House lawmakers are pushing legislation to rename the street in front of Hong Kong’s de facto embassy in Washington, D.C., after Jimmy Lai, the media mogul jailed for his pro-democracy activities, National Review has exclusively learned.

Representatives Chris Smith (R., N.J.) and Tom Suozzi (D, N.Y.) introduced the bill this week, in the hopes of imposing reputational costs on the Chinese government and bringing about Lai’s release.

Lai was arrested in 2020 under a draconian national-security law that the Chinese government imposed on Hong Kong that year. He is currently on trial for “colluding with foreign forces,” proceedings rigged in Beijing’s favor and therefore expected to deliver a guilty verdict.

The Hong Kong icon’s family and American friends hope that the initiative will call attention to his continued persecution.

“Renaming the street after my father will serve as a constant reminder of the truth: Hong Kong has become a police state that puts advocates of freedom and democracy in jail,” Jimmy Lai’s son Sebastien, who is leading a global campaign to secure his release, told National Review.

The bill would name the street in front of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in Washington’s stately Dupont Circle neighborhood “Jimmy Lai Way” and designate the current address of the facility as “1 Jimmy Lai Way Northwest.” The bill also urges the U.S. Postal Service to direct mail addressed to “1 Jimmy Lai Way” in New York or San Francisco to the HKETO branches in those cities.

“We will continue to press for Jimmy Lai’s unconditional release and seek ways to raise the diplomatic and reputational costs globally for the Hong Kong government and their Chinese Communist Party masters for their rough dismantling of democratic freedoms and the rule of law in Hong Kong,” Smith said.

Suozzi, meanwhile, told NR that renaming the street in front of Hong Kong’s diplomatic office “will signal to the entire world that the United States stands in solidarity with those who oppose the tyranny and repression of the Chinese government.”

Hong Kong’s diplomatic facilities in America are unique, in that, although Hong Kong is a city in the People’s Republic of China, existing U.S. law entitles it to set up its own outposts separate from China’s embassy and consulates. The rationale when this arrangement was created was that Hong Kong maintained a degree of autonomy from the repressive mainland.

But critics of Beijing’s repression in the city, including Smith, the author of a bill that would force the closure of HKETOs, say that this is an outdated formula that rewards the Chinese government with an extra diplomatic presence — and a fount of authoritarian propaganda.

“The Hong Kong government has been using its HKETOs located all around the world to paint a glorified picture of the city over its brutal crackdown on Hong Kongers,” Frances Hui, a Hong Konger democracy advocate and policy and advocacy coordinator at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation said. She’s based in the U.S. now, but last year, the Hong Kong government issued bounties worth over $100,000 for the arrest of Hui and several other prominent overseas advocates.

Hui pointed out that, even as Hong Kong subjects Lai to a “massive sham trial,” Chinese officials never speak his name in international or diplomatic settings.

One of the propaganda events backed by HKETO is an annual dragon-boat festival that takes place in New York every summer. Last year, it was attended by high-profile political figures, including Representative Grace Meng (D., N.Y.), even after they received letters from Hong Konger advocates warning about the event’s connections to the Chinese regime.

The director of HKETO’s New York office, Maisie Ho, worked directly for two hardline chief executives of Hong Kong as they oversaw crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement.

If the street in front of Washington’s HKETO is renamed, it will join the ranks of other street rebrands similarly intended to impose costs on authoritarian regimes.

In 2018, for example, Congress renamed the street in front of Russia’s embassy after Boris Nemtsov, the Putin opponent gunned down outside of the Kremlin, and the D.C. city council designated the street in front of Saudi Arabia’s embassy “Jamal Khashoggi Way,” after the writer assassinated by the Saudi government.