In November 2020, when he was out of prison, not yet imprisoned again, Jimmy Lai sent out a tweet. “Let us not be afraid and fight on!” he said. He also said, “The world’s attention is our saving grace.”
I quote those words in my piece today about Lai — who is a legendary businessman, a democracy campaigner, and a political prisoner in Hong Kong. He needs attention, and so do other political prisoners. It’s what they need most, and at the highest levels.
Earlier today, I had a post on Ukraine and Russia. I mentioned the political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza — and the fact that Senator John McCain asked him to be a pallbearer at his funeral. (McCain died in 2018; Kara-Murza was imprisoned in 2022.) McCain wanted to increase Kara-Murza’s chances of staying alive, by giving him added visibility. The Kremlin had already tried to kill Kara-Murza twice, by poison.
Charles Krauthammer once told me something about Meg Greenfield, the famed editorial-page editor of the Washington Post. For a period of time, Greenfield wanted something about Andrei Sakharov on her pages every week — to make it harder for the Kremlin to kill him.
Another tough-minded and humane lady, Jeane Kirkpatrick, told me this: “There is nothing a political prisoner wants more than to be remembered; there is nothing the dictatorship wants more than that the prisoner be forgotten.”
I quoted her in a piece I wrote many years ago about Cuba: “Who Cares about Cuba?” (I’m afraid I cannot find this piece on the vast great Net.)
In the Gorbachev years, Kirkpatrick was part of a delegation of American foreign-policy dignitaries who traveled to the Soviet Union. They went to see Sakharov. Sakharov came down the stairs into the vestibule, dimly lit, and said, “Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski, which of you is Kirkpatski?” The rest gestured to Jeane. He said to her, “Your name is known in every cell in the Gulag.”
And why was that? Because she had named the names of prisoners — zeks — on the floor of the United Nations. (Sakharov had done the same in his Nobel lecture, read by his wife, in 1975.)
Ronald Reagan bore political prisoners in mind. Almost the first thing he did as president was arrange for the release of Kim Dae-jung. Indeed, the South Korean regime was going to execute Kim. Reagan warned them that if they did — they would pay for it dearly.
The regime agreed to stay the execution and soon release Kim. But they had a condition: Chun Doo-hwan, the South Korean chief, would have to receive an invitation to the White House. Like, now. And Reagan could not say a word — not breathe one word about the quid pro quo between Seoul and the new administration.
Chun arrived at the White House on February 2, 1981 — less than two weeks after Reagan was sworn in. The new president caught holy hell for it. But he had also used his leverage to get Kim Dae-jung spared.
(Kim himself would become president of South Korea.)
In his meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan presented list after list — lists of political prisoners whom the United States wanted to see sprung. Gorbachev would grumble, “Too many lists.”
Incidentally, there are more political prisoners in Russia today than in the final period of the Soviet Union. This is according to the Memorial society, which the Kremlin of course has now banned.
Donald Trump flew to Saudi Arabia, in his first foreign trip as president. Upon landing, he said, “We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship.” That is music to dictators’ ears. Because, as they see it, it is their job to tell people how to live, what to do, etc.
I think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who said,
On our crowded planet, there are no longer any “internal affairs.” The Communist leaders say, “Don’t interfere in our internal affairs. Let us strangle our citizens in peace and quiet.” But I tell you: Interfere more and more. Interfere as much as you can. We beg you to come and interfere.
Jimmy Lai is a well-known person. Liu Xiaobo was a well-known person — if only by virtue of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. He received it in absentia, of course, because he was in prison. And he remained a political prisoner, dying in 2017.
The peace prize to Liu was an irritation to Beijing. But the dictatorship paid no real price for its persecution of Liu. Can that same dictatorship be made to pay a price for its persecution of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners?
Hell, will Free World governments make Beijing pay a price for its persecution of the Uyghur people, which the U.S. State Department has pronounced a “genocide”?
There are many elements to a democratic government’s foreign policy. Human rights are not the only consideration. But that it should be a consideration, many of us have no doubt. This is especially true of American foreign policy, given the traditional ideals and principles of our country.