When President Trump meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing this week, he has said he plans to raise at least one human rights issue that Mr. Xi would prefer to avoid: the release of Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned pro-democracy media mogul.
Mr. Trump has long vowed to press Mr. Lai’s case. Mr. Lai, 78, was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison, the culmination of Beijing’s yearslong effort to undercut the Hong Kong publisher who it blamed for leading major antigovernment protests in the city nearly seven years ago.
Mr. Trump reiterated that pledge in Washington on Monday while acknowledging that winning Mr. Lai’s release could be difficult.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Lai had “caused a lot of bedlam.”
“It’s like saying to me, ‘If Comey ever went to jail, would you let him out?’ Might be a hard one for me,” he added, referring to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, who Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked and was indicted last month over a social media post.
He said Mr. Lai had “tried to do the right thing” and added “I’ll bring him up again.”
The president said that he also planned to raise the case of Ezra Jin, a Christian pastor who was detained in China in October.
Mr. Trump has appeared primarily focused on economic deals with China, showing less appetite for wading into the human rights issues that U.S. presidents have traditionally raised during summits with Beijing.
When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Mr. Xi in California in 2023, he “raised concerns regarding PRC human rights abuses, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong,” according to a U.S. readout of the summit. President George W. Bush said in 2008 that he “constantly” discussed human rights and political freedom with Chinese leader Hu Jintao.
While his predecessors raised these issues, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump and other U.S. officials will follow suit by presenting their Chinese counterparts with a list of detainees or prisoners they would like released. The family members and supporters of Dong Yuyu, a prominent Chinese journalist imprisoned in China, have also urged the White House to seek his release.
Mr. Dong was recently diagnosed with what appears to be lung cancer, adding urgency to calls for his release.
Securing Mr. Lai’s freedom is a key issue for many Republican members of Congress, several of them longtime China hawks. More than 100 lawmakers late last week, including the Senate majority and minority leaders, implored Mr. Trump in a bipartisan letter to use the summit to call for Mr. Lai’s release.
The lawmakers — led by Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, both Republicans — urged a renewed appeal for Mr. Lai, citing his declining health and the fact that this is Mr. Trump’s first meeting with Mr. Xi since Mr. Lai’s legal proceedings concluded in March.
Mr. Smith called the meeting “an incredible, rare opportunity to speak to Xi, face-to-face” on Mr. Lai’s behalf.
Edward Wong contributed reporting.
