Jimmy Lai's son: My father got 20 years despite warming China ties

Jimmy Lai's son has said he hopes the UK government does more to free his father, and that his release should have been a precondition of closer relations with China.

Hong Kong democracy campaigner and British citizen Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, under a security law imposed by China.

Sebastien Lai said his father "flashed a smile" as he received his sentence, describing it as an "act of rebellion, to tell them that, even though they have his body, that they will never have his spirit."

Foreign Secretary Yevette Cooper called for the release of Lai, 78, on humanitarian grounds, as Downing Street defended Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to China.

Lai told PA: "I do hope the government does more in freeing my father."

"And I think, at the end of the day, if we're talking about a warming of a relationship with China, if we're talking about the normalisation of the relationship, my father's release should have been a precondition."

"How can we have a British citizen who's in jail for standing up for so much of what is right in this country, so much of what is good in our nation, to show bravery in these horrible circumstances."

"How can we ever normalise that?"

"And if they're not even willing to put a man of his age, his situation, on a plane and send him here, then what can we expect from this relationship?"

He added: "I think the ball is in the court of the Government."

"And I hope that this idea of warming of the relationship and being able to do more because of that, I hope that is the right call, because so far it doesn't ... well, my father got 20 years."

"I'm just obviously very worried, and obviously time is running out for him, and so I think whatever happens will happen sooner rather than later."

On his father's poor health, Lai said you "don't need a medical degree" to know that if you put a man in his seventies in solitary confinement for more than 1,800 days with no natural light, that it would be "detrimental."

He said: "It's absolutely inhumane."

He told PA that a "bittersweet" moment, in what was otherwise a horrible day, was his father's reaction to the sentencing.

He said: "I think one thing that actually stood out – obviously, it's been a horrible day, but one of those bittersweet moments was when they passed the sentencing, and the reaction of my father."

"My father was stoic, and he actually smiled, he flashed a smile, almost as an act of rebellion to tell them that, even though they have his body, that they will never have his spirit."

He said: "There is this man who still, in his old age, in these horrible conditions, knows that he did the right thing, still believing that standing up for democracy, standing up for freedom, standing up for your colleagues, standing up for your journalists, is the right thing."

"And I believe that as well. And I think most decent people around the world believe that as well."

He told PA how his father arrived in Hong Kong as a stowaway and made a life for himself, before deciding to "give everything he has for freedom and liberty."

He said: "I think if there was a story that mirrored that of Hong Kong, the rise of Hong Kong and subsequent fall, would be that of my father's."

"I'm proud of him. I think many people in the world see him as a hero and are proud of him as well. And I hope that the United Kingdom as a nation is proud to call this man one of ours, a British citizen."

Jimmy Lai, who founded the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, which criticized the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing, was arrested in August 2020.

Starmer raised his case with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit last month.

Downing Street rejected suggestions that the sentence showed engagement with China had failed to work, saying it meant there was a "stronger chance of securing a positive outcome" for him as opposed to "just talking into a void."

Asked whether Starmer had been misled by the Chinese president during their talks, the prime minister's official spokesman said the UK "condemn[s] this politically motivated prosecution" and "we'll continue to raise this case at the highest levels of the Chinese government, as indeed the Prime Minister minister did directly."