Trump urges Xi to free Catholic Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai, jailed 1,770+ days; theologian Weigel calls his faith witness “striking” amid health fears.
Newsroom (12/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) In a rare diplomatic intervention rooted in human dignity, U.S. President Donald Trump personally appealed to Chinese President Xi Jinping during their Oct. 30 meeting in South Korea to address the plight of imprisoned Hong Kong media tycoon and Catholic convert Jimmy Lai, according to sources briefed on the talks.
The plea, confirmed by Reuters citing three individuals with knowledge of the discussions and a U.S. administration official, focused on Lai’s deteriorating health amid a protracted trial under China’s national security law. Trump “did not discuss a specific deal to free Lai but spoke more broadly about concerns surrounding the publishing mogul’s health and well-being after his lengthy trial on national security charges,” one official said.
American theologian George Weigel, a prominent biographer of St. John Paul II and author of “Witness to Hope,” described Lai to OSV News as “a non-violent, deeply committed defender of not simply his rights to free speech, but to those of the people of Hong Kong.” Weigel emphasized that Lai’s steadfast witness “to human dignity and to basic human rights is an expression of his Catholic faith,” adding that the core issue is preventing the 77-year-old from dying in prison.
Lai, founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily—shuttered by authorities in 2021—has been detained since December 2020, following his arrest in August of that year under the national security law imposed by Beijing after widespread 2019 protests. He faces two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious materials, charges he denies. Conviction could mean life imprisonment.
Hong Kong, handed over from British rule in 1997 as a Special Administrative Region, was promised “a high degree of autonomy” under its Basic Law, including independent judicial power. Yet Weigel argued that the national security law “seems to me and to many other people to violate that agreement,” which China explicitly committed to upholding the rule of law.
“Were he not to die in prison, that would be some sign that China is abiding, at least for the moment, by some of the commitments it made,” Weigel said, calling Lai’s potential release “a very important sign that something resembling due process still exists in Hong Kong.”
Lai’s refusal to flee Hong Kong, despite opportunities as a British citizen, stems directly from his faith. In a 2020 Napa Institute interview, he declared: “If I go away, I not only give up my destiny, I give up God, I give up my religion, I give up what I believe in.”
Support for Lai has echoed from the U.S. State Department under the Biden administration, bipartisan senators, and Catholic leaders worldwide. On Nov. 1, 2023, 10 bishops from five continents—including Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney—issued a statement decrying the “cruelty and oppression” in a territory claiming to uphold the rule of law. “In standing up for his beliefs and committing himself through his faith to challenge autocracy and repression, Jimmy Lai has lost his business, been cut off from his family … He must be freed now,” they wrote.
Weigel, instrumental in drafting the letter, noted it “caused an enormous fuss in Hong Kong,” prompting a government response five times longer than the missive itself. Regime-controlled media unleashed propaganda, and the bishops were threatened with arrest if they entered the territory. “This is the way regimes, that are nervous about their own legitimacy, behave,” Weigel observed, expressing hope that Trump’s intervention “have some effect.”
After over 1,770 days in solitary confinement—much in a windowless cell—Lai’s son has pleaded, “I don’t want my father to die in jail.” On Oct. 15, Lai’s wife Teresa and daughter Claire met Pope Leo XIV after a general audience, ahead of an anticipated verdict.
Weigel praised the pontiff’s gesture as “very gracious” but expressed skepticism about Vatican advocacy. “The Vatican at the moment is so committed to maintaining this arrangement it has with China that I very much doubt that they’re inclined to add another item to the agenda,” he said. “But, to be perfectly candid, they certainly ought to raise the question irrespective of whether it would make any difference. If the Vatican can’t take up the cause of the world’s most famous Catholic political prisoner, even quietly, something is wrong.”
Having met Lai over a decade ago and stayed in touch with his family, Weigel highlighted the prisoner’s artistic expressions of faith. Visitors to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York can view a simple sketch of the Crucifixion drawn by Lai on ruled paper from Stanley Prison. Weigel himself received two such works: another Crucifixion and a depiction of Our Lady with “Fiat”—Latin for “be it done unto me according to your word”—signed and dated from prison. Similar artwork was installed at The Catholic University of America’s Maloney Hall in February 2024.
“This seems to be one of the ways he’s expressing the depth of his Christian conviction,” Weigel said, framing Lai’s endurance not as mere stubbornness but as vocation. “This is a man who believes that his witness to human dignity and to basic human rights is an expression of his Catholic faith, and that he is suffering, for that is also an expression of that faith, and he accepts it in those terms.”
Lai’s case underscores broader tensions over promised freedoms in Hong Kong, with his faith-fueled resistance offering a profound testament amid authoritarian pressures.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from OSV news
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