Asia Watch / The Jimmy Lai Story

...When Deng Xiaoping sent the tanks rumbling in, he was shocked...

...And that's what we give them...

...And a price...

...The American Spectator November 1994 53 But mostly what makes Jimmy different is that he has been virtually alone in realizing the implications of a nascent middle class...

...Sometimes they are too much even for him...

...Cantonese is an earthy language, and Jimmy uses it well...

...Chris Patten's controversial push for more democracy ("the only area where I agreed with him"), Jimmy's espousal of truly free markets puts him at odds with both Big Government democrats and an old-boy network of fat cats who together control the Hong Kong political landscape...

...My God," he adds, shaking his head, "some of these guys are the type who will ask the girl to go to bed with them even before they have bought her dinner...

...These days in Hong Kong, there is much to excite Jimmy's own passions, especially its own little road to serfdom...

...What admirers and detractors alike have missed is that in Jimmy's mind there is no contradiction between the two operations...

...Big businessmen toady to China on politics and have no intention of breaking up the cartels that exist in areas like banking, while on the democratic side Martin Lee (whom Jimmy admires and calls a "saint") presides over a party that pushes for democracy but debilitates its message with a platform that would raise taxes, increase public spending, and regulate anything in sight...

...There seemed to be nothing between Christian Dior and the street stalls of Mongkok for the average Joe...

...brand-new Giordano shop in Peking would be closed until it straightened out "licensing difficulties...

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...Everything about it is different...

...Many are the self-made men who have cornered markets but few claim to have read all of Hayek, introduced to him by a Jewish lawyer during a stint in New York's garment district...

...Within days China's Foreign Trade Ministry informed Jimmy that his William McGurn is senior editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review...

...Not all, however, admired his pluck—he has not retracted a word of his column—and in business circles (including his own Giordano's board) many could not understand why a man whose company was aiming to sell in China could not keep his big mouth shut...

...He doesn't understand the why, and so he will never lead...

...In fact, what Jimmy says he finds most attractive about reading Hayek is not so much the truth Hayek reveals but "the passion for truth" that comes across on each page...

...But this is no leisured mandarin...

...Back in 1989, he impulsively printed up 25,000 T-shirts in support of those demonstrating in Peking and donated the proceeds to the cause...

...n a place where rags-to-riches stories are common coin, Jimmy CheeYing Lai's rise from a penniless, grade-school dropout who started out sleeping on the cutting tables of a local glove factory to become a retail and publishing magnate worth an estimated $250 million wouldn't merit a second glance...

...The global information movement, he believes, is giving individuals the edge over government, and even Hong Kong's encroaching welfare state will find it hard to triumph over the unparalleled Chinese ability to evade taxes and thwart regulation...

...Almost overnight Jimmy found himself a media sensation, especially in the Western press...

...On the whole, Jimmy thinks, cold British colonialism, with its emphasis on minimal government, was less a threat than Governor Patten's welfarism...

...The copier knows only how to follow," he says...

...I half expect Robin Leach and his camera crew to haul alongside any moment...

...We have more to fear from a Britain that loves Hong Kong than one that didn't think we were worthy of socialism...

...But even by the individualistic standards of entrepreneurs, Jimmy is different...

...I tell my people to think of ourselves like the Mormon Church," he says...

...CI The American Spectator November 1994 55...

...y et Jimmy remains an optimist...

...At a time when virtually all Hong Kong publications are trimming their editorial sails to the chilly winds from Peking, the attacks on Jimmy by Communist officials and Hong Kong triads alike have only boosted his credibility...

...In 1986, he made a critical decision, not so much to bring Giordano down to the masses but to bring the masses up to Giordano...

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...A computerized inventory system reduces overhead and keeps shelves stocked with what moves fast...

...this on top of the Molotov cocktail hurled over the front gate of his house and smashing up of Next magazine offices last year...

...Even China seems to have come around, hailing Giordano's as a "model" foreign enterprise, though it took Jimmy's resignation as chairman to do it...

...Service is as much on sale as the clothing: In contrast to the sullen salesgirls that have become a fixture at most Hong Kong shops, Giordano's customers find a staff eager to help...

...Today trade and liberalization of the global market is exposing them to more and more, and the more exposure you have the more you learn about real value...

...It used to be that there were only two kinds of people in Asia," says Jimmy, "the very rich and the very poor...

...But their assumptions derived from ignorance...

...Local mobsters aren't the only ones with a beef...

...For Chinese...

...Not exactly how Hayek (or a Mormon) would put it, but even that may be deceiving...

...Lesser minds have taken this earthiness and lack of formal education as a sign of ignorance, but then again people thought Ronald Reagan stupid too...

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...Much of this relies on high-risk trips into the mainland by its Hong Kong reporters, all of whom are well aware of the Ming Pao correspondent now serving twelve years in prison after publishing some rather ordinary statistics on gold reserves and interest rates that somehow offended Li Peng...

...But Jimmy doesn't worry...

...Like Reagan, Jimmy expresses himself on complex issues in a way that people immediately respond to, whether its the dangers of social security (a frequent Jimmy target) or the evils of Communism (e.g., his column on Li Peng...

...Nor does he fit into any neat political category: while he supported Gov...

...Characteristically, he called it Next, because it was his next project...

...As with Reagan, this is most likely because he has thought them out for himself...

...They thought the more prestigious and expensive the label, the better the value...

...I didn't know it then, but Giordano was already changing that...

...As we sailed out of Victoria Harbour, a Jimmy Lai column calling premier Li Peng a "turtle egg" (a grievous insult in Chinese, having to do with a turtle's apparently uncertain parentage) that had just hit the streets was about to explode into the headlines...

...Both are cut from the same cloth: the rise of an Asian middle class...

...I f Giordano's 250-plus outlets across Asia are any clue, people are learning fast...

...There's a market for an honest voice," he says...

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...A friend remembers him crying...

...Although the stores themselves had been up and running since 1980—Jimmy took the name from a pizzeria he had known in New York—the Giordano concept didn't shake itself out until much trial and error, and for the first few years it was just another pretentious local boutique...

...And he thinks more of us should do the same...

...These are people who want things now, are impatient for information...

...Soon he resolved to start a magazine that would give these new Chinese a voice...

...Just before I left Hong Kong the first time, back in April 1989, I looked at the construction at yet another luxury hotel-cum-shopping complex and wondered just how many Gucci bags and Rolex watches Hong Kong people (and visiting Japanese tourists) could absorb...

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...Giordano's casual wear would INIIM IBM MOVING...

...Hong Kong people have always been label conscious," says Jimmy, who at 46 years old was born one year before Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China...

...In mid-September, after the flap over his column had supposedly died down, Giordano's Peking branch received another closure notice from authorities...

...Up on the rooftop deck, with the sea wind in their hair, Jimmy and his guests exchange Hong Kong talk over cups of coffee: Chris Patten, 1997, China, democracy, MFN, etc...

...If you send out a beautiful blonde to ring doorbells, you are going to have a better chance of getting people to listen to you...

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...But information and global trade have brought about a middle class, which is arevolutionary thing in this part of the world...

...The idea came to him after Tiananmen Square...

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...like Giordano this has now been copied by rivals...

...Unfortunately, there is no one in politics for the Giordano class...

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...In the main cabin just below, wife Teresa, seven months pregnant but lithe and graceful, oversees a breakfast spread that ranges from smoked salmon and sweet buns to caviar and Dom Perignon...

...Typically, Jimmy looks at all the fuss as an opportunity: next year he will launch a new Chinese daily, which he intends to call Apple because it is both tempting and wholesome...

...0 Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues—$35) 0 Payment enclosed 0 Bill me later Zip•combine the simplicity of McDonald's, the color and flair of Benneton, and the price and quality of Marks and Spenser...

...Although firmly committed to free men and free minds—its editorials come from Yeung Wai Hong, the Bob Bartley of South China—Jimmy insists that they don't preach, and news is soft and oriented toward stories people are interested in: organized crime, lives of the famous, exposés of life in China from prostitution syndicates and the black market in babies to the grim sweatshops of Guongdong...

...But not for long...

...Again it has scored a number of firsts, including being published in two separate sections that gives vendors a choice of cover to put on the outside...

...In Hong Kong alone there are now forty-four shops, and at about $3,000 per square foot in sales, Giordano is arguably Hong Kong's most successful retailer...

...So successful has Giordano's been that it now has spawned a host of clones (Bossini, U2, G2000), all marketing along more or less the same lines...

...It might at first seem a stretch to move from sportswear to publishing, but for Jimmy it was a logical step: he's after the same people...

...At 6 foot-plus and a burly 200 pounds or so, Jimmy even looks different, usually found, as I find him today, in Giordano jeans, a casual white shirt, navy suspenders, and cotton shoes...

...That's all there is to it...

...Only a few weeks earlier, in retaliation for an exposé about Chinese organized crime that appeared in Next, the magazine he founded, triad goons smashed windows, jammed locks, and threw red paint at more than two dozen of Jimmy's Giordano clothing outlets...

...T oday Next is Hong Kong's most popular magazine, with 180,000 circulation and expected profits this year of about $12 million...

...We can't have long-faced guys murmuring about God and expect people to open the door for them...

...With 1997 approaching, he believes that the overriding need is for smaller govThe American Spectator November 1994 Name (Please Print): Address: City: State: Date of change: L. 54 ernment, both to reduce China's potential power over Hong Kong people and reduce the opportunities for corruption...