The Troublemaker

How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic

By Mark L. Clifford

About The Book

The “extraordinary life story” (Publishers Weekly) of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist fighting for freedom of speech who became China’s most famous political prisoner.

Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled and often slept overnight on a table in a clothing factory where he did odd jobs. At twenty-one, he was running a factory. By his mid-twenties, he owned one and was supplying sweaters and shirts to some of the biggest brands in the United States, from Polo to The Limited. His ideas about retail led him to create Giordano in 1981, and with it “fast fashion.” A restless entrepreneur, as Giordano prepared to go public, he was thinking about a dining concept that would disrupt Hong Kong’s fast-food industry. But then came the Tiananmen Square democracy protest and the massacre of 1989.

His reaction to the violence was to enter the media industry to push China toward more freedoms. He started a magazine, Next, to advocate for democracy in Hong Kong. Then, just two years before the city was to return to Chinese control, he founded the Apple Daily newspaper. Its mix of bold graphics, gossip, local news, and opposition to the Chinese Communist Party was an immediate hit. For more than two decades, Lai used Apple and Next as part of a personal push for democracy—in weekly columns, at rallies and marches, and, memorably, sitting in front of a tent during the 2014 Occupy Central movement.

Lai took his activism abroad, traveling frequently to Washington. China reacted with fury in 2019 when he met with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A draconian new security law came into effect in Hong Kong in mid-2020, effectively making human rights advocacy and free speech a crime and censorship a fact. Lai was arrested and held without bail before being convicted on trumped-up charges. At the end of 2023, a lengthy national security trial, that could see him jailed for life, alleged “collusion with foreign forces” and printing seditious materials. China’s most famous political prisoner has been held in solitary confinement since December 2020, while his supporters and family continue the fight to have him freed. “A sympathetic and inspiring biography” (The Wall Street Journal) and “a genuinely gripping yarn” (The New York Times), The Troublemaker is his story.

About The Author

David G. McIntyre, ZUMA Press
Mark L. Clifford

Mark L. Clifford is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, an NGO dedicated to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law for the people of Hong Kong. Previously, he was executive director of the Hong Kong–based Asia Business Council, and a board director at Next Digital, the Hong Kong media giant founded and majority-owned by Jimmy Lai. During his twenty-eight years in Hong Kong, he served as editor-in-chief of both English-language newspapers, the South China Morning Post and The Standard, of which he was also publisher. He holds a PhD in Hong Kong history from the University of Hong Kong. Clifford has won numerous journalism, academic, and book awards, and is the author of Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China’s Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Free Press (December 3, 2024)
  • Length: 288 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781668027714

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Raves and Reviews

“A gripping biography of an extraordinary man.”

– Ha Jin, author of the National Book Award–winning Waiting

“As this brilliant biography shows, Lai is a beacon for all of us in the West.”

– Bill Browder, New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice and Freezing Order

"In reading about Lai’s life, one finds it difficult not to feel inspired by a man of boundless generosity and fearlessness, whom even prison cannot truly contain."

– Foreign Affairs

“In Mark Clifford’s skillful, wise telling, the story of Jimmy Lai is the story of contemporary China itself—the clash between a visionary individual and an unyielding state.”

– Evan Osnos, author of the National Book Award–winning Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

"A sympathetic and inspiring biography. . . . Prison was the only way this irrepressible—no, magnificently stubborn—man could be silenced."

– Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal

“The Troublemaker recounts the vertiginous rise and fall of Hong Kong’s most famous tycoon-turned-political prisoner. . . . [Clifford] has written a compelling biography and shows an eye for detail."

– The Economist

"Lai’s journey — from an impoverished childhood in China’s southern Guangdong province during the Chinese civil war era to becoming one of Hong Kong’s richest men — is a genuinely gripping yarn."

– Kevin Peraino, The New York Times

"Fascinating. . . . Clifford skillfully sketches the life of a remarkable man, weaving it through the tragic history of Hong Kong."

– Dan Blumenthal, The Washington Free Beacon

"An extraordinary life story—from rags to riches to political prisoner—sheds light on Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy in this rousing biography. . . . An appealing portrait of a colorful, ebullient figure full of charm and moxie who in prison becomes near-saintly, enduring persecution with patient humility. It’s a spirited profile in defiance."

– Publishers Weekly

"Through conversations with Lai and those who know him best, Clifford portrays a man equal parts mythical and ordinary, who has poured his considerable resources into opposing an oppressive regime—at great personal cost."

– Rishi Iyengar, Foreign Policy

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The Troublemaker

How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic

By Mark L. Clifford
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