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Natan Sharansky with Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong, the world’s gambit Apple Daily Transcript
*Transcript provided by AEI with permission from Apple Daily.
Exclusive on Twitter —Natan Sharansky with Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong, the world’s gambit Apple Daily— 1120 - YouTube
02:38 - Jimmy Lai – So, all right good morning we are very happy today to have Natan Sharansky with us.
Mark Clifford who is the mediator is here. Mark, why don’t you do some introductions.
02:50 Mark Clifford —Yeah hi good morning of course, we've just heard from Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, Hong Kong's leading pro-democracy newspaper, a successful entrepreneur and as Jimmy said, Natan Sharansky is our guest today.
Mr Sharansky was one of the old Soviet Union's most prominent political prisoners, not a job that one takes on freely of course, he is also a brilliant scientist, a survivor of the Soviet prison system, and now a prominent politician in Israel. So welcome to our show. I think Jimmy has some questions.
I think basically we don't want to despair, although we're going through some difficult times in Hong Kong, you've seen much, much worse than people in Hong Kong have seen, and it would be nice to hear a little bit from your example, and what to learn. Jimmy you have a specific question?
03:51 Jimmy Lai – I just think that we are at the crossroads, and I don't, you know, our people had hope and are still hoping, but the hope is dashed, or whatever hope we have will be dashed because under such a high pressure persecutions and clamp down on our freedom and rule of law, it's inevitable that, well, our hope will be dashed.
And the more we dash our hope, the weaker we get, as you said in your book, which is the crisis we are facing, so we need the faith, but not everybody like you and me have a God, you know a faith, and so it is also a problem for us now to keep the world's attention to us because we are not allowed to have demonstrations, so the street will not have news, and our legislators, pro-democratic legislators all resigned from the legislative council because they (government) disqualified four of them. So if there's no news, and people’s hope is dashed, it's very difficult for us to hold up the optimism, to hold up the energy to fight. So what is your advice?
5:30 Natan Sharansky — Well, thank you first of all thank you Jimmy for inviting me. I always feel a very deep sympathy to the people in different countries who are striving to be free: [who] want to continue or to start their life with free people and that's ongoing struggle all over the world. Let me share with you my experience from a personal point and more general political point which I think is relevant.
And first of all that personal point. I grew up in the Soviet Union without having any freedom: we knew from the beginning, from the age of five, I knew that things which I hear in the family I cannot say publicly. But when my father told me that Stalin died, Stalin was a big dictator in the Soviet Union, but he told me it's a very good thing for us for Jews because we Jews were persecuted, we were in a big danger, and his death is good, so it's good, but don't tell it to anybody. So, and I guess we go to kindergarten and we cry together with all the children about the death of Stalin and they have no idea who is crying really and who is crying like me, knowing that it's a very good thing that it happened. And we were singing songs by the way, that day, about two great leaders of the world, songs of the people, Mao Zedong and Stalin. And I’m singing this song and I know that it's all a lie. That in fact I have to be very happy that Stalin died. 2
But that is the atmosphere in which I grew for the first 20 years of my life, when you know that all the official life is a lie, and you are participating in this lie, but the truth is only for your family. And then, when I came back to my Jewish identity and to my faith, suddenly you feel there are things which are even more important for you than physical survival, and when you have the first time you say what you really think to the authorities, that they really don't want you to belong to your culture, that I want to go back to my people. Your life is changed, you can be arrested, you're searched, you're threatened.
And then for years of activism I was watched, followed by KGB, and was persecuted, but suddenly you start feeling that you're a free person. You say what you think, and you do, and you're fighting for things in which you believe. And that was a very liberating experience.
I have to say as a man, for many years that I was in prison, and each time they will propose for me to compromise, say publicly that we are right and you're (me) wrong, and you will be released, or they are threatening with the death sentence.
I knew that what they proposed to me is to go back to this slavery of lies, to live in this world, and you don't want too. You prefer to be a free person, even in prison, where you really can enjoy speaking your free mind, to be serious.
So first of all I have to say—and I saw that there's something which connected many people who are fighting against dictatorship—that this moment of overcoming the fear and feeling that you're fighting with the dictatorship, but you're enjoying the real full life, that something, it was connecting and I looked through all the dissidents in the Eastern Europe from different countries then, and then if you look at the people who are in Arab Spring, in how Egypt or Tunisia and other places how they were overcoming the fear of their authorities, and also I was reading about your demonstrations in Hong Kong of how this feeling of enjoying the freedom, how powerful it is, and it is absolutely universal.
But nevertheless we want to get results, we know we don't want simply to die, we want to win.
And that's why solidarity of the free world is extremely important, and when I was writing because Jews all over the world were supporting our struggles and democratic society different countries support us we organized our human rights watch, Helsinki group, and there was an organized Helsinki group, that was such a meeting, signing agreement about human rights, so they were all over the world demonstrating solidarity with us. And then when I was in prison for nine years and they were saying to me the world forgot about you. You know how this world works, you know how the Jewish organizations work, how America goes . . . What is popular today, will not be popular tomorrow, they already forgot about you. And I knew, I knew that they are lying. I was sure that the free world does not forget us.
Of course there were people beginning from my wife, and my friends, my country, and many other human rights organizations, who are working very hard that the world would not forget. And I was relying on the fact that this feeling of solidarity with the people who want to live free with the democratic dissidents is very deep.
Only, your friends have to find each time the reason, how to remind the world. Sometimes, my wife is coming again to Washington, she goes to the journalists, and they say, “but is your husband still alive?”
She just said yes, and they said, “Well look, it's not the news, he's already for seven years alive in prison, when he'll die it will be news.”
And then she goes to President Reagan and says “President Reagan, I need your statement in order for it to be news” and you know, President Reagan was very cooperative, and because Margaret Thatcher, and human rights organizations, who were cooperating how to connect it with the needs of us.
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In the case of China I think it is very important to remind the world what is the danger to the world is totalitarian China. And that's why it is important, if there are in small islands of freedom around China or in general, it's very important that they are the allies of the free world and not Chinese leadership. There are ways to do it, but it needs persistence, it needs stubbornness, it needs creativeness, but I have to say, looking on your dream, I think you are in thousands times better situations than we were. You guys have the opportunity to use the media, you have so many friends, you still can, there was no internet, there was no CNN in my day, there was, . . . All the international TV was cut by the Soviet Union, and today China cannot cut you as fully as they can cut us in Soviet Union.
But it is very important not to lose hope, to enjoy being free every day, I have to say that very quickly in prison I decided that whether I will survive physically or not doesn't depend on me, it depends on KGB, so that's why it should not be my aim. My aim should be as long as I live, I will live as free person, and that depends all on me, if I remain free, if I laugh on KGB, so every day, if I have to live ten years, or one year, or one week, I don't know, but every day I will live and enjoy my freedom. And that's something that has really to be built very deep in the mind and the heart and at the same time, the world has to work hard and we all have to work hard to link the interests of the free world with the question of human rights in China.
13:55 Jimmy Lai — Well, I think what you said about the physical survival doesn't matter, the spiritual survival is what counts. But it is very difficult to overcome the fear, the pain of the physical survival, it is easier for you because you have a religion. You're a very religious person. For somebody who doesn't have religion, it's very difficult for them to go on a spiritual trip and feel spiritually free while the physical is under the duress. For those people, what should they do?
14:49 Natan Sharansky —Well, first of all, frankly speaking, I think that every person is a spiritual person, every person has spiritual life, even if they don't think like this.
But that is the main difference between human beings and the world of animals and others, but that people have a spirit, whether they believe it is in the image of God they are created, or don't believe, but either way they have very a lot of different feelings and reactions which are not only about physical survival.
I was lucky because I could compare, I lived as a slave and then I lived as a free person, and I think in Hong Kong many people lived as free people, and now fear pushes them to give up their freedom.
I cannot tell you . . . you'll try to live one day as Chinese citizen and think about yourself as a loyal Chinese citizen, and I think remotely what kind of compromises you have to do, practically, every day thinking what you are saying, what your children are saying, thinking that because your child will say something wrong in the school and it can be the end of your career. And you have to think of the plan and you after doing this effort for one day you'll understand how much more your life as a free person is better, is more meaningful.
Of course I felt I don't want that life back of the Soviet slave, which they were given me. So, you know and also then rely on your spirit.
You said that I am very religious person. I don't know if I'm very or not very. My wife is more religious than I. I'm more religious than some other friends and so, but it's all very relative, whether you understand that you have higher missions than simple physical survival. Your cat, your dog, all the animals around, they all have a mission of survival.
But you respect yourself much more than this and everyone speaks much more, everyone understands that we have some aspirations, we have dreams for our children, we came to this world 4 not simply to survive. And start enjoying it, . .For people who lived all the time in the free world, it's so natural, it's like the air, they cannot even imagine that something very luxurious the freedom.
But now in this situation between freedom and slavery when there is a threat, so simply try imagine your mind that from tomorrow you’re a loyal citizen of China, and all your career, all your survival, all the future of your family depends on whether you are speaking party line or not speaking, whether your children are sounding the party’s slogans or not, and when you make this effort you'll understand how much better is the life of free people.
18:05 Jimmy Lai —Well, that’s good advice, but one thing that I think people should know besides the religion, it was your wife who was running all over the world fighting for you. That really kept you up, you know that really kept you up and I think this is a very good lesson for other people that have loved ones, and they should think about their loved ones, and they will endure you know the pain, all the, you know, the trouble, and be able to imagine themselves to go on the spiritual connection with the loved ones outside. I think this is very important.
18:47 Sharansky — Yes it’s true, thank you Jimmy for reminding me. You know I was refused, meaning that authorities refused to give me a visa to go to Israel, and when I was activist of this struggle, and when I met my future wife, and it was love at first sight, I decided that at least she will try, and she tried and she got permission.
We had a Chupah marriage in the evening, in the morning I took her to the airport. The only property which she had was this the document about our wedding. And with this, the young girl, 20 years old, that doesn't speak any English or any Hebrew—well, only Russian, and is very shy, and that also I'm sure in half a year we'll be together.
We met 12 years later and but when we met again, this young and very beautiful woman, the woman who already led the demonstrations of hundreds of thousands. Who opened the doors of the leaders of all the free world: the King of Netherlands, the Prime Minister of Britain, and two presidents of United States of America...they were all working on her team. Of course together with all the Jewish people and many other people of goodwill. So, and really she thought of me and she didn't let the world to forget, and it is very important whenever KGB was saying to me everybody forgot you. No, I knew that my wife is there, she is working, she has many supporters. So it is very important as I said before somebody goes to prison, make sure that you get married how I did. All of the family is unbelievable.
20:49 Jimmy Lai -- Right, right, I think that's important. Another point that I think is very inspiring for me in your book is, you said that you were at your peak of your life when you were in prison. You know when you were at the worst, that reminds me of what Jesus Christ says: “Those who have much will be given more”.
This is the same as I'm feeling. That I'm in the most, the more dangers I’m in, the more effectivly I can bring the attention of the outside world's people to Hong Kong, and I think this is very inspiring for me.
21:42 Natan Sharansky - Yeah, well Jimmy, you're right. There are two things. First of all, when you are in prison, in Soviet prison, isolated from all the world, it is very easy to feel that morally, you did all your obligations, all your commandments. You say no to KGB, and with this you resist the evils of this world you cannot do more. You hope that all your friends around you who are not in prison, they will do more. So that's first, this feeling of moral clarity, here is good, and evil, you know.
After nine years in prison I was nine years in politics. In politics, in no democratic country, you can feel as completely fulfilling all your moral obligation, because there are every day there are many compromises, 5 some of which you do, some which you don't do. Here everything is clear. Here is evil, at this moment, what China is doing to conquer Hong Kong is pure evil. There is no discussion about it, and so first of all moral clarity is a big advantage.
Jimmy Lai 22:53 - Oh yeah
22:55 Natan Sharansky - Second, second, it was very important the first days after they arrested me, I was threatened, I was accused of high treason. So death sentence.
For a year and a half interrogations with threats of death sentence, and they try to convince me that the, uh, that I am alone, I'm finished, I'm Isolated, and that my fate is in my hands. Meaning that my physical survival or whether I will decide to give up on all.
And you try to explain to yourself that after all what changed, you were in the middle of this world struggle it was so—and for five years of my activity [before jail] when I was really meeting with hundreds of tourists and with journalists and some other politicians who were coming and we were having telephone calls. There was no internet, but uh in spite of jamming, we were succeeding to do some telephone calls. And you felt yourself in the center of all struggles of freedom.
After housing (jail) what changed in historical terms is when they took you from two miles from your home to this KGB prison. So all that’s changed is the place, but now you are really, you're really in the heart of the struggle.
Now people really feel very strong solidarity with you as a prisoner of conscience. And all these years before prison were only preparation. So now each word of yours is even more important, whether they hear or not hear, but they'll see if you're not giving up somehow the world will feel it, so you understand your responsibility. That here, when you are arrested, finally, you are even more responsible for everyone, how you are influencing the others. Yes, you quote the Christ. I found out that people with strong identities, strong beliefs, are your best allies, because they will not be KGB agents.
Exactly as I, a religious Jew, keeping my Psalm book (pulls book out and shows camera) which my wife sent to me, I was fighting for years in order it will be with me, and finally when I get it, along with another cellmate who was Orthodox priest, uh uh Vladimir Polich, he is getting after a long struggle, his bible, and we organize ecumenical readings. I am reading from the Psalm book, he is reading from all the New Testament, and we feel that after all we are speaking to one God with the only differences. He will not convert me to Christianity, I will not convert him to Judaism, it's not needed! We feel that the God is on our side, and then that yes it gives a lot of sense, it's a feeling of moral clarity and of responsibility gives you a lot of sense.
Jimmy Lai 25:50 – Well in your book “The Case for Democracy”, you talk about moral clarity a lot, which is also the case of the last 20 years, or 25 years of the Western countries. You know, the burying of the moral clarity, and that’s why they came into complacence about China, about the rise of China. They let China flourish, you know, impose their value with their economic power, you know the behavior that really offends the sense of decency of the people in the world. I think they learn now, you know they wake up and they have the moral clarity, and now they are beginning to see the true face of the CCP, you know the Chinese regime, I think this is very important.
Another point you mention in your other book that, um, you should not back down, you should never back down. Once you back down, you will have to continue to back down until you collapse. I think this is very very true. And this is the reason I’m holding up, you know although I will get into big trouble by talking to you, by talking to a lot people, because this is a collusion with foreigners, this is a big crime here.
But I must hold on, and uphold what we have been doing because so many people are looking up to me. If I back down, they will all back down. And that is what you said about responsibility, when that 6 responsibility I feel in me, that you know, on one hand is a very heavy burden, but on the other hand is very uplifting, because when can I do such a thing? I’m put in the position to such a wonderful thing, why should I waste it? This is what you said about a spiritual survival
You know you go onto a bigger thing, you realize that your life is not about you. Your life now is about a lot more people. It’s a solidarity with the outside world, the solidarity with Hong Kong people. It all hinges on how strong you are. How you hold on, and don’t back down so the people will not back down. I think this is a very very important point you make.
Natan Sharansky 29:01 – Well thank you Jimmy, and I really am in awe, I’m so deeply understand and sympathize what you’re just now saying. Your role is extremely important in this moment for the future, for the people of Hong Kong, for the future of the people of China, for the future of free world, and I’ll try to explain what I mean.
You know in some moments, you can read in my books about prison, some moments I was proposed, under the pressure of Americans, Soviets proposed a compromise: I will write them a letter without recognizing that I’m guilty, but asking them to show humanism and to show, in the name of humanism taking into account that I’m ill, to release me. And they promised to pardon me the moment I write such a letter.
And I refused, and I said that I can’t accept them as a human authority which really on the basis of justice decides something. These totalitarian crooks, I can only demand them to punish those who put me in prison, that’s all. And then I had to write a letter to my mother because she took it very hard. Why I’m not ready to be released by making this compromise.
And I wrote a letter about what I discovered in the prison is the law of interconnection of souls, and I give an example. People, the free souls, what you say today can influence people hundreds years out, and I think the great example as Galileo Galilei showed some weakness against inquisition 400 years ago and KGB is trying to use his name telling me to follow his example. So I said, why should I give anybody to use my name to weaken somebody’s, any free person.
And that’s why there can be no compromise between freedom and slavery. You can compromise on many things in life and business of course, in social life, but free person and being slave, between this there is no compromise. Either you’re a slave or you’re a free person. And the moment you decide, you Jimmy who are now, God chose you in such a position that you are influencing millions and millions of people by your example.
So of course I can understand it exactly as what I was writing from the prison. You cannot now start compromising between freedom and slavery, and God will help you and we all will be praying. But it’s not enough to pray, you’re right. The thing that the free world is all the time hesitant between, uh, between realpolitik, between immediate pragmatical interests, and the real principled policy of supporting human rights and freedom.
And there are sometimes ups and downs. There was President Reagan who understood very well, he called Soviet Union fear Empire [sic] and his policy helped to bring down Soviet Union. Then there are presidents who want simply to engage doesn’t matter with (whom), with every dictator in the world because that’s the way we can bring peace and prosperity. Economy comes first. So that is why it is very important we people who are free and who feel this solidarity with people, will be reminding to the governments, to the governments of the free world about their responsibility.
You know I just now remembered many many years ago when I was a dissident in Soviet Union, and then at some moment America decided to give up on Taiwan and to accept the demand of China that in order to establish diplomatic relations, you had to stop diplomatic relations with Taiwan. And the reason was after all, it is a small island and China is such a huge empire. And then we dissidents who are writing to the leaders of the free world, we want you to understand that we people of freedom, we all telling to America, a small island is (in the) ocean of dictatorship and we can win, defend us only if we are 7 appealing to the desires of people, even under dictatorship, to be part of the free world. You cannot do it differently.
The moment you are betraying some part of the people by saying that is only the small island, you are betraying yourself, you are betraying our island of democracy in this totalitarian sea. Since then, thank God, the island of democracy became bigger, bigger, bigger. But still it is a struggle of every day so you’ll have to continue your struggle for freedom in Hong Kong, and we have to continue our struggle to remind the governments, the leaders of the free world, that their passion is together to see you as their allies, and not the leaders of China.
Jimmy Lai 34:28 – Yeah well, I think Hong Kong is a small island, but it’s a small island of the right idea because of the legacy of the British Colonial time, we inherit the Western culture, the Western values and institutions. You know the British did not give us democracy, but the British gave us the rule of law, the private property, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion. All the freedom institutions, and this is where China is very afraid of us because our values that we share with the West are very dangerous to Chinese in China. And that’s why they want to clamp down on us. And you’re right, we’re a small island but we have big ideas and we should hold on to it – We should hold on to it.
35:37 Natan Sharansky – Yes, well as I showed in my book “The Case for Democracy” that every dictatorship, the difference between every dictatorship is spending more and more with energy to keep their own citizens under control. And that’s why they’re so vulnerable. The Soviet Union seemed such a powerful, frightening state. None of these Sovietologists thought it will fall apart. We dissidents saw how weak it is from inside, because people are double-thinkers, people don’t believe in this ideology, but they are controlled by fear. And all the energy of this country goes to the control of fear. And that’s why any dissident, and definitely the whole of the people of Hong Kong, it’s such a danger to China because their own people will catch this disease of freedom. Watching civil societies, that’s why they want to destroy these civil societies, and this civil society that you have, it’s the best ally of the free world in confronting the dictatorship. And it’s very important to understand that China looks so powerful, so– conquering half of the world, so undefeatable, but it is so weak from inside because it controls its own people by fear. By putting millions in the concentration camps, by killing, by pillaging, by making all these cultural and other revolutions.
And people hate this regime, even if they are crying or smiling when they are told to cry, to smile, but that’s exactly as I was crying when Stalin died. So that’s something that has to be understood. The life, the external life, is not the real one. The real one is the desire of people to be free.
Jimmy Lai 37:41 – Yeah I think it’s very important, I think the point you made in the book that, uh, that the case for democracy is actually dictatorship has to pay a lot of money in suppressing people. Now China has the electronic surveillance system, you know, and all that control over people, and they are really spending a lot of money. And eventually the more they control the people, the more money they spend on controlling people, the greater is the rebelliance [sic] of the people. That kind of cause can only increase by increasing the control because the greater the control, the greater the rebelliance, the greater the control, and eventually they will have to go bankrupt just on this course.
What do you think, you think China will end up like Soviet Union?
Natan Sharansky 38:48 – Yeah well, China succeeded to live longer until now because it was more clever than Soviet leaders in terms of it decided at least in one field, we have to give some freedom, I mean economical freedom. They permitted some kind of competition of freedom. In the Soviet Union, practically, it was against the law if you buy something or if you sell something because only the state could do it. So it was very rigid system, not only politically, not only socially, but also economically.
China gave some freedom, but economically, and that I think made its life long. But at the same time it keeps one party system, keeps ideological control, and people are more and more dissatisfied. That’s what I try to show in my book “The Case for Democracy” that how a longer a dictatorship exists, the 8 bigger is the number of doublethinkers, loyal true believers – the loyalists – are becoming more and more double thinkers, and at some moment, practically the state has to control everybody, including its own leaders. They cannot rely on their own leaders.
That’s what’s happening now in China, I think it goes to the end, but how quick will be this end, it also depends a lot on the free world. Are they going to cooperate closely with the regime and to help this regime survive? Or are they going to treat it as President Reagan and Margret Thatcher repeating [about] the Soviet Union “that is an evil empire” that’s why there are limits to which you are ready to cooperate with them. And that’s why our demands about liberation of dissidents from prisons and respecting some basic human rights is absolute.
So if the vote will come to this position, I think the days of Chinese regime will be doomed. But that’s a process.
Jimmy Lai 40:55 – Well I was thinking that Trump was able to do that, now he’s lost, you know because he really played hard ball with the Chinese, it was very effective. But I have a question to ask you. The people in Soviet Union, they did not have political freedom, and they did not also have social, you know, civil freedom, so they have no freedom at all. But the Chinese, they don't have political freedom, but they have some civil freedom, which means that the market is free but not totally free, but still free. They are allowed to travel and all that. That obviously Chinese, you know, are more free than the Soviet Russians, but there’s also a pitfall for these people, for the Chinese people or for the CCP. Because of the commercial, civil freedoms that contrast with the control of the political, you know, suppression.
So actually the contrast will reflect the freedom they lack on the political side which becomes a greater burden. Because when you have one side totally suppressed, and on the other side you have some freedom, and it’s just two values, two sides of a person is fighting, eventually the freedom side will win. And this is also the danger of the CCP.
Natan Sharansky 42:47 – Again I agree with you Jimmy! If I take the example of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union there was no political freedom, no civil rights, no civil society, and no economical freedom, absolutely, because economy was fully controlled by the state. But there was one field in which Soviets tried to create freedom, science. Science in developing nuclear weapons, missiles, the first satellite, and they had some serious success in science. And then leading Soviet scientists, Andrei Sakharov was number one scientist, he was believed to be father of the hydrogen bomb. He got more awards than anyone in that country. And he wrote a letter that was very important.
Jimmy Lai 43:40 – Yeah I read that
Natan Sharansky 43:41 – He warned Soviets, if you don’t give the freedom of thought, you will not have the world-class science. Look, you have all the time, he didn’t say it this way, but that’s what he meant, you have all the time to steal the secrets from the United States because you cannot create such a creative atmosphere as is when they are in the freedom of thought. And in one day he came from number one scientist to number one dissident and lost all his positions and so on. But the lesson was that the Soviet science was developing, developing, at some moment it could not compete because it didn’t permit the freedom of thought.
Now if you look at the economy, China economically gave the freedom to the people, but nevertheless if you look at the creativity, the number of new ideas which are coming from free world or from China, you’ll find out how China is heavily dependent on getting those new ideas from the West. Not because Chinese people are less talented, but because when there is no freedom, no freedom of thought, you will not have as much creativity in the other fields.
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So that’s why, yes, on one hand, China prolonged this existence of this totalitarian regime by making it a little bit less totalitarian. On the other hand there are limits to which you can succeed in science, in economics, in other fields, if you are not permitting real freedom to the people.
Jimmy Lai 45:20 – Yeah I think you’re right. I think the Chinese economy is getting into trouble just because the US has embargoed the technology going into China. The chips and, you know, technological products and all that. If the US sanctioned the technology to China, the western countries will have to follow because a lot of the western countries' technology, you know, one part or another has to depend on the American technology. So this will be a big blow to the Chinese economy and the social control, I mean the civil control of the people because all that electronic surveillance control, they use a lot of chips from the US. If this is, you know, in such short supply [sic], they cannot maintain it. And I think you’re right, you know that’s why I agree with you. At the end, China will have to come to the same end as Soviet Union. But it’s also true that do we have leaders nowadays as strong as Reagan and Margret Thatcher and see the evil or moral cruelty as clearly as they saw it, and that is a big question.
Natan Sharansky 46:48 – When I was speaking, it just occurred to me that when there was my trial and some other dissidents, and I was sentenced as an American spy and all the other nonsense, the next day, President Carter gave an order to stop selling some supercomputers, at that moment the good computers were very big computers not like today, and there was some supercomputers that the Soviet Union couldn’t produce, and it was linked to the fact of persecutions against dissidents.
So I do hope that American president will link the steps in technological cooperation with the fate of the Uighurs in China, with the people of Hong Kong, with your personal fate, and I hope you’ll be free person among us all alive, but if, God forbid, you will be arrested, then it’s very important that the reaction of the free world will be immediate and linking your fate with the fate of the other fighters for freedom with all the technological and other cooperation with China.
Jimmy Lai 48:09 – Yeah I think that’s very important. Mark?
Mark Clifford 48:10 – Yeah I was just gonna say, let me jump in. This has been the best session I’ve ever moderated because you two have done all the work, but I wanted to just make a couple of points and turn it over to both of you to wrap things up. I think it’s very interesting that as – I just want to summarize some of your points that dictatorships can never control enough, and I think what we’ve seen in China is quite different in the sense that, especially in Hong Kong, now the lights are going off, the oxygen is being taken away. So that’s a very, very different situation, but a dictatorship can never control enough.
Xi Jinping could tolerate Hong Kong, but now he can’t. He could tolerate Jimmy Lai, now Jimmy Lai is seen as an agent of America. Sounds very similar to your experience Mr. Sharansky, where you’re an “American spy” because you have to blame it on the foreigners. But the example that one person can provide, you’re both examples of this, is so important to the world. We’re lucky for now that we have the internet, we have uhh, we can still talk to Jimmy, but that may not exist forever either. But one person as you say, we’re not cats, we’re not dogs. And the example of freedom, as the example of Galileo was very interesting. Here’s a great man, yet he has a moment of weakness and 400 years later your KGB tormentors are turning that against you. So you two are both amazing examples of what one person can do long may you both prosper. So Jimmy, why don’t I turn it over to you and then to Mr. Sharansky to close.
Jimmy Lai 49:51 – Well I’m very lucky, you know you can be my mentor because I really am wearing your spirit as my call. You know I really relate to what you said so much, because what you said about physical survival is not important, spiritual survival is very important. Never back down, you know, the peak of your life is when you were in prison; I totally understand and that is very important because I take 10 up the responsibility of imagining myself influencing so many people as an example. You know, if I don’t back down then they won’t back down. So that is a responsibility that is also uplifting spirit for me, and I really thank you so much for inspiring me on this.
Natan Sharansky 51:06 – Jimmy it is so moving for me and exciting to speak to you in this critical moment of your life, the life of Hong Kong, but also the moment of testing as the people of the free world. And yes the dictatorships are very weak from inside, and they seem like the strongest, but then nothing remains from them. They are destroyed fully by people from inside, and what remains is free spirit. And what goes from one generation to another is this experience of enjoying free life, that what makes human beings created in the image of God.
And if you were chosen by the faith, by God, by your people to lead, to be the example of this moment, it's a great responsibility but it’s also great joy. So enjoy it!
Jimmy Lai 52:07 – It’s a great fortune!
Natan Sharansky 52:08 – I wish you all the strength and will, with me with you! Remember you will never be alone!
Jimmy Lai 52:20 – Thank you! I’m very happy that I think I can hold on because there are two things we are very similar, you have a great wife, I also have a great wife. You’re very religious, I’m also very religious. I think these two things we are alike, and hopefully these two things will help us, will help me reach the safe end like you. Thank you so much, you know, I really appreciate it. You’ve been such an inspiring figure for me. At this time I hope that you are also inspiring for all the people who will hear you in Hong Kong and overseas. Thank you so much.
Natan Sharansky 52:21 Thank you very much.
Q & A Session with Jimmy Lai
Moderator 53:55 – Technology is an important tool to help spread information and ideas, but it has also given the CCP a chance to suppress and perhaps monitor opposite voices. Do you think the development of technology, specifically media technology, has helped the CCP or has it allowed for more scrutiny by the international community?
Jimmy Lai 54:29 – I think up till now it’s helped the CCP to control the people as you can see from the surveillance, electronic surveillance they have on Chinese people. Where you go, what kind of people you are with, what you buy, and if you don’t behave well, they don’t allow you to go overseas or travel on the train or airplane, and no bank account, and all that. That is absolute control just because of technology has enabled the CCP to do so. But I do believe that technology for disseminating information has a much greater investment because more people are using technology for dissemination than to censor. So I think at the end of the day, very soon even, that the technology of dissemination will surpass and defeat this censor of the dictators. I think the day will come, the only solution for us to solve this embargo of information is through technology.
Moderator 55:52 – Exactly, umm okay, the second question is: If you didn’t have the experience of living in Guangzhou in your early life, you think the fight in you today would be different?
Jimmy Lai 56:07 – I don’t know. If that experience unconsciously has motivated me to be what I am, that is possible, but is never conscious. I think it’s more my education, by reading books by Fredrick Hayek, Milton Freidman, Karl Popper, and all this, you know, freedom of free market writers that has motivated me, that has shaped me the way I am today more than anything else. And also it is my character, I think I’m born a rebel. That I’m always fight against things I don’t think is fair or good enough, and maybe that’s why. I think character and character is definitely—definitely it’s my destiny. 11
Moderator 57:13 – So it’s definitely nature and nurture both, character and the books both haha, okay the next question is: More and more people are comparing today’s Hong Kong to the Cultural Revolution back in 1966 to 1976. Do you agree with this view?
Jimmy Lai 57:34 – No I don’t think so, because we are not Red Guards. We Hong Kong resistors resist, you know, the dictatorship of taking away our freedom and rule of law is very unlike, you know, the scenario of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was the power struggle of Mao Zedong to eliminate his enemies. Here Xi Jinping is not eliminating his enemy but eliminating the Hong Kong people. We are not his enemy, but he doesn’t want to hear opposition voice, and that’s why he has to cram us down and eliminate us. We are not his enemy and he is not our enemy, you know our enemy is evil. And when he does evil things, what he does is our enemy, but we don’t treat him as our enemy.
Moderator 58:50 – Yeah, I think the viewers can definitely understand what you’re saying, it’s not the person it’s the policies.
Jimmy Lai 58:57 – Right.
Moderator 58:58 – The next question is: Do you think there are any aspects if Israel or its history that Hong Kongers can emulate?
Jimmy Lai 59:07 – Well I think, yes, we also have a very big diaspora in overseas Chinese community, but a lot of those Chinese community is being brain washed or diluted by the commercial interests of China. But I still think the overseas Chinse community can be a very strong power in support of the people who are fighting for freedom and rule of law in Hong Kong and in China. The same as the Jewish diaspora united together and built their own country. We don’t want to build our own country, we (already) have our own country. We just want to get rid of dictatorship and be a free people of a country that we love.
Moderator 1:00:22 – I see. Here goes the last question for today, and it’s a little bit more of a heartwarming question: I think you’ve said many times you’ve said we have to live day by day, so Jimmy what do you treasure every day now?
Jimmy Lai 59:07 – What I treasure most every day is that I really can do something. I’ve never been able to do something that I’m really now in the position of doing is by holding up my faith and not backing down as a symbol of resistance. So people will be able to look at me as an example of not backing down. And I think this role I really treasure it, it gives me a lot of joy, a lot of happiness, yet a lot of responsibility which I’m very willing to take up because this place has been so wonderful to me, that responsibility is the redemption for all the great things that this place has done to me.