EPTH

ET MASTERS

o separate Hong Kong and fuel street violence

Page Editor:

[email protected]

Scan to read and share

story on your phone

ple have received train-

al media staff s have

training by the US in

young people have

nd the US is leverag-

demonstrations as a

lor revolution, he said.

or Hong Kong is of-

eat, Chan stressed.

tern politicians

t in Hong Kong that

the extradition bill

by the US. The activ-

f the Next Digital

hee-ying, was exposed

osely related to US

l, according to Hong

er Wen Wei Po.

mail related to Next

ves was leaked that

up has been commu-

Consulate General in

gainst the extradition

vel meeting with senior

g Mike Pence, Michael

onal Security Adviser

2 014, Lai met with

ormer US deputy sec-

retary of defense, on a yacht for fi ve hours,

according to a report from Hong Kong-

based Chinese language magazine East

Week on June 19, 2014.

Wolfowitz, Lai’s buddy, is a foreign

policy hawk. In 1982, he was appointed as

assistant secretary of state for East Asian

and Pacifi c Aff airs. Meanwhile, he was one

of the prominent neoconservatives in the

George W. Bush administration.

According to a May 2018 report from

globalresearch.ca, a Montreal-based website

featuring a media group of writers, journal-

ists and activists, Wolfowitz was responsible

for developing the US’ Defense Planning

Guidance, 1994-1999. It was blunt, and

later described by US Senator Ted Kennedy

as imperialist.

In part the unedited Wolfowitz Doctrine

declared, “Our fi rst objective is to prevent

the re-emergence of a new rival, either on

the territory of the former Soviet Union or

elsewhere... to prevent any hostile power

from dominating a region whose resources

would, under consolidated control, be suf-

fi cient to generate global power,” according

to globalresearch.ca.

Lai said during his own online show that

he and Wolfowitz had known each other for

a long time.

Lai and Wolfowitz were already friends

when the latter became head of the US-

Taiwan Business Council in 2008, Mark

Simon, a senior executive at Next Media

Group, confi rmed, according to Hong

Kong-based English newspaper South

China Morning Post report in June 2014.

In Lai’s chart of “political investments,”

Simon is his right-hand man.

Simon’s father worked in a US govern-

ment department. Simon served in the

US Navy and was focused on intelligence

assignments after he graduated from

Georgetown University, one of top schools

in diplomacy, reported East Week.

Simon transferred to Hong Kong for

business after service. Wen Wei Po reported

that Simon processed Lai’s donations to lo-

cal political parties.

Ellen Bork was one of Lee’s assistants

from 1998 to 1999. She was also reportedly

connected to Jesse Helms, the then chair-

man of the US Senate Foreign Relations

Committee. Later she served as deputy

director of the Project for the New Ameri-

can Century at Freedom House, a US-based

government-funded NGO that conducts re-

search and advocacy on democracy, political

freedom and human rights. Now Bork is a

senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Initiative,

a Washington-based think tank.

Financer behind the opposition

Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, 71, was born in

South China’s Guangdong Province. He

was smuggled from the Chinese mainland

to Hong Kong in 1960.

In 1981, Lai founded the Giordano

fashion chain. By the end of the 1980s, he

produced 200,000 T-shirts with a radical

slogan on it for the so-called democracy

movements, and he took this opportunity

to get to know Democratic Party founder

Martin Lee Chu-ming.

In 1990, Lai sold all his shares in Gior-

dano at a low price and established the Next

Digital Group in Hong Kong.

In October 2011, records of Lai’s sponsor-

ship to Hong Kong’s pan-democrats and

religious fi gures were leaked. The records

indicated that from 2006 to 2010, he

donated more than HK$10 million ($1.

million) to the Democratic Party in Hong

Kong and the Citizens Party, respectively,

plus HK$20 million to former Hong Kong

Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun.

In 2009, Lai’s donation accounted for

99 percent of non-member donations to the

Democratic Party and 68.2 percent to the

Citizens Party. Lai’s role as a main sponsor

thus emerged.

Some commentators believe that his

aim was to manipulate Hong Kong politics

behind the scenes.

Global Times