WASHINGTON\u2014When President Donald Trump heads to Beijing this spring, he\u2019ll have the opportunity to do what pretty much no one else in the world can: convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to free Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy newspaper publisher and media tycoon imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n
The 78-year-old Lai was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison under a national security law used by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on dissenters. At his age, and with his declining health, the CCP\u2019s sentence means he\u2019ll die in prison.<\/p>\n
Lai is a Chinese-born British citizen who published \u201cApple Daily\u201d in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2021. Chinese authorities arrested top executives at the publication and froze its assets in 2021, and, after a two-year trial and five-year detention, Lai was convicted in December 2025 of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and publish seditious material.<\/p>\n
Authorities paint him as \u201cthe mastermind and behind-the-scenes manipulator,\u201d celebrating the 20-year-sentence.<\/p>\n
His daughter, who advocates on her father\u2019s behalf in the United States, describes him very differently. In an interview with The Daily Wire, Claire Lai praised her father\u2019s courage in the face of oppression. She shared that he mails her letters from prison \u2014 letters that include prayers of deep faith and acceptance, offering his sufferings up to Jesus Christ and encouraging his fellow prisoners to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the very first day I went to visit him, I remember I was very emotional,\u201d Claire told The Daily Wire. Her father comforted her, she says, by telling her that \u201che\u2019s in God\u2019s good hands, and he\u2019ll find ways to serve him from behind bars.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>I know that God will continue to give him the strength to persevere in faith,\u201d she said. \u201cW<\/span>e need to persevere in fighting for his freedom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Claire Lai with her father Jimmy Lai.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trump has said that he will do everything he can to save Lai. He will head to Beijing in April, POLITICO reports<\/a> (though the White House says dates have not yet been finalized), where Lai\u2019s family hopes the president will make the case for their father\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel so badly,\u201d Trump said in December after Lai\u2019s conviction. \u201cI spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release. He\u2019s not well. He\u2019s an older man and he\u2019s not well, so I did put that request out. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the Hong Kong High Court\u2019s decision to sentence\u00a0Lai<\/span> to 20 years, calling it \u201can unjust and tragic conclusion to this case.\u201d Rubio urged the authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole, arguing that Lai and his family \u201chave suffered enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n Asked by The Daily Wire about Lai\u2019s fate during the White House press briefing Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt suggested that the president may advocate for Lai<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something I\u2019ve heard the President advocate for, both publicly and privately,\u201d she told The Daily Wire. \u201cI had the honor of being in that meeting with President Trump and President Xi in South Korea that took place, and this was brought up by the President himself. It is important to him, and he looks forward to visiting China in April.\u201d<\/p>\n Lai\u2019s daughter is incredibly grateful for the strong American interest in her father\u2019s plight and hopeful that American intervention might save her father.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are extremely grateful,\u201d she said, \u201cto<\/span> [Trump] and to his administration, [that has] a proven track record of freeing those [who] were unjustly detained abroad and doing so with a high degree of success. We are<\/span> just hopeful that our father will be one of them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lai\u2019s friends and family have highlighted his plight for years. Claire\u2019s brother Sebastian Lai lives in London, where he leads the international campaign to free his father. Her mother remains in China and was present at Jimmy\u2019s sentencing on Monday.<\/p>\n In interviews, they describe how he was arrested and detained, and forced to spend more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n China\u2019s 2020 National Security Law is so vaguely worded and so arbitrarily applied that Claire Lai knows she could face retribution for speaking out in her father\u2019s defense while in China. She has lived in the United Kingdom and the United States for the past few years as she begs the world to help save her father.<\/p>\n She takes great solace in her Catholic faith, which she shares with both her mother and her father. Jimmy Lai is a Catholic convert with a deep love for Jesus Christ. His daughter shares that he used to draw pictures of Jesus Christ on the cross for other prisoners until he was told by his prison guards that he was no longer permitted to do so.<\/p>\n From prison, he writes to his daughter, offering her prayers of comfort and solace.<\/p>\n \u201cThe day that [British Prime Minister Keir Starmer] flew to China, I was feeling quite uneasy,\u201d she reflected to The Daily Wire, recalling the day that Starmer went to China to meet with President Xi. She went to mass at Immaculate Conception Church, a parish in Washington D.C., and prayed for the strength to accept whatever happened to her father.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA few days later I got a letter from Dad,\u201d she shared, \u201cand in his letters he sends me his prayers and he basically echoed what <\/span>I was feeling in that moment\u2026he was in our Lord\u2019s good hands.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think that that\u2019s what has seen him through the last few years,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd at times it\u2019s really just our good Lord which has seen him through the bad days.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Claire Lai shared copies of her father\u2019s prayers exclusively with The Daily Wire, prayers in which Jimmy Lai surrenders his future to Jesus Christ, asking Jesus Christ to \u201cwork in me and through me.\u201d<\/p>\n You are the all-seeing, all-knowing God. Your eyes, oh Lord, are in every place\u2026You are present and conscious of all I think, every deed or act, however slight, every word, however quick\u2026every thought of my heart, however secret, however momentary. However forgotten, you see, O Lord, you see and note down\u2026 \u201cWhither shall I go from your Spirit?\u201d (Ps 139:7) I am in your hands, O Lord, absolutely.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In another prayer, Jimmy Lai acknowledges the longevity of his imprisonment thus far, offering his sickness and confusion up for \u201csome great end which is quite beyond us\u201d and arguing that Jesus Christ \u201cdoes nothing in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n We are all created to His glory. We are created to do His will. Therefore: I will trust him\u2026if I am sick; my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness or my perplexity or my sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end which is beyond us. He does nothing in vain. Lord, deign to fulfill your high purposes in me whatever they may be. Work in me and through me.<\/p>\n Cheers, Dad.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And in yet another letter, he tells his daughter that his suffering over the past few years has brought him closer to God.<\/p>\n I am actually most grateful for God to have put me through this suffering in order for me to get closer to His presence. What a joy and treasure for this life and next. God\u2019s action confounds us but always turns out to be marvellous for us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Lai\u2019s daughter is also deeply religious, mentioning multiple Catholic saints during her conversation with The Daily Wire, including Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest imprisoned by Nazis in Auschwitz who offered to die in the place of another prisoner. When she is particularly worried about her father, she shared, she goes to mass in the evenings and receives the Eucharist, which is a huge source of comfort to her.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that moment I know what Maximilian Kolbe meant,\u201d she said, quoting the Catholic martyr, who is remembered saying: \u201cIf angels would be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s exactly what I needed, and I think it was our good Lord giving me comfort. I don\u2019t think anyone can convince me otherwise. I know he\u2019s giving my father strength to persist in faith.\u201d<\/p>\n For Catholics, receiving the Eucharist at Mass is of pivotal importance, since Catholics believe that receiving the Eucharist allows the faithful to be closely united with Jesus Christ himself. But for about two and a half years, Claire says, her father was denied the Eucharist in prison. The Chinese government told them that he was receiving the Eucharist regularly, but she insists they were lying.<\/p>\n![\"Claire](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM-419x576.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/02\/IMG_3081-1024x360.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/02\/IMG_3079-821x576.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-456234504-864x576.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Claire](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-846x576.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n