On China, Human-Rights Diplomacy Doesn’t Work

In a packed DC briefing room last Tuesday, Sebastian Lai spoke cautiously, each word carefully weighed. His father, billionaire Jimmy Lai—77, Catholic, and Hong Kong’s most defiant publisher—is languishing in what Sebastian described as an overheated cell, denied air conditioning and, at times, even communion. “Without the eye kept on Hong Kong,” Lai intoned, “my father will most likely die in prison. There is no chance he will get a fair trial.”