President Trump is heading to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping, and he says one of the names he plans to raise is Jimmy Lai. In a recent interview before the trip, Trump said he would press Xi to free the 78-year-old founder of the pro-democracy news outlet Apple Daily.
Lai has been held in near-constant solitary confinement for the past five years. His case has become a measure of whether Washington is willing to turn its words about human rights into action when the stakes are highest, and Trump’s remarks put it at the center of a summit that could otherwise be dominated by trade and security.
The pressure on Beijing over Lai would not stand alone. The argument being made is that the United States should also push for the release of other high-profile political prisoners detained across China, including Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas and Chinese Christian pastor Ezra Jin Mingri. Abbas has 24 American family members who want to see her freed and reunited with her family in the United States, while Jin has an American citizen daughter and two sons who want to be reunited with him.
The case against Lai is framed in stark terms: the article describes his detention as a violation of international law and a cruel and unjust punishment for an elderly man in poor health. It also argues that the United States has leverage because China wants continued access to U.S. markets and economic cooperation, and that sanctions, tariffs and prisoner swaps are all tools that could be used to seek releases.
That is why the source behind the appeal says Trump, Secretary Rubio and others in the administration should treat political prisoners as central to any success at the summit. The administration has shown before that it can use negotiations to secure releases, including the freeing of Israeli hostages from Gaza and the release of political prisoners from Venezuela and Belarus.
For Lai, the trip to Beijing is another chance for a powerful government to decide whether his name is a bargaining chip or a moral test. For the White House, it is a question of whether the president follows through when the person he says he will press Xi to free is an elderly publisher who has spent five years alone.
