One of the world’s most prominent anti-authoritarian dissidents, Lai has been in solitary confinement for the better part of five years on dubious charges brought by the CCP during its crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.

              Lai is a free speech champion and owned the newspaper Apple Daily. He is facing politicized charges for purported collusion with foreign governments and inciting hatred against Chinese people and Hong Kongers.

Jimmy Lai poses during an interview with AFP at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong, June 16, 2020.(Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

             
              Almost 78 years old, Lai has diabetes and his son Sebastien is increasingly worried about his father’s health. With Hong Kong’s naturally warm temperatures, Sebastien said his father “bakes” in prison.

              “He might die,” Sebastien Lai said bluntly during a press briefing in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning. Sebastien said that if President Donald Trump does not take further action, he thinks the most likely outcome is that his father won’t survive his ongoing trial. Trump has called for Lai’s release and Sebastien emphasized his gratitude for Trump’s support.

              “He has the will, he has the drive, and he has the experience,” Sebastien Lai said of Trump. “It’s about getting [British Prime Minister Keir Starmer] to follow his lead.”

              Trump will be going to the United Kingdom later this month for a state visit with Starmer. The pair met in Scotland in July to discuss trade and the wars in Ukraine in Gaza while Trump was visiting to open his newest golf course. Jimmy Lai is a citizen of the U.K. and his son speaks with a distinct British accent.

              Representative Chris Smith (R., N.J) also attended the briefing and believes Trump is doing everything he can to advocate for Lai’s freedom.

              “Everything is on the table,” Smith said after National Review asked about Trump using his leverage to push for Jimmy Lai’s release. Smith expects Trump to take “serious action” if his patience on the Jimmy Lai issue is exhausted.

              Smith believes Trump could bring up Lai’s case in trade negotiations or potentially use other tools as leverage to pressure China to free him. International visas and U.S. research partnerships with Chinese universities are among the additional tools Trump could deploy.

              Sebastien Lai argues that the outside world should not tacitly endorse the CCP’s treatment of dissidents by continuing to treat the regime as a trading partner of good standing.

              “It is also about commercial rights. It is also about whether as the world we’re going to let them weaponize our legal system to attack a group of people, peaceful protestors and let them get away with that. I think it has everything to do with trade,” he said.

Sebastien Lai speaks to Reuters ahead of his father’s trial in Taipei, Taiwan, December 15, 2023. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

              
              A devout Catholic, Jimmy Lai is not allowed to attend mass on Sundays and does not receive natural light exposure, his son said in response to a question from NR about his prison conditions. Sebastian believes he is getting communion after not having access to it earlier on.

              “My father’s Catholic faith is what’s kept him so strong. It’s also, I believe, one of the driving forces of why he has such strong principles,” Sebastian Lai said.

              In recent weeks, closing arguments took place in Lai’s trial after Chinese authorities presented “incredibly thin” evidence to justify their charges against him. Sebastien Lai told reporters that his father had to miss a day of his trial because of heart palpitations as his health worsens.

              “They’ve gone through everything. They haven’t found anything that incriminates him,” Sebastien Lai said.

              “Everything they have is incredibly thin, and so this is a man who’s imprisoned for his courage, and there’s no upside for both China and Hong Kong to have him die for his courage,” he added.

              During closing arguments, Jimmy Lai articulated his reason for going through persecution instead of fleeing Hong Kong and leaving his journalists out to dry.

              “He said ‘I hold a torch to the truth,’ and that’s my role,” Sebastien Lai explained.

              Sebastien Lai expects his father’s trial to end towards the end of 2025 or around the beginning of next year. A judge said the decision would be rendered “in good time” without offering specifics. The trial began in 2023 and was meant to last 80 days, but Chinese authorities have dragged it out to justify keeping Jimmy Lai detained indefinitely. The show trial featured hostile, CCP approved judges and at least one witness who was reportedly coerced through torture into testifying against him.

              Smith, a longtime human rights advocate, called Lai an “incredible hero” and urged his Capitol Hill colleagues to bring their attention back to the CCP’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Smith acknowledged that other wars and atrocities limit people’s capacity for outrage at the CCP’s human rights abuses.

              “I do think there’s a compassion fatigue out there, but when it’s ongoing and as egregious as it is, and heroes like Jimmy Lai are being so maltreated, shame like us if we don’t speak out anymore,” Smith said.

              Smith is calling for Jimmy Lai to be granted the Nobel Peace Prize if the committee does not give it to Trump in recognition of his efforts to end several international conflicts. Citing their work together in Congress, Smith praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his knowledge and passion about human rights violations in China. Rubio developed deep expertise on foreign policy during his 14 years in the Senate and become one of the chamber’s leading China hawks.

              Smith has proposed numerous pieces of legislation to address the crackdown in Hong Kong and pressure the CCP to allow democratic political participation. Beginning in 2020, the CCP has used national security to trample on the “one country, two systems” governance model meant to provide Hong Kong greater autonomy because of its distinct political history and economic dynamism.

              Sebastien Lai sees his father’s case as a “litmus test” for how China perceives of the western notion of freedom. The CCP has committed mass atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region and persecuted the Tibetan people in the westernmost part of the country. Its stranglehold on the Chinese people has only grown due to the development of surveillance technology and internet censorship preventing access to outside sources of information.