China has freed three Americans considered wrongfully detained in a swap with the United States, US officials said Wednesday, meeting a key goal of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration.
The three Americans — Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung — were the last prisoners in China classified by the State Department as wrongfully detained, although activists and families have raised the cases of other US citizens.
“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” a State Department spokesperson said on the eve of Thanksgiving, the American holiday associated with family reunions.
“Thanks to this administration’s efforts and diplomacy with the PRC, all of the wrongfully detained Americans in the PRC are home,” the spokesperson said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
A source close to the matter said that the three were being freed in a swap with Beijing for three Chinese nationals in US custody who were not identified.
Swidan was detained in late 2012 on a business trip to China on drug charges. His family and supporters say there was never any evidence he had drugs and that his driver and translator had blamed him.
In his early time in detention, Swidan was deprived of sleep and food and lost more than 100 pounds (45 kilograms), according to Dui Hua, a group that supports prisoners in China.
Swidan’s mother Katherine, who lives in Texas, addressed a congressional hearing in September and accused the Biden administration of ignoring his plight.
“Our loved ones are not bargaining chips or political pawns; they are human beings whose rights and freedoms must be upheld and protected,” she said.
Kai Li, a naturalized American born in Shanghai who ran a business exporting aircraft technology, was detained in 2016 and convicted of espionage for allegedly sending state secrets to US authorities.
He says he was sharing information routinely available on the internet as part of routine compliance with US export regulations.
Leung, a US citizen in his late 70s with permanent residency in Hong Kong, was also convicted of espionage. China said little about his case when he was first detained in 2021 but later accused him of spying on Chinese officials on behalf of the United States.
Engagement with China
In September, the United States secured the release of another American considered wrongfully detained — David Lin, a pastor who had been jailed since 2006.
US officials later acknowledged that the release was part of a swap for a Chinese national following quiet diplomacy.
The approach is in sharp contrast to prisoner exchanges with Russia, in which Biden and President Vladimir Putin have personally greeted returning citizens at the airport.
The US prisoners in China have drawn comparatively less attention, although US lawmakers have been repeatedly raised their cases and the Biden administration insisted they remained a priority.
With the latest three, the outgoing administration has secured the release of more than 70 unjustly detained Americans around the world, officials said.
Biden most recently raised the prisoners’ case personally with President Xi Jinping during their final meeting this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru, officials said.
Observers say that China has sought to show that, if the United States engages, it is willing to work constructively on certain areas of concern.
The Biden administration also says that China has taken action against producers of the precursor chemicals to fentanyl, the synthetic painkiller behind an overdose pandemic in the United States that has begun to decline.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed a more confrontational approach and said on social media this week that he would immediately impose big tariffs on products from China, as well as US neighbors Mexico and Canada.
Both the Biden and Trump teams have described China as the most significant long-term adversary of the United States, but Biden has also emphasized the value of engagement.
