The US President, Donald Trump, has indicated that he intends to bring up the case of the imprisonment of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his next meeting with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. The remarks of Trump follow the call by over 30 American legislators, headed by Florida Senator Rick Scott, urging Trump to make a personal appeal to Lai to release him, on humanitarian grounds, and since the activist is in poor health.
“I have a lot of respect to Rick Scott and others who have invited me to do the same and it will be on my list I will ask them,” Trump said on Friday, just before he left Washington to make his trip to Asia. The letter by the lawmakers outlined the case of Lai as urgent, and that time is not on his side and that his further detention is depicting an escalating human rights crisis.
In 2020, the founder of the since-shuttered Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai was arrested under the national security law in Hong Kong, a legislation imposed by Beijing. He has also been accused of colluding with foreign forces and plotting to promote sanctions against China and Hong Kong which he denies. Lai was an open advocate of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014 and 2019, and very critical of the influence of the city by Beijing.
Trump has raised an alarm a number of times regarding the detention of Lai, saying that he would do anything within his powers to release him. Trump commented on this saying that Jimmy Lai and President Xi are huge foes but not since a long time.
The problem will put an already full agenda of Trump talks with Xi. Others involve the possibility of extending a pause on US tariffs on Chinese products, resuming the importation of soybeans to China by the US, the need to combat the traffic of fentanyl, an intervention in the export of rare-earth minerals, and a request to Xi to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine.
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