It’s unlikely that President Joe Biden brought up the name Jimmy Lai in his recent conversation with China’s communist dictator, Xi Jinping. At least the records don’t show it. But Lai’s impending trial in Hong Kong represents a classic showdown between a tireless defender of freedom and a brutal regime.

One of Biden’s predecessors, former President John Quincy Adams, is often quoted by those who want America to be less active overseas: “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Yet in that same July 4, 1821, speech — in the immediately preceding lines, in fact — Adams added that America would always side with freedom against tyranny. “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be,” he said.