(AFP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping suggested that imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai is unlikely to be released, US President Donald Trump said Friday.
Asked about the fate of political prisoners in China following a high-stakes summit in Beijing, Trump said that Xi would “strongly” consider the release of a pastor of an underground church, but that freeing Lai was a “tough one for him to do.” Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, Trump said of Lai’s fate: “I did bring him up, it’s a tougher one for him, it’s a tougher one.” Trump added: “He told me, Jimmy Lai is a tough one for him to do.”
Lai, the 78-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was found guilty in December on charges of foreign collusion and seditious publication and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence was the harshest penalty doled out so far under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019 and received international condemnation.
Trump added Friday that Xi promised, “He’s going to strongly consider the pastor,” referring to Jin Mingri, the founder of a prominent Chinese underground church detained in October in a sweeping national crackdown. Jin founded the unregistered Zion Church in 2007 in Beijing. It grew to 1,500 members before shuttering in 2018 under pressure from Chinese authorities. But the church maintained an online presence that flourished during the Covid pandemic, amassing a following across 40 Chinese cities.
Jin was arrested on October 10 on “suspicion of the illegal use of information networks.” Eric Lai, senior fellow at Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said that while it was clear that Jimmy Lai’s case was not a priority at the summit, it was still significant that Trump raised it.
“Obviously, the CCP does not compromise on its perception of regime security and they have never changed their attitudes and positioning towards Jimmy Lai and his imprisonment,” he said, referring to China’s Communist Party. “That said, it is also evident that international attention and internal pressure in US society remains essential to the US government keeping an agenda on Jimmy Lai alongside other political prisoners in China,” he added.
© 2024 AFP
