U.S. President Donald Trump urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai during their meeting in South Korea last week, according to three people familiar with the discussions and a U.S. administration official.
During the meeting, Trump briefly raised Jimmy Lai’s case, voicing concern over the 77-year-old Hong Kong media tycoon’s health following his prolonged national security trial, according to people familiar with the talks.
Officials said Xi acknowledged the issue after Trump suggested that releasing Lai would improve China’s image and help U.S.-China relations.
China’s Crackdown
Trump’s direct intervention comes as Lai awaits a verdict after a trial widely seen as a symbol of China’s crackdown on rights and freedoms in the Asian financial hub under a national security law imposed after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Lai, who founded the now-shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily tabloid newspaper, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.
The U.S. president said ahead of the talks that he planned to raise Lai’s case but neither he nor both sides’ readouts mentioned it afterwards.
Though Lai is a British citizen, his case has been a source of friction between Washington and Beijing, with Trump having said last year during his campaign for the presidency that he would “100%” get Lai out of China.
Broader U.S.-China Talks
Trump hailed the trade-dominated talks with Xi as a success, pointing also to progress on rare earth shipments and promises of “strong action” on the export of chemicals used to produce the highly addictive fentanyl drug. He said tensions over Taiwan never came up in the 90-minute talks in South Korea.
Lai has been held in solitary confinement for more than 1,700 days according to his family and rights groups and is now being held in the maximum security Stanley Prison as he awaits a verdict and sentencing after his trial ended in late August.
(With inputs from Reuters)
