Trump Plans to Press Xi to Free Jimmy Lai
President Trump said in a recent interview that he plans to press Xi Jinping to free jimmy lai when he heads to Beijing to meet with the Chinese president. Lai, the 78-year-old founder of Apple Daily, has been held in near-constant solitary confinement for five years.
The interview put Lai’s case inside a high-level U.S.-China meeting where trade and economic cooperation are also at stake. The article argues that Trump, Secretary Rubio, and others in the administration should treat political prisoners as central to success at the summit.
Jimmy Lai and Beijing
Trump said he would raise the case directly, using the meeting with Xi to push for Lai’s release. The interview quote was blunt: “he plans to press Xi to free famed Hong Konger, Jimmy Lai.”
Lai’s detention is described as a violation of international law and as a cruel and unjust punishment for an elderly man in poor health. The story’s core claim is straightforward: if Beijing wants continued access to U.S. markets and economic cooperation, the U.S. has leverage at the summit.
Other political prisoners
The same push should extend beyond Lai, the article says. It names Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur doctor with 24 American family members who want her freed and reunited with her family in the U.S., and Ezra Jin Mingri, a Chinese Christian pastor whose American citizen daughter and two sons want to reunite with their father.
The article also says the U.S. could use sanctions, tariffs, and prisoner swaps to secure releases. That puts the issue in the realm of bargaining, not symbolism: the case is presented as one of several concrete asks Trump can carry into Beijing.
Trump and Marco Rubio
The pressure campaign is not limited to the president alone. The article says Secretary Rubio and others in the administration should see political prisoners as central to success at the summit, making Lai’s release part of a broader diplomatic test.
For Lai’s family and the families of Abbas and Jin Mingri, the next step is whether Trump turns the interview promise into a direct demand in Beijing. The meeting with Xi is the moment that will show whether those names are treated as a side issue or a central one.
