Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai given 20-year sentence, adding friction to US-China ties
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. HONG KONG—A Hong Kong court sentenced former tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken 78-year-old critic of China’s Communist Party, to 20 years in prison, a ruling that adds further friction in U.S. relations with China.
President Trump said last year that he had asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to free Lai. Trump is expected to meet Xi in China in April, and Lai’s case could add another sticking point to negotiations between the world’s two largest economies. China made Lai one of the main targets in the crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The authorities portrayed him as a mastermind behind the protests who used his popular newspaper, Apple Daily, to stir up opposition to the Hong Kong government and its backers in Beijing. Lai was convicted in December, after a trial that spanned two years, of publishing seditious articles and violating Hong Kong’s national-security law by calling for international sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials. Lai, in custody since 2020, called himself a “political prisoner," a description the three-judge panel of Hong Kong’s High Court rejected.
The sentence given to Lai on Monday is the longest yet under Hong Kong’s 5½-year-old national-security law, surpassing the 10-year penalty imposed on a law scholar in a 2024 case. Eight co-defendants, including five who testified against Lai, were given sentences of 6 years and 3 months to 10 years for violating the security law. The U.S., U.K.
and European Union have all criticized Lai’s case and called for his release. Trump didn’t say when he raised Lai’s case with Xi but pledged to do everything possible to “save" him. “I feel so badly," Trump said after Lai’s
. Read on livemint.com