Advocates plead: Don’t forget Jimmy Lai

Nearly six years have passed since pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was imprisoned in Hong Kong. His family has been able to see him only on rare occasions since, such as during prison visits and court hearings that culminated in February with a 20-year jail sentence. As advocates continue to call for his release, the Chinese Communist Party maintains a tightening grip on the 78-year-old man in solitary confinement and the city he loves. 

Advocates have previously urged President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Lai with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which Trump has, but to no avail so far. 

The next opportunity to do so could present itself this month, according to the pro-democracy group Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. 

Trump said Nov. 8 that he thinks he will meet with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China Nov. 18-19, according to Reuters. 

According to a Bloomberg report published Nov. 12, Trump “indicated that he is not optimistic about the prospects” of getting Xi to free Lai. 

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation had urged Trump to secure Lai’s release during the visit, noting that bipartisan letters were sent ahead of last year’s APEC meeting that also called for Lai’s freedom. 

Lai’s son thanks America, Trump, for support 

Trump previously raised the question of Lai’s release with the Chinese president during a two-day meeting in China in May but told journalists on the flight back to the U.S. that Xi's response to the request “was not positive.” Trump said that Jinping was “giving very serious consideration” to releasing a jailed Christian pastor named Jin Mingri but indicated that Lai’s case “would be a tough one.” Mingri was released in July. 

The call for Trump to once again raise Lai’s case with Xi's comes as Lai’s family and advocates continue to warn that Lai faces declining health in poor prison conditions. 

In September, Catholic New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan introduced the Jimmy Lai Hong Kong Political Prisoner Accountability Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill that would require the State Department to determine whether abuse, medical neglect, torture, or detention conditions contributed to a political prisoner’s death, identify those responsible, and mandate sanctions against responsible or complicit People’s Republic of China or Hong Kong officials. 

At the time of the bill’s introduction, Sullivan denounced Lai’s 20-year sentence as “appalling” and said Lai was sentenced “simply for exercising his God-given rights and standing up for the people of Hong Kong.”

“He should be released immediately,” Sullivan added. “In the meantime, his sentence must not become a death sentence. Beijing and Hong Kong officials need to understand that how political prisoners are treated matters — and that a death caused by abuse, neglect, or inhumane conditions will bring real consequences.”

Smith and Sullivan co-chair the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which held a hearing Sept. 16 where Lai’s son Sebastien spoke out on his father’s behalf and thanked U.S. officials for their support of Lai. 

“I want to thank America, President Trump, who has been a true champion of my father’s, his administration, and the senators and members of both parties whose support has never wavered and only gotten stronger. This is moral courage and my family does not take it for granted,” Sebastien said. 

He later noted that his father is the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong, and added, “If he’s not freed soon, he will most likely die in prison.”

From billionaire to ‘white martyr’

Sebastien also highlighted that his father had given up much in defense of democracy in Hong Kong, something also pointed out this month by papal biographer George Weigel. Underscoring Lai’s witness of courage and faith amid years of suffering and loss, Weigel described Lai as “Catholicism’s most prominent white martyr today.”

“And given that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping seems terrified by him, Jimmy’s white martyrdom could lead to red martyrdom,” Weigel wrote in a Nov. 4 op-ed for First Things. “For despite efforts by the Trump administration to secure his release, this fearless witness to the truths the gospel teaches about human dignity and authentic freedom might die in prison — a fate he knew was a possibility when he stayed in Hong Kong to fight Chinese communist tyranny rather than relocate to Great Britain, where he holds citizenship.”

In the years before his arrest, at the height of his entrepreneurial career, Lai was a billionaire. The success was a culmination of years of effort after he fled by boat from China to Hong Kong at age 12 and pursued entrepreneurial work in the manufacturing industry, according to his daughter, Claire. 

The newspaper Lai founded, which became the largest independent media outlet in Hong Kong, has been referred to by some as “a conscience for the people,” Claire told CatholicVote Vice President of Advocacy Joshua Mercer in a Feb. 9 interview just after her father’s sentencing. It was, in a way, like giving citizens their freedom, Claire explained, noting her father founded Apple Daily “because he believed that by giving information to people who yearned for it, he was allowing them to exercise their agency.” 

Lai: A new law made it impossible to run an independent media

Lai was arrested in 2020 and imprisoned in December of that year, as the CCP sought to crackdown on democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong amid impositions of controversial “national security” measures, as Zeale News reported. Lai was convicted on “one charge of conspiring to publish seditious materials and two charges of colluding with foreign forces.” Lai maintained his innocence of all charges throughout the prosecution. 

He also maintained, however, that the national security law encroached on the operation of Apple Daily, which he argued had been reporting facts for Hong Kong citizens, not engaging in political activity. 

“Under the national security law, there is no way for us to run an independent media,” Lai said during a November 2024 hearing. “Also, subsequent events proved that I was right.”

During the testimony at the CECC’s hearing, Sebastien explained that the Chinese government imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, “criminalizing overnight any form of democratic expressions, past and present.” In deciding whether to stay in Hong Kong or run, Lai had much to lose and protect by staying, Sebastien said. 

“He stayed for our beliefs, and he stayed to protect others,” Sebastien said. 

The Hong Kong government shut down Apple Daily in 2021, after national security authorities froze its assets, and arrested several of the Apple Daily’s staff and managers, Amnesty International related. 

Lai’s daughter Claire told Mercer that the “seditious publications” were essentially “just any kind of publication that is critical of the government.” Lai published what Claire described as “normal armchair commentary” about current international events, such as the closing of a Chinese embassy in Dallas, Texas, and a doctor’s concern about COVID-19 in China. 

Family suffering, Christian responsibility, and the risk of not standing up for liberty 

During his testimony at the CECC’s hearing, Sebastien shared that his sister Claire was diagnosed with cancer and that he was with her as she began chemotherapy treatment just the week before. 

Lai, however, “learned of his own daughter's diagnosis from a maximum-security prison,” Sebastien said. “He can’t hold her hand. She wants nothing more than to have him with her for this fight.” He expressed hope that the Chinese authorities will consider what Lai’s release would mean for Claire and Lai, “who has already suffered enough.” 

Weigel noted in his op-ed that Claire’s initial weeks of chemotherapy coincided with Pope Leo XIV’s lung surgery. Claire wrote to Weigel at the beginning of her chemotherapy, sharing that she is praying for Pope Leo’s healing. 

Amid this witness of faith and charity, Weigel described the Lais as a “White Martyr Family” and urged Christians to pray for them. 

“Intensifying prayer for Jimmy’s liberation from bondage is an obligation of Christian solidarity. So is intensifying prayer for Jimmy Lai’s family, who, like Jimmy, are living a slow-motion white martyrdom with extraordinary courage and grace,” Weigel wrote. “It cannot be easy for Jimmy’s wife, Teresa, or their children, Sebastien, Augustine, and Claire. They, too, are suffering greatly.”

Sebastien has long advocated internationally for Lai, warning of poor prison conditions and inadequate access to the sacraments. He said at the September hearing that it would be a disgrace if Lai dies in prison and emphasized that persistence in the case is needed. 

“What happens now is no longer a test of my father’s courage, it is a test of ours,” Sebastien told the U.S. lawmakers. “America understands that freedom dies with the last man willing to defend it, and the cost of not standing up for liberty is not felt until it is too late.”

>> Son of Catholic Chinese dissident Jimmy Lai says freeing his father is ‘humanitarian issue’ <<