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Claire Lai, daughter of media tycoon and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai, who was found guilty in a Hong Kong court of national security charges, reacts during an interview in Washington Dec. 15, 2025.
OSV News photo/Kevin Mohatt, Reuters
January 29, 2026
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OSV News photo/Reuters
As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer traveled to China amid renewed calls to press Beijing on human rights, Claire Lai, daughter of imprisoned Catholic media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, marked the moment in prayer at a snowy Washington Mass.
The Jan. 27 liturgy fell on the feast of St. Angela Merici, whose witness to trust in divine providence offered Claire spiritual consolation as she awaited news of her father’s fate.
“She wasn’t actually a saint that I was very familiar with to my shame,” Claire Lai told OSV News Jan. 29. “But the homily focused very much on trust in divine providence and doing God’s will regardless of the circumstances, and trying to figure out how it is that God wants us to serve him.”
St. Angela Merici — 16th-century inventor of what we today call secular institutes — was struck with blindness during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1524. “She proceeded to visit the sacred shrines, seeing them with her spirit. On the way back while praying before a crucifix, Angela’s sight was restored,” according to Franciscan Media.
Claire said she felt unease about securing her father’s release by the prime minister’s visit, but said the story of St. Angela Merici was “exactly what I needed to hear on that day,” and echoed what her father would have told her: that he is in the Lord’s hands and they should trust.
The British prime minister began his official visit to China on Jan. 28 — the first trip to the country by a U.K. leader in eight years — amid calls to press on human rights issues with China’s President Xi Jinping.
As he was preparing to leave London, the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation staged large-scale wall projections on London’s Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament “with a clear message for Prime Minister Keir Starmer ahead of his trip to Beijing this week: Bring British citizen Jimmy Lai home,” the group said.
The organization said the projections highlighted how long Lai has been languishing in a Hong Kong jail: 1,854 days.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai has been convicted of national security offenses under the city’s controversial national security law that human rights advocates call “draconian.” Following his Dec. 15 conviction, the 78-year-old British citizen faces the possibility of life in prison and is expected to be sentenced early this year.
In Beijing, Starmer said he would “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with President Xi, according to The Guardian, and the BBC later reported he said he “raised those issues as you would expect.”
Asked if China was listening, he said the discussion was respectful, the BBC reported.
On Jan. 29, China agreed to allow British citizens to travel to the country for up to 30 days without a visa, Downing Street said after Starmer’s meeting with Xi. The prime minister also secured a deal to cut import taxes on U.K. whisky from 10% to 5%, with the trip’s spotlight on closer trade ties to help boost the British economy.
“It is really quite outrageous that securing visa free travel for British people is considered a win when as the example of my father shows — China is engaged in hostage diplomacy,” Claire Lai said.
“If the prime minister of Great Britain cannot respect its own nation and citizens, including those being held hostage, how can one expect a country like China to respect him and Britain,” she said.
“This trip is a huge gift to China,” Claire Lai told OSV News, stressing it followed several concessions, including approval of a controversial diplomatic base in London. She said that while Britain should have trading relations with China, a gesture of good faith would be to release her father.
“It’s not in China’s interest to keep my father behind bars,” she said. “If he dies, he will die a martyr. And this is a chance for China to do the just and honorable thing.”
Sebastien Lai, who advocates for his father’s freedom, told The Times the release was a critical part of resetting relations with China. “What’s happening to him, this cruel treatment, that is not something we ever want to normalize,” he said.
For decades, Lai, who founded the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, campaigned for freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Hong Kong. His daughter said he suffers from health issues ranging from hearing, eyesight and diabetes to heart problems, infections and heat rashes, and is kept in solitary confinement.
She said he lacks fresh air and natural sunlight in Stanley Prison, and the conditions have worsened.
Claire said she hopes for progress before President Donald Trump’s April visit to China, citing the U.S. administration’s track record of freeing the unjustly detained.
Claire Lai said she is grateful for prayers from people around the world. “Their prayers definitely sustain him and sustain our family,” she said.
She said that while she sometimes felt powerless, her Catholic faith teaches that they seek salvation, not power, and that her father has found ways to serve the Lord since his first day in prison.
After Mass, she prayed a St. Jude Thaddeus novena in the Washington church. “It allowed me to know that regardless of the outcome, we trust in God’s divine providence,” she said.
She said she would begin a novena of Confidence to the Sacred Heart. “All the strength that I have comes from God and the strength that I need will be provided by Him in the challenges to come.”
(Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @Guzik_Paulina.)
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