“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” I found myself returning again and again to that cold-hearted quotation, widely attributed to Joseph Stalin, as I read Mark L. Clifford’s stunning new biography of Jimmy Lai, The Troublemaker, How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.

Oh, Lai is not dead yet — indeed, he’s very much alive. But, at 77, he spends what could be the last days of his life on trial under Hong Kong’s draconian national security law and kept in solitary confinement in a Hong Kong prison cell. His crime? As Clifford puts it, “engaging in behavior that would be regarded as normal political activity in any open society.” He shares this distinction with nearly 2,000 political prisoners now held in Hong Kong. Once convicted — not if, as this is, by all accounts, a show trial — he faces a possible life sentence.