When asked before departing for Beijing whether he would raise the case of Jimmy Lai — the jailed Hong Kong publisher who has become a global symbol of the pro-democracy movement — President Donald Trump gave a characteristically ambiguous answer: “I’ll bring him up.” But he immediately undercut the promise with a revealing analogy, comparing Lai’s imprisonment to the hypothetical jailing of former FBI Director James Comey: “It might be a hard one for me.”
Trump now says he does not expect China to release Lai, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence. According to Der Spiegel, Trump claims to have raised the issue with Chinese leaders — without success. The Guardian frames the episode as part of a larger, deliberate departure from decades of US diplomatic tradition, in which human rights were at least a stated priority in dealings with Beijing. The shift, analysts say, reflects both the transformation of US foreign policy in the Trump era and China’s increasing confidence on the world stage.
