Witnesses at a U.S. congressional hearing on Sept. 16 urged President Donald Trump to press Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping for the release of imprisoned Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai when the two leaders meet in Washington.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) convened the hearing to examine Lai’s imprisonment and what his case reflects about press freedom, judicial independence and the rule of law in Hong Kong. The commission said the hearing was deliberately scheduled ahead of Trump’s planned Sept. 24 meeting with Xi in Washington. 

Lai, 78, founded the now-closed pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. His son, Sebastien Lai, joined China policy expert Steve Yates and author Mark Clifford in calling for his release during the hearing chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.). 

Yates urges Trump to raise Lai’s case

Steve Yates, a senior research fellow for China and national security at The Heritage Foundation, told lawmakers that Lai’s continued imprisonment should be viewed in the broader context of U.S. policy toward Beijing and Hong Kong.

“This is no longer principally an appeal to law, foreign or domestic,” Yates said, according to The Daily Signal. “It is a litmus test of whether there remains any reason to believe there is a future in Xi Jinping’s China for the kind of man that Jimmy Lai is.” 

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Yates also emphasized the humanitarian circumstances surrounding Lai’s family. As The Daily Signal reported, Lai’s daughter Claire had been expected to testify at the hearing but was undergoing chemotherapy in London after being diagnosed with cancer. Yates, who lost his own daughter in 2023, said being prevented from supporting a seriously ill child would be “unimaginably worse.” 

“China should not be making a dying man and a daughter, confronting grave illness, endure additional cruelty in the service of a political trophy,” Yates said. 

Yates and Clifford also backed the Jimmy Lai Hong Kong Political Prisoner Accountability Act of 2026, bipartisan legislation introduced on Sept. 16. The measure would require the State Department to determine whether abuse, medical neglect, torture or detention conditions contributed to the death of a Hong Kong political prisoner and identify those responsible. It would then require sanctions against responsible or complicit Chinese and Hong Kong officials. 

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, then 72, pictured at the Apple Daily office in Hong Kong. (Image: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images)

Clifford points to broader crackdown in Hong Kong

Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and author of The Troublemaker, a biography of Lai, said Lai’s case should not be viewed in isolation.

Clifford told the hearing that Lai is “just one of hundreds of political prisoners being held in often appalling conditions,” according to an EWTN News report carried by Rep. Chris Smith’s office. 

The CECC has documented the use of Hong Kong’s national security laws against democracy advocates, journalists, former lawmakers and civil society leaders since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in 2020. The commission said the changes have weakened procedural protections and judicial independence while chilling political speech and activity inside Hong Kong and abroad.

Clifford said Lai’s release could have significance beyond his individual case.

“I’d like to emphasize the release of Jimmy Lai would be something President Trump, Republicans and Democrats, indeed, freedom-loving people around the world would applaud,” Clifford said, according to the EWTN report. “It would be a unifying event at the time when the world really needs it.” 

Sebastien Lai appeals directly to Xi

Sebastien Lai told lawmakers that his father’s age and health made his release increasingly urgent. In testimony published by Rep. Chris Smith’s office, Sebastien said his 78-year-old father faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison and stressed the toll the imprisonment had taken on the family. 

“My father poses no threat,” Sebastien said. “His imprisonment makes him a symbol of injustice; his death in prison would be a disgrace.” 

Sebastien said his sister Claire had planned to testify alongside him before her cancer diagnosis. Their father learned of her illness while imprisoned and cannot be with her while she undergoes treatment.

“We hope the Chinese authorities will consider what compassionate release would mean for her, and for a 78-year-old man who has already suffered enough,” Sebastien said in testimony reproduced by Smith’s office.

Two days before the hearing, Sebastien also appeared on Fox & Friends First, where he discussed his campaign to free his father and what he described as the deterioration of freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong under Beijing’s control. 

At the Sept. 16 hearing, Sebastien directed his appeal toward Xi ahead of the planned Washington meeting.

Original article