‘An English-speaking Mao Zedong’｜Lee Yee
In mid-November, a friend of mine, a youngster, texted me: “He’s really stingy.” I replied: “It’s OK! Even though we have been holding different views for years, he has been putting up with my audacity.”
Since we met because of June 4 at a dinner with other pro-democracy movement figures, we have been acquainted with each other for more than 30 years, during which we had frequent dealings and contact with one another for a number of years. Asked by him about how much money was needed for running a magazine, I, the operator of The 90s, a business with small capital, told him to put in ten times of mine for a weekly publication. In the end, he invested a hundred times of it in running the most influential magazine that cornered the market in town. Later on, he founded a newspaper which also changed the media ecology in Hong Kong, initiating an unprecedented market setting all at once.
Inspired by the democracy movement in Beijing to switch to another line of work, he surely did it for his compassion for China. I used to have it myself, and it stayed strong until June 4, after which I merely hoped for the indigenous values of Hong Kong to be preserved. In light of the Handover being imperative under the circumstances, to get the democratization of Hong Kong moving seemed to be the only way out, though I reckoned the chance of success was slender as well.
In terms of our beliefs in freedom, democracy and the rule of law, there hasn’t been much difference between us. As to our outlooks on the prospect of democracy of China and Hong Kong, I have always been pessimistic while he has always taken the opposite view. It is understandable because pessimism is never an obstacle to my writing while it is to an operation of such a big media business.
In 2005, I was invited by him to become a writer-turned-editor in charge of the opinion page. He promised me back then he would never meddle in my editorial orientation. As I recommended on purpose a commentator who had fallen foul of the paper, he consented without hesitation. It’s a shame that I was finally turned down by that commentator.
From being an editor to being fired nine years later, from writing editorials to writing a column, I have been disagreeing with him on a number of issues over the last decade: localists versus pro-Greater China camp, freedom of discussion about independence, evaluation of the youths and the valiant, support for or criticisms of the pan-democratic alliance, “conspiracy theories” in all previous elections… But as my boss, he has been putting up with me, delivering to me his opposite viewpoints through somebody else. And he never hampered me from publishing articles I showed him in advance that bluntly criticized him.
With his compassion for Greater China, opening up of China was definitely appealing to him. As far as I know, China did try quite a number of times to take him in in its united front work. There was an occasion that one of his good friends met him in Taiwan, saying to him that he was invited by the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) to pay a visit to China, that he was to be allowed to run newspapers there about everything – entertainments, sports and the society, except for politics, and that in view of the growing economy of China, he would earn a big fortune. No sooner had he finished listening to it than he called the security guards to send the guest off. Later, he explained to me why he did it so abruptly instead of euphemizing. He said he was actually afraid of not being able to resist the enticement, and that he would abstain from the principle of distancing himself from the power. Listening to the story about his being aware he would get feeble, I admired him in all sincerity.
At whiles I just think he displeased the CCP not because of his words and deeds, but the fact that he couldn’t tell good from bad. Who couldn’t be bought off? Not least he’s just a businessman. That was just so riling!
When the publication began in Taiwan, I was told that according to the tacit business regulation in Taiwan, kickbacks had to be given to those who were empowered to do ad placements from the clients’ side. Yet the boss disapproved of it, which made things difficult for the staff in the advertising department. I asked him why he couldn’t bend the rule a little. He said as we kept laying bare under-the-table deals among politicians and businessmen, it was hard to justify ourselves if we also engaged in the same dirty deals. He is really somebody who insists on complying with laws, attaches importance to rules and ethics. Whenever I think of such a person being imprisoned, I feel sorrowful about him and the society.
It has been more than a year since last time I got in touch with him that he gave me a call asking me to stop writing my memoir for a few days to talk about the anti-extradition movement in my column in March last year. That was the only time he has ever suggested a writing topic for me. I agreed for I was going to do the same thing.
The youngsters in touch with me have always been discontent with him and his paper because of a lot of events over more than a decade, but I have always told them to take a look at a bigger picture. He is said to be an English-speaking Mao Zedong in the newsroom. Maybe it’s true. Mao’s merits and demerits aside, his manifest stubbornness and insane words and deeds showed he was somebody that would achieve something big. Winston Churchill was also an eccentric and moody person, but he did a marvelous feat against all odds. It seems Trump belongs to the same category, so does he.
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