Lai’s supporters are worried about the 77-year-old political prisoner’s health. He is being held in solitary confinement and denied Communion.

Advocates for Hong Kong newspaper owner Jimmy Lai view Donald Trump’s direct intervention in his case as the 77-year-old political prisoner’s best hope, they told National Review in an interview at the outlet’s office in New York earlier this month, shortly following their meetings with top Trump administration officials in Washington.

They’re also increasingly worried about his health and safety and warn that Lai is at risk of dying in prison, pointing to the deaths of famous political prisoners, including Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, as Beijing’s persecution continues with an ongoing sham trial in Hong Kong.

Lai, a self-made media mogul and clothing brand owner, was arrested in 2020 over his outspoken advocacy for democracy in Hong Kong and is currently facing trial on charges related to his political activities.

While the proceedings were initially slated to wrap up in August, the end date was recently pushed to the start of next year. “It’s one of those situations where they just keep hitting the ball down the road, which is a strategy. It’s just been in line with what they’ve been doing with Dad, which is aiming to break him, break his spirits,” said Sebastien Lai, his son.

He believes that it’s possible to draw parallels between his father and Trump, which might be why the president is willing to take up his case. “Age is one. Obviously, they’re both entrepreneurs.” He added: “My father has always been very supportive of President Trump.”

In October, Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would bring about Lai’s release. “That’s going to be so easy,” Trump said. “I’ll get him out.” He added that the only reason Lai was jailed was that the Chinese government didn’t respect former president Joe Biden and former vice president Kamala Harris.

The Trump administration has subsequently doubled down on the president’s support of Lai. In an interview with Hewitt last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Lai’s case “a priority.” He said: “We’ve raised it in every possible form and they know that it’s important to us, and I think there are other countries as well that are very involved in raising this issue.” Rubio also alluded to ongoing efforts that he could not address in the media. “Everybody is incredibly on side,” Sebastien Lai said of his meetings at the State Department and National Security Council.

Mark Simon, the longtime adviser to Jimmy Lai who served as a top executive at his Apple Daily newspaper before Hong Kong authorities shuttered it in 2021, said that Lai’s advocates are grateful for the Trump team’s efforts.

“I just want to say thank you. The president said, ‘I’ll get him out.’ His administration is making moves in that direction: So thank you,” Simon told NR. He added that he was impressed by Trump’s effort to secure American prisoner Marc Fogel’s release from Russia, where he had been held hostage.

“Presidents don’t have to do this stuff. They don’t have to do it. So I always say, when people take the time out for human rights, say thank you, and there’s a lot of gratitude from the supporters of Jimmy Lai to President Trump. We have a lot of gratitude for him taking a look at this,” Simon said.

“The only thing that comes from his involvement is good.”

Four years into his imprisonment, Lai’s international legal team is increasingly concerned for his well-being, as he has been placed in solitary confinement. “He doesn’t have access to natural light,” Sebastien Lai said. “One of the more pernicious and mean-spirited things that they’ve done is to deny him Communion, which for someone who’s in the situation he’s in, his faith is very important, and that’s been denied,” Sebastien added, calling this “religious persecution.”

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the lawyer who heads Lai’s international advocacy team, added that Lai’s advanced age and state of health have prompted increased alarm about his well-being: “It’s absolutely not in Beijing’s interest for him to die in prison, and for him to become a martyr, and for them to have another kind of Navalny, Liu Xiaobo situation.” She was referring to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition figure who died under mysterious circumstances in a penal colony last year, and Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese pro-democracy campaigner who died of cancer in 2017 while serving an eleven-year prison sentence.

When the Chinese government eviscerated the city’s remaining autonomy with a new national security law in 2020, Lai famously declined to flee, choosing to remain in Hong Kong despite knowing that he was likely to face political persecution.

The city’s authorities arrested him that year and subsequently convicted him on charges related to what it claimed were unauthorized protests, for lighting a candle at a Tiananmen Square vigil, and purported violations of his newspaper’s office lease.

Since late 2023, he has undergone trial for allegedly conspiring to “collude with foreign forces” and sedition — the Hong Kong government alleges that his support of Trump and his contact with senior officials during the president’s first term amount to criminal activity.

The U.S. government characterized the proceedings as a sham trial, and members of Congress have introduced legislation to sanction the prosecutors and judge involved in the proceedings.

Chinese authorities have released some U.S. prisoners deemed by the State Department to have been “wrongfully detained” in the recent past, returning hostages David Lin and Mark Swidan last year.