According to a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, freeing political prisoner and Catholic Jimmy Lai may be President Donald Trump’s surest way to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump has previously made his case to receive the prize on the basis that “he has resolved eight wars,” but lasting peace and stability from these deals will take time to determine, William McGurn wrote in the article.
Freeing Lai, the 78-year-old British citizen, publisher, and pro-democracy advocate who was sentenced earlier this month to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court, would be the surefire way for the President to deserve the award, according to McGurn.
“The president’s efforts to free political prisoners may seem less grand, but their success is immediate and undeniable,” he wrote. “Once a prisoner is out, he is out — and the whole world can see for itself.”
Trump could found his claim to the Nobel Prize “on his rather solid record of freeing the unjustly imprisoned around the world,” McGurn posited. “His success in liberating deserving people who would otherwise be rotting away in prison — even if he was motivated only by vanity — suggests he may very well deserve the Nobel.”
This claim would be even stronger if Trump freed Lai — as he promised in his campaign — from prison in Hong Kong, McGurn argued.
McGurn noted that Trump has worked to bring hostages home both in his first and second term, and cited a State Department spokesman who said bringing home Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained internationally has been a priority for the President. Trump has also taken executive action to strengthen legislation that gives the president “the authority to designate countries that wrongfully detain an American and impose consequences,” McGurn wrote.
“That’s important because freeing those unjustly imprisoned hasn’t been a priority for many administrations,” McGurn continued. “First, in an individual’s case, however horribly he’s been treated, he’s only one case. And that case can look small next to the larger conflicts that dominate foreign affairs. Never mind that it doesn’t look that way to the people who are freed — or to their loved ones and admirers.”
Trump will have the opportunity to negotiate with Jinping regarding Lai’s release when he visits Beijing in April, McGurn noted, adding that the meeting will take place as the Nobel Committee examines nominations. Both Lai and Trump have been separately nominated, according to McGurn.
McGurn concluded: “If — against all odds — [Trump] succeeded in springing this champion of human freedom from prison, would anyone say it wasn’t worth a Nobel?”