While wrongfully detained U.S. citizens and human rights defenders languish in Chinese and Hong Kong jails, Donald Trump is rolling out the red carpet for Xi Jinping (習近平). The Chinese leader and his wife will soon touch down in Washington for three days of pageantry and politics.
No matter how warm the welcome might be, the stage has been set for Trump to push Xi on China’s unjust detention of Americans and other political prisoners. In the weeks leading up to the summit, the State Department publicly declared American academics Chen Youlin (陳有林) and Min Zin as being wrongfully detained by China. Chen and Min Zin were “lured to China under the false pretense of academic research,” arrested on baseless charges and have been interrogated about their work without access to legal representation, a bipartisan coalition of U.S. lawmakers said in a recent statement.
On Tuesday, Trump reportedly promised U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham that he would raise the case of imprisoned British activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) during his meetings with Xi, as he did in Beijing in May. Lai has been incarcerated in Hong Kong since December 2020, and was finally sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year, the harshest sentence handed down under the city’s national security laws to date. His crime was, essentially, to defend democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong. As a 78-year-old diabetic, Lai’s only chance for a life outside of prison is for his sentence to be commuted. Otherwise, he will become a martyr for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.
Now is the moment for Trump to live up to his reputation as the State Department’s “China desk officer” by securing the release of Lai, Chen and Min Zin through his dialogue with Xi. If Trump’s approach to China policy is as top down as the White House said in a recent statement to Politico, then failing to make a strong case for their release will suggest that he believes that he has little leverage over Xi.
More than 200 Americans are reportedly detained in China, where we cannot trust that they are afforded due process. Some of China’s prisoners are unwitting victims of fraud. Others are defenders of basic human rights or academics engaged in good-faith collaboration with their international counterparts. Many are barely surviving the harsh conditions of their imprisonment.
Trump should not forget this while he waits on the tarmac for Xi. He should not forget this as he shows off his new helicopter pad or hosts America’s tech elite for a state dinner honoring the Chinese leader.
As Lai told the Hoover Institution in 2019, a year before his incarceration, China’s “bad behavior must be confronted, not appeased.”
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