Chinese leader Xi Jinping is slated to come to the United States in September to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House. Trump extended the invitation after meeting with Xi in Beijing: apparently, both leaders believe the previous meeting was successful enough to merit continued discussion. While media attention is often high during the actual summit, the most consequential work of diplomacy is happening right now and in the months leading up to September.
This window is critical, not only for trade negotiations and economic priorities, but also for the family members of political prisoners across China wanting to be reunited with their family members.
Prior to his travels to Beijing, Trump stated his intentions to raise the cases of political prisoners with Xi. And encouragingly, Trump raised by name the cases of famed Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate and billionaire Jimmy Lai, Chinese Christian Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, and at least one other detained American citizen. While no political prisoners came home on Air Force One, the president reiterated his commitment to securing the release of political prisoners, including Pastor Jin, upon his return from Beijing.
Congress made clear during the leader-level summit that securing the release of political prisoners was a shared, bipartisan priority. Both the House and Senate passed resolutions calling for the release of high-priority political prisoners, including Lai, Pastor Jin, Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas, Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife Pang Yu, and the Senate resolution included Uyghur tech expert Ekpar Asat. Congress’s unanimous vote in support of the president securing the release of political prisoners during the summit reflects the desire of the American people to see those unjustly detained across China freed.
This, in fact, hands the president a mandate to secure the release of political prisoners across China as a precondition to meeting Xi in September. He should exercise this leverage.
It is a privilege to come to Washington and meet with the president at the White House. Such a privilege should come at a price. Securing the release of several political prisoners, including Lai, Pastor Jin, Abbas, and other high-priority political prisoners, should be paramount.
Given the current state of the Chinese economy, China needs access to U.S. markets more than the U.S. needs continued access to China’s economy. Xi is finally starting to feel the impact of a sharp demographic decline brought on by the now-discontinued One Child Policy. An aging population and a shrinking workforce are hampering China’s economic growth and domestic stability. Additionally, as China seeks to compete with the U.S.’s burgeoning tech market, companies such as Alibaba and Tencent desire access to chips and compute infrastructure essential to competing with the U.S. on artificial intelligence. More fundamentally, China’s economy is more reliant on exports than America’s. In short, there is much that China needs from the U.S., which is why the Chinese Communist Party has come, and continues to come, to the negotiating table.
As the U.S. considers next steps, two things should be made clear:
First, as working-level discussions continue, U.S. counterparts should request the release of priority political prisoners in every meeting with Chinese interlocutors. The president himself should make clear that negotiations will not proceed, and Xi’s visit to Washington will be postponed, without the release of several political prisoners, including Lai, Pastor Jin, Abbas, and others.
Second, the U.S. should make clear the leverage that it has to secure political prisoners’ release. If Xi agrees to release political prisoners, the U.S. could consider certain forms of tariff relief and increase China’s access to U.S. markets. It could also consider lifting specific visa or financial sanctions on key individuals. The converse is, of course, also true: If Xi does not agree to release political prisoners, the U.S. has a range of tools to tighten China’s access to U.S. markets.
There is nothing more American than securing the freedom of someone unjustly detained. If the president continues negotiations with Xi without conditioning the September summit on the release of these prisoners, he will risk signaling weakness to Beijing. It would be a missed opportunity to use America’s upper hand in negotiations with China for good. If he plays his cards shrewdly, however, Trump has a chance to strike a blow for freedom.