Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump provided an update about imprisoned pastor Ezra Jin and political media mogul Jimmy Lai on the heels of his high-stakes discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week.
The president was asked whether he discussed the current situation regarding political prisoners in China during his talks with Xi.
“I did,” President Trump stated, while gaggling with reporters aboard Air Force One. “I think he’s giving very serious consideration to the pastor…I discussed it.”
The president was referring to Pastor Ezra Jin. Jin is the Chinese founder of the Zion Church network within the bowels of China. In 2025, Jin was arrested by Chinese authorities. 27 other Zion Church pastors and members were detained or “went missing” across the country, according to a report from Fortify Rights.
Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, said in April in comments to the China Desk that China merely sees churches “as another civil society organization, and for a civil society organization like the church, it gathers people and mobilizes people, it does things for the society…that the Chinese government hopes that the people only relies on them to do and they don’t even do a good job on all of these things.”
A second political prisoner, Jimmy Lai, was brought up by reporters to President Trump.
“That’s a tougher one,” President Trump said about Lai. “I did bring it up. For [Xi], it’s a tougher one….I don’t want to mislead anyone…he told me that would be a tough one, he’s gonna strongly consider the pastor.”
According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Lai is a “media mogul, democracy activist, and advocate of religious freedom” within China. He was arrested for colluding with a foreign country and endangering national security. Broadly speaking, Lai essentially stood up to the Chinese government and was known to participate in peaceful anti-government protests, particularly one high-profile demonstration in Tiananmen Square in 2020, per the CIRF.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February for these perceived national security offenses.
“The Hong Kong High Court’s decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio upon the ruling in the Hong Kong High Court.
