Relatives of imprisoned Chinese house church leader Ezra Jin and jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai are expressing hope that Donald Trump will personally raise both cases during talks that began on Thursday with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Grace Jin Drexel, the daughter of Pastor Jin and founder of Beijing’s underground Zion Church, said during an appearance on Fox News that her family recently received assurance that Trump intends to mention her father during talks with Xi.
“We received information a couple of days ago that the president has said that he will mention my father’s name ahead of the summit, and that has given us tremendous joy and hope,” she said.
Pastor Jin, whose Chinese name is Jin Mingri, was taken into custody at his residence in Beihai in October 2025. He was 56 years old at the time of his detention.
Authorities also detained or reportedly disappeared nearly 30 leaders and members connected to Zion Church in cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen around the same period.
According to a March report by The Wall Street Journal, 18 individuals tied to the case, including Jin, were being held at a detention facility in Beihai. Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether formal charges have been filed against him.
Pressure has also reportedly been placed on attorneys involved in the case. Chinese officials revoked the legal license of defense lawyer Zhang Kai in March, while other attorneys connected to the matter allegedly faced suspensions or warnings.
Bill Drexel stated during the same Fox News interview that every lawyer who originally agreed to represent Jin has since withdrawn under pressure from authorities.
Jin established Zion Church in 2007 after completing studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. He became a Christian after participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and later emerged as one of the most recognizable leaders in China’s house church movement.
Under Jin’s leadership, Zion Church became one of the country’s largest underground Protestant congregations.
Support for Jin’s release has also come from Marco Rubio and several members of the U.S. Congress.
At the same time, the family of Jimmy Lai is also looking to Trump for intervention ahead of the president’s state visit to China.
Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, told The Telegraph that Trump may be the only world leader capable of securing his father’s release. Jimmy Lai received a 20-year prison sentence in 2025 after being convicted on national security-related charges.
“This is about saving my father’s life. I think that if my father is not freed soon, that he will die in jail,” Sebastien Lai was quoted as saying.
Jimmy Lai, now 78 and a British citizen, has remained in solitary confinement since his arrest in December 2020. In December 2025, Hong Kong authorities convicted him of allegedly colluding with foreign forces under the territory’s national security law, along with conspiracy charges related to publishing allegedly seditious materials under a separate colonial-era law. Sentencing on the latter charge has not yet been finalized.
Before his imprisonment, Lai founded the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong.
Earlier this month, the Facebook page Support Jimmy Lai said that Jimmy Lai “stood against the Chinese Communist Party when most of the world looked away,” adding that he “used his newspaper to expose its corruption,” “refused to flee when the crackdown came,” and was ultimately “locked in solitary confinement and sentenced to 20 years” by the CCP.
More recently, over 100 members of Congress reportedly sent a letter urging Trump to discuss Lai’s imprisonment directly with Xi. According to a senior diplomatic source cited by The Telegraph, the case remains “high on the list” of issues expected to arise during the meetings in China.
