Trump Vows to Free Jailed Hong Kong Tycoon as World Clashes with China

Paul Riverbank, 12/16/2025Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment spotlights Hong Kong’s crackdown, global outrage, and Trump’s bold promise.

A new blow landed this week. The court handed Lai guilty verdicts — two for conspiring with “foreign forces,” another for sedition. What did that actually mean in practice? Not weapons, not cash changing hands — but columns, interviews, meetings. Things that, for most of Hong Kong’s recent history, couldn’t get a journalist arrested. But that was before the national security law descended. The city once hosted noisy protests and street debates that lasted entire sweltering nights. Today, people seem to speak in lower voices. It’s not just a mood; it’s everything.

When the British government summoned China’s ambassador, it wasn’t just ceremonial anger for the cameras. Their message — “release him immediately” — found echoes in Ottawa and Brussels. The UK foreign secretary called the prosecution a “politically motivated persecution,” and the EU’s words were starker still, warning Lai’s fate is “emblematic” of Hong Kong’s democratic dismantling. Notably, Canada’s Parliament, rarely one to find consensus these days, struck a rare chord of indignation: Bloc MPs outright condemned the trial, New Democrats spoke of the injustice personally, as though Lai was someone they had sat with at dinner.

Of course, Beijing wasn’t moved. It fired back about sovereignty and kept its line: the courts are simply doing their work. Hong Kong’s leaders cheered. Across the border, there’s no debate about whether the conviction serves the “rule of law.” But if you ask local activists who’ve since found shelter in places like Vancouver, they’ll tell you the term no longer means what people in the West think it means. Andy Wong, active in Canada’s Hong Kong diaspora, put it plainly: “If you say anything, you’re in trouble. It’s over.”

Donald Trump, never far from any global headline, moved from rhetoric to promises. He told the press he spoke to Xi Jinping about Lai’s imprisonment and said he would “do everything I can” to get him released. He went a step further on the campaign trail: if he’s back in office, Lai “will be free.” However, all this currently amounts to is bold talk. Whether it moves the levers of diplomacy remains to be seen — but if nothing else, Lai’s case is on the global stage now.

For Hong Kong, the loss isn’t measured just in one man behind bars. Since Beijing overhauled the city’s politics three years ago, opposition voices barely make it near the ballot. Apple Daily was shuttered. Activists went silent or went missing. The rituals of civic life — raucous editorials, political satire, student groups planning rallies — have dimmed or vanished.

As Lai awaits next year’s mitigation hearing, his lawyers work in the narrow spaces left by a shrinking legal system. Family in Canada cling to hope. “Whatever it takes, we hope he can be released,” his niece said recently, the statement more a wish than an expectation.

The broader question, unfortunately, is what Lai represents. Not just another political prisoner — though he unequivocally is that — but a warning about the cost of speaking one’s mind, about what happens when courts enforce silence. For so many watching from afar, the case isn’t only about laws or protests or even politics anymore. It’s about a line that once separated words from handcuffs, and what it means, for Hong Kong and everywhere else, if that line is gone.

There are stories that hold a city's spirit, and Jimmy Lai’s is one of those — except in the darkness of his Hong Kong cell, that spirit is flickering. You won’t see many headlines now about the man who once ran Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s boldest paper, but he’s spent half a decade locked away, diabetes gnawing at his health, sunlight now some abstract, unreachable thing. Cells with four walls don’t tend to leave much room for hope, and as Lai’s family has watched his body shrink and his teeth loosen, that much becomes hard to ignore.A new blow landed this week. The court handed Lai guilty verdicts — two for conspiring with “foreign forces,” another for sedition. What did that actually mean in practice? Not weapons, not cash changing hands — but columns, interviews, meetings. Things that, for most of Hong Kong’s recent history, couldn’t get a journalist arrested. But that was before the national security law descended. The city once hosted noisy protests and street debates that lasted entire sweltering nights. Today, people seem to speak in lower voices. It’s not just a mood; it’s everything.When the British government summoned China’s ambassador, it wasn’t just ceremonial anger for the cameras. Their message — “release him immediately” — found echoes in Ottawa and Brussels. The UK foreign secretary called the prosecution a “politically motivated persecution,” and the EU’s words were starker still, warning Lai’s fate is “emblematic” of Hong Kong’s democratic dismantling. Notably, Canada’s Parliament, rarely one to find consensus these days, struck a rare chord of indignation: Bloc MPs outright condemned the trial, New Democrats spoke of the injustice personally, as though Lai was someone they had sat with at dinner.Of course, Beijing wasn’t moved. It fired back about sovereignty and kept its line: the courts are simply doing their work. Hong Kong’s leaders cheered. Across the border, there’s no debate about whether the conviction serves the “rule of law.” But if you ask local activists who’ve since found shelter in places like Vancouver, they’ll tell you the term no longer means what people in the West think it means. Andy Wong, active in Canada’s Hong Kong diaspora, put it plainly: “If you say anything, you’re in trouble. It’s over.”Donald Trump, never far from any global headline, moved from rhetoric to promises. He told the press he spoke to Xi Jinping about Lai’s imprisonment and said he would “do everything I can” to get him released. He went a step further on the campaign trail: if he’s back in office, Lai “will be free.” However, all this currently amounts to is bold talk. Whether it moves the levers of diplomacy remains to be seen — but if nothing else, Lai’s case is on the global stage now.For Hong Kong, the loss isn’t measured just in one man behind bars. Since Beijing overhauled the city’s politics three years ago, opposition voices barely make it near the ballot. Apple Daily was shuttered. Activists went silent or went missing. The rituals of civic life — raucous editorials, political satire, student groups planning rallies — have dimmed or vanished.As Lai awaits next year’s mitigation hearing, his lawyers work in the narrow spaces left by a shrinking legal system. Family in Canada cling to hope. “Whatever it takes, we hope he can be released,” his niece said recently, the statement more a wish than an expectation.The broader question, unfortunately, is what Lai represents. Not just another political prisoner — though he unequivocally is that — but a warning about the cost of speaking one’s mind, about what happens when courts enforce silence. For so many watching from afar, the case isn’t only about laws or protests or even politics anymore. It’s about a line that once separated words from handcuffs, and what it means, for Hong Kong and everywhere else, if that line is gone.