The United States has mediated the release of three Americans who it said had been unjustly detained in China for many years, the White House said in a statement Wednesday.
Three American citizens imprisoned for years by China have been freed and will return to the United States, the White House said Wednesday, announcing a rare diplomatic agreement with Beijing in the final months of the Biden administration.
The three are Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung, all of whom are designated by the US government as wrongfully detained. Swidan faced a death sentence on drug charges, while Li and Leung were jailed on espionage charges.
“They will soon return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” the White House said in a statement.
The announcement comes at an uncertain time in the U.S.-China relationship that suffered turmoil during Democratic President Joe Biden's tenure.
But with Republican Donald Trump's return to the White House in January, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has signaled concern that the incoming president's promises to impose significant tariffs on Chinese goods could hamper ties between the economic powers.
A U.S. official said the Biden administration had raised the cases of detained Americans with China in multiple meetings over the past few years, including earlier this month when Biden spoke with Xi on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. in Peru.
Politico was first to report the men's release, which it said was part of a prisoner exchange with the United States. The White House did not immediately confirm that any Chinese nationals had been returned home.
Li, a Chinese immigrant who started an export business in the United States, was detained in September 2016 after flying to Shanghai. He was placed under surveillance, interrogated without a lawyer and accused of providing state secrets to the FBI. A U.N. working group called his 10-year prison sentence arbitrary and his family said the charges were politically motivated.
Leung was sentenced last year to life in prison on espionage charges. He was detained in 2021 by the local office of China's counterintelligence agency in the southeastern city of Suzhou, after China closed its borders and imposed strict domestic travel restrictions and social controls to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Swidan had been imprisoned for 12 years on a drug charge and, along with Li and Leung, had been considered wrongfully detained by the State Department.