Jimmy Lai, brash Hong Kong publisher, moves to Taiwan

By Arnold Zeitlin
The Freedom Forum Online

01.09.01

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Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai speaks in his Hong Kong office at Apple Daily newspaper Nov. 28, 2000. 'The war of ideas will be fought in Taiwan, and Taiwan media will be very influential with overseas Chinese and people in China,' says Lai.

HONG KONG — The ever-brash and controversial publisher Jimmy Lai, who roiled Hong Kong's news-media scene with his racy Apple Daily newspaper and ad-stuffed Next Magazine, has moved to Taiwan, where he is pursuing fresh publishing ventures in a larger market.

His Hong Kong staff insists he has not abandoned the territory where he made a rags-to-riches climb after being smuggled by boat in 1961 from Macau to Hong Kong. He was then a boy, penniless and alone.

"He'll be coming back regularly," says Kin-ming Liu, general manager of Apple Daily. "He's settled in Taiwan where he will test a Taiwanese-version of Next Magazine."

Lai claims that the 22 million people who live in Taiwan represent a more-promising market for a new magazine than the 7 million people in Hong Kong.

"I don't think the war of ideas will be fought here," Lai, 51, told the Asian Wall Street Journal last month. "It will be fought in Taiwan.

"What comes out of Taiwan in the next decade or so will be very interesting. It will give rise to powerful ideas," he said.

Next Magazine publisher Yeung Wai Hong reflects his boss's view, saying: "Hong Kong is a spent product."

The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's most widely circulated English-language daily, reported that people who know Lai said he would invest $26 million in the Taiwanese version of Next, a slick weekly that offers a mix of gossip, serious investigation, and sex and gore. The combination has made it one of Hong Kong's most popular periodicals.

The Morning Post also quoted an analysis by UBS Warburg that Lai's Apple Daily, Next Magazine and two smaller publications have a combined net asset value of about $500 million.

The investment bank forecast that Next Magazine and Apple Daily will show profits this year of $30 million and $6.2 million, respectively.

Lai made his fortune in the 1980s with a faux Italian-style clothing retailer called Giordano, which Business Week magazine labeled "a poor man's imitation of Gap."

He made his name by publishing Next Magazine. In 1995, Lai introduced Apple Daily. The newspaper followed a formula of blood on Page One, racy columns (including a guide to Kowloon brothels), and earnest coverage of mainland China. Within three years, circulation had climbed to 400,000.

Apple Daily is second in the Hong Kong market to the Oriental Daily News, which claims a circulation of more than 600,000 and which started a tabloid-style daily, the Sun, in an attempt to head off Apple Daily's circulation gains.

The newspapers created a furor among journalists and news-media critics with their intense rivalry and frenzied approach to newsgathering. Their style of journalism encouraged demands for a government-sanctioned press council to protect the public from invasions of privacy. The effort was defeated, but other publishers have since created a voluntary press council, which Apple Daily , the Oriental and the Sun have spurned.

Lai made news late in 1999 when he splashed an apology across the front page of Apple Daily . He expressed regret for Apple Daily's having paid a man about $650 to pose for photographs in bed with two prostitutes. The photographs were published in Apple Daily several days after the man's wife killed herself and her two children, supposedly because she was despondent over his cavorting with prostitutes.

More recently, Apple Daily apologized for carrying an erroneous report that the 34-year-old wife of global media mogul Rupert Murdoch was pregnant with twins. Murdoch married Wendi Deng, his third wife, in 1999.

To Yiuming, an assistant professor of journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University and a columnist for a rival daily, Ming Pao, told the Asian Wall Street Journal that "Apple Daily is the first newspaper to take a serious look at what the readers want. The major problem is trying to find out to what extent the stories are true."

Lai is no stranger to media controversies. In an article published in 1994 in Next Magazine, he termed Chinese Premier Li Peng "the son of a turtle's egg with a zero IQ," an insult that in Chinese has sexual connotations.

Soon after, the Giordano stores in mainland China were forced to close. The company could not get back into the market there until Lai resigned and sold his shares (for a profit that Business Week estimated at $280 million).

Now ensconced in his new Taipei home with his second wife, Theresa, and their two school-age children, Lai told the Morning Post that his move to Taiwan has given his life a "new lift."