U.S. must demand China releases freedom fighter Jimmy Lai

Since then, China has stolen hundreds of billions of dollars of American intellectual property. Millions of Chinese workers live in appalling conditions. Over a million Muslim Uighurs are held in "re-education camps". Tibet has been colonized, its people, culture and religion suppressed.

The most recent gift from Beijing to the world is the coronavirus. The prevailing theory (for now) is that the disease comes from bats or other wild mammals sold for their meat at a market in Wuhan, China.

Since the epidemic, which continues to spread worldwide, the Chinese authorities have been neither transparent nor cooperative with American scientists and others, complicating efforts to develop a vaccine.

What else has the Chinese leadership done for us in recent times? The U.S. Pacific Fleet announced last week that a Chinese destroyer had concentrated a military-grade laser on a Navy aircraft operating over international waters near Guam. Lasing, which violates bilateral and multilateral agreements, can seriously harm pilots and crews.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications leviathan, with conspiracy under the Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). It is not often that a large foreign company is considered by the police as the equivalent of a mafia company. One of the indictments alleges that Huawei illegally obtained prohibited US goods, technology and services and delivered them to local subsidiaries in North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Gui Minhai, naturalized Swedish citizen, worked for a Hong Kong publishing company in Thailand. He has also written about Chinese corruption. Five years ago, he disappeared, to end up in police custody in mainland China. Last week, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegally providing information to foreigners".

Sun Yang, a six-time Olympic medalist in swimming, was suspended from competition last week for eight years following a "drug screening violation". Chinese sports cheating has a long history. As the New York Times noted, more than 30 "Chinese swimmers were caught using banned substances in the 1990s and 40 of its 300 athletes were withdrawn by Chinese authorities from competing at the Olympic Games. Sydney in 2000, a number for suspicious blood test results. '

"Deception is the real rule of law in China," Jimmy Lai wrote in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

President Xi and the CCP's tough men have long deceived Americans and Europeans – lying to us, robbing us, infiltrating our supply chains, our universities, our laboratories and our cyber networks, spreading pathogens and infectious totalitarianism .

They give us cheap products and services. In return, we maintain the fiction that they are not trying to impose their own "rules-based order" on the world.

Unfortunately but undeniably, Communist China has chosen to be the American adversary. Sino-US political and economic relations should be restructured in accordance with this reality, a process that Mr. Trump – laudable and in contrast to his predecessors – has at least started.

At that time, he could send a useful message, saying that until Jimmy Lai is free, President Xi will no longer be welcome in the White House.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and columnist for the Washington Times.