Trump says he will raise case of jailed Catholic activist Jimmy Lai with Xi Jinping

President Donald Trump has said that it is “on my list” to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the release of Catholic activist Jimmy Lai.

Before boarding Air Force One on October 24, Trump was asked by an EWTN News journalist about a letter sent by Senators Jim Risch and Rick Scott asking him to secure the release of Lai. In response, Trump said, “I might do that. I have a lot of respect for Rick Scott and a lot of them that are asking me to do that. It’s on my list. I am going to ask.”

The request comes ahead of a busy week of diplomacy in Asia, where Trump will visit the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on Sunday. He will then travel to Japan and South Korea, where he is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, President Xi. Tensions between the two countries remain fraught amid an escalating trade war, with Trump announcing earlier this month that he will impose an additional 100 per cent tariff on Chinese goods from November 1 in response to China’s decision to expand its rare earth element export controls.

Alongside tariff negotiations, there are ongoing discussions over the ownership of the social media app TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. While Trump appears to have warmed to the app since his first presidency, he wants its operations in the US to be managed by American owners. Under the proposed scheme, a new company will be created, valued at $14 billion, with US investors controlling both the board and the algorithm used by the US version of TikTok. If Trump’s plan goes ahead, tech giant Larry Ellison—nicknamed by the president as “CEO of everything”—is expected to take a leading role in the new company.

It is understood that the framework of a trade deal and an agreement on TikTok’s new ownership in the US have been finalised. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters today that the particulars of the deal have been settled and that it will be for the two leaders to “consummate that transaction.”

Lai, a devout Catholic and convert, was arrested in August 2020 under Beijing’s national security law and has been imprisoned ever since, receiving multiple sentences for alleged unlawful assembly and fraud. His security trial began in December 2023 after years of postponements.

Before entering prison, Lai’s Catholic faith had long shaped his public witness. Baptised in 1997, he has frequently spoken of how his conversion to Catholicism gave him the courage to resist Communist pressure. Friends say he begins each day in prayer and attends daily Mass whenever possible. In interviews, Lai has described his activism as an expression of conscience rooted in Catholic teaching, insisting that freedom of speech and the dignity of the human person flow from the truth of the Gospel.

While supporters of Lai will be hopeful that President Trump raises his case, Trump has made similar pledges before. In August this year, he told Fox News that he would do “everything [he] can” to “save” jailed Catholic activist Jimmy Lai, saying this week that he has “already brought it up” in government circles.

Related: Trump vows to push for release of jailed Catholic activist Jimmy Lai

It may be that, on a trip so dominated by economic and national security concerns, Trump again fails to address properly the state-orchestrated persecution of the Catholic activist.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)