MEDIA tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested at his Kowloon mansion by Hong Kong police today and officers raided the headquarters of his Next Digital group, seizing boxes of what they said was evidence showing that the territory’s new security law had been breached.

Dubbed the “Rupert Murdoch of Asia” for his combination of a vast media empire and neoconservative politics, Mr Lai was charged with collusion with foreign powers, according to his aide Mark Simon, a former US naval intelligence officer and one-time head of the Hong Kong branch of US Republicans Abroad.

Mr Lai met US Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last year to discuss US actions over Hong Kong and has a long history of funding opposition groups, with hacked emails dating from 2014 revealing donations amounting to 40 million Hong Kong dollars (over £3m) to a variety of groups and individuals hostile to the Chinese government, including Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen and Lee Cheuk-yan, general secretary of the part US-funded Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.

Next Digital publishes the Apple Daily newspaper, which has given loud support to anti-China protests that have rocked the city for over a year and ran a front-page open letter to US President Donald Trump in May, calling on him to intervene to “save Hong Kong” from Beijing. It also attracted controversy for running racist adverts branding mainland visitors “locusts” in 2012.

China announced sanctions against 11 US politicians and organisations today, including senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, known for their advocacy of regime change against left-wing governments.

The number exactly matches the number of Hong Kong and Chinese figures sanctioned by Washington last week.