Trump ‘not optimistic’ for Jimmy Lai after Xi talks

U.S. President Donald Trump raised the case of imprisoned Hong Kong democracy activist Jimmy Lai during talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but Xi described it as “a tough one,” Trump said.

Family and supporters of the 78-year-old British citizen had hoped Trump could help secure Lai’s release.

Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February under a national security law imposed by Beijing.

The media tycoon, a prominent figure in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, was arrested in 2020 during a crackdown following massive anti-government protests.

Lai’s legal team says he has health problems, raising fears he may die in custody.

Speaking aboard Air Force One as he returned from a two-day visit to China, Trump said he believed Xi was seriously considering freeing a church pastor detained in China, but was less hopeful about Lai’s situation.

Trump said: “I did bring it up, but it’s a tougher one for him. He said Jimmy Lai is a ‘tough one’ for him.”

In a later interview with Fox News, Trump said: “I brought up Jimmy Lai. I would say the response to that was not positive.”

He added: “I did not feel optimistic.”

Lai’s daughter, Claire, said she was grateful to Trump for his commitment to her father’s release.

She said: “He has earned his reputation as liberating the unjustly detained and I am confident he and his administration will be the ones to free my father.”

She called it an opportunity for Xi to do “the only just and honourable thing.”

Lai, a diabetic, has been kept in solitary confinement without air conditioning in a jail where summer temperatures reach 44C (111F), according to his children.

“He has lost a very significant amount of weight, visibly, and he is a lot weaker than he was before,” Claire said in remarks to media earlier this year.

“His nails turn almost purple, gray and greenish before they fall off, and his teeth are getting rotten.”

At the end of last year, Trump told reporters he had spoken to Xi about releasing Lai.

“I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump said, without specifying when he made the request. “He’s an older man and he’s not well. So I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens.”

Lai’s case has drawn international concern, especially in the UK, where he is seen as being punished for defending democratic assurances made in 1997 when Hong Kong was handed over from British to Chinese rule.