Lai Chee Ying
Lai Chee Ying (
Chinese: 黎智英;
Cantonese ,
Jyutping: lai4 zi3 jing1;
Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Zhìyīng, born in 1948 in
Guangzhou,
Guangdong with family roots in
Shunde,
Guangdong),
English name
Jimmy Lai, is the founder of
Next Media, a
Hong Kong publisher best known for
Apple Daily. Born in
Guangzhou,
Guangdong, a
poverty-stricken Lai came to
Hong Kong during the
Chinese Civil War. He became relatively
wealthy, after founding the
Giordano clothes chain.
After the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 he founded
Next Magazine. He has been a controversial critic of the
People's Republic of China government. In a 1994 newspaper column, he told
Premier of the PRC Li Peng to "drop dead," and called the
Communist Party of China, "a monopoly that charges a premium for lousy service". As a result, his publications are mostly banned in the rest of the People's Republic of China, causing him to leave Giordano in order to save its business in mainland China. The hostility the PRC has towards Lai has further increased his publicity, if not popularity.
Lai is best known for introducing reader-centric philosophy and
paparazzi into the newspaper business in Hong Kong. The best selling magazine
Next Magazine and the newspaper
Apple Daily, contain both racy material and
academic articles, which attract a wide range of readers and amazingly, many of whom are also critics. In 2000, Lai moved to
Taiwan to oversee the startup operations for Next Media's Taiwan editions, which have also had a great impact on the Taiwanese media. It now runs the most popular newspaper (Apple Daily Taiwan) and most popular magazine (Next Magazine Taiwan) on the island.
During the late 1990s, he started the Internet-based grocery and electronics home delivery service, adMart, which incurred large losses and failed.
Lai now lives in Hong Kong.
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Columbia Journalism Review profile
