Washington, 16 December (H.S.): President Donald Trump disclosed on Monday his entreaty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the humanitarian liberation of Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old British-Hong Kong media baron convicted that day on two counts of foreign collusion and one sedition charge under Beijing's National Security Law, imperilling a life term after 1,800 solitary days since his 2020 arrest.

He's an older man, and he's not well, Trump lamented to reporters, referencing their October South Korea summit where he broached Lai's plight—diabetes ravaged amid isolation—fulfilling pre-inaugural pledges amid advocacy from Christian conservatives and pro-democracy coalitions galvanised by the Catholic tycoon's Apple Daily, shuttered as a dissent conduit post-2019 upheavals.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio amplified the clarion, castigating the ruling as Beijing's bid to silence free speech violators of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, urging immediate release given Lai's frailty, echoing UK summons of China's envoy and PEN International's travesty denunciation.

This intervention spotlights Trump's transactional diplomacy, leveraging US clout as Lai's 156-day trial—deemed a death knell for Hong Kong's autonomy—draws global ire, with sentencing slated for 2026 potentially consigning the once-vibrant publisher to oblivion.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar