With the city’s protests showing no signs of slowing, Lai said that China would have little choice but to intervene using forces currently stockpiled in the adjacent mainland city of Shenzhen – a move that would trigger an unprecedented international response that could bring down the Chinese government.
“That will be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre and that will bring in the whole world against China,” Lai told Bloomberg TV on Friday from his home in the city’s Kowloon area.
If the US were to decide to withdraw Hong Kong’s special trading status in the wake of such an intervention, it would spell disaster, he added.
“Hong Kong will be done, and I think China will be done too.”
The US is currently Hong Kong’s third-largest trading partner, with two-way commerce worth US$38 billion last year or about 5.3% of the city’s total.
Lai, 70, spoke a day after his home was attacked by two masked men who threw firebombs at its gate before fleeing, according to local Cable TV news. Lai, who met in July with several senior Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, has been labelled a traitor by Chinese state media.
One publication referred to Lai as a “running dog” of the US and a conduit for “black money,” without elaborating. Last month, he was also one of the senior Hong Kong democrats labelled by Chinese state media as a new “Gang of Four” as Beijing seeks to assign blame for the largely leaderless protest movement.
Unlike other tycoons who have sought to distance themselves from pro-democracy protests that have rocked the Asian financial hub for three months, Lai has embraced them. His publications have championed the movement, which began over opposition to legislation that would have allowed extraditions to the mainland and has since widened into a protest against Beijing’s increasing grip on the city.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam withdrew the contentious extradition bill this week, a move pro-democracy activists and some lawmakers have dismissed as “too little, too late.” Lai said that had Lam withdrawn the bill after the first mass protest march in early June, Hong Kong could have avoided months of turbulence.
“If she withdrew it, nothing would have happened in the last three months and I think that the whole thing would calm down,” he said. “But in these three months we realised that unless we have assurance of universal suffrage, we will always have constant encroachment on our freedom.”
Lai said Hong Kong protesters wouldn’t let up until they achieved direct leadership elections, something Beijing has no intention of conceding.
Protests are planned again this weekend, including a Saturday “stress test” of airport transport.
“A lot of young people in this movement are prepared to die,” he said. “This movement is not just a movement of resistance against dictatorship. It is a movement of martyrdom.”
Lai said he wasn’t bothered by the “Gang of Four” label.
“I don’t care what they call me,” Lai said. “I’m not going to be subdued by fear because I’ve since determined not to think about fear, to let fear frighten me.”