,” said Mr. Simon.

“The longer they keep him in the worse it is for them…. Hong Kong can have a decent future if the current government under John Lee finally understands you can’t be a financial center and have over 1000 political prisoners.” 

Global Times, a Chinese propaganda paper, quoted a consultant from the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, Lau Siu-kai, as saying Mr. Xi “focuses on national security, the perfection of Hong Kong’s governance framework under the principle of ‘patriots administering Hong Kong.’”

Optimistically, that comment could mean that Mr. Xi has other priorities – and would not be averse simply to getting rid of the headache of Mr. Lai’s case by kicking him out of the country and the former colony.