Reuters on Thursday cited “three people briefed on the talks and a U.S. administration official” who said President Donald Trump asked Chinese dictator Xi Jinping to release imprisoned Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai when the two leaders met in South Korea last week.
“Trump did not discuss a specific deal to free Lai but spoke more broadly about concerns surrounding the 77-year-old publishing mogul’s health and well-being after his lengthy trial on national security charges,” Reuters reported.
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“President Trump brought up Jimmy Lai’s case, just as he said he would. Both President Trump and President Xi engaged in the discussion that followed,” said the Trump administration official quoted in the report.
Trump’s pitch was that releasing Lai, who is viewed around the world as a political prisoner, would be “good for U.S.-China relations and beneficial for China’s image.”
According to all sources, the conversation about Lai lasted for less than five minutes and produced no firm response from Xi. Neither the U.S. nor China mentioned Lai in their official summaries of the Trump-Xi meeting, and neither side was willing to confirm the conversation occurred when Reuters asked for comment.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Liu Pengyu, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning both repeated Beijing’s standard line that Lai is a duly convicted criminal, and outsiders should not attempt to interfere with Hong Kong’s justice system.
Liu claimed Lai’s “crimes” have “gravely undermined Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” while Mao accused Lai of organizing seditious “anti-China riots.”
Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, now 77 years old, is a Hong Kong businessman and media entrepreneur who founded a popular pro-democracy newspaper called Apple Daily.
Lai was an outspoken advocate of political and religious freedom, and Apple Daily became a major thorn in the side of China’s increasingly authoritarian puppet government in Hong Kong.
China violated its “Basic Law” agreement with the United Kingdom in 2020 to impose a harsh “national security law” on Hong Kong, in a successful bid to crush the enormous pro-democracy uprising that began in 2019.
The national security law criminalized almost all criticism of the Chinese Communist government, and established stiff penalties for anyone accused of “colluding” with foreign powers – putting very sharp fangs on Beijing’s paranoid insistence that the pro-democracy movement was a creation of the United States and other Western powers.
Lai was arrested at his home in Hong Kong in August 2020 and charged with “colluding with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.” In 2021, he was sentenced to 14 months in prison for his involvement with the pro-democracy protests.
Subsequent trials heaped more and more prison time onto his sentence, including a particularly absurd conviction for “unauthorized assembly” because he dared to attend a rally for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in 2019.
In 2022, the government piled on five more years of prison time, and hefty fines for allegedly violating the terms of the lease on Apple Daily’s offices. Apple Daily was driven out of business and liquidated in 2021 using charges of “foreign collusion” under the national security law.
Jimmy Lai’s son, Sebastien, has petitioned the United Nations (U.N.) to intervene on his father’s behalf, noting that much of his imprisonment has consisted of solitary confinement, despite chronic health conditions including diabetes and a heart condition.
In 2024, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Lai was unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, in violation of his fundamental human rights, and demanded his immediate release. China ignored the U.N.’s findings and demands.
Lai holds British citizenship, but the U.K. government has done little to secure his release, according to human rights and press freedom advocates.
Sebastien Lai thanked President Trump for his effort on his father’s behalf in a statement released soon after the Trump-Xi meeting.
“I am so incredibly grateful that the president discussed my father’s case. Knowing President Trump’s reputation as the liberator in chief, I pray that his continued support and commitment will convince President Xi to free my father before it is too late,” he said.
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