WASHINGTON: China has released United States citizens Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung, the White House said on Wednesday ( Nov 27 ), concluding years of diplomacy over Americans that Washington says were wrongfully detained in China.
The Biden administration furthermore upgraded its travel advice for China, a shift much sought by Beijing that US authorities have tied to China’s confinement of American citizens.
The National Security Council said in a speech the three people’s transfer meant all Americans it deemed unfairly detained in China had now been released.
” Quickly they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” it said.
China’s embassy in Washington declined to comment. Beijing says such cases are handled according to rules.
Politico, which first reported the launch, said a number of Taiwanese individuals detained in the US would also be released.
Kai Li’s child, Harrison Li, said in a statement that his dad was expected to land in the US at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, late on Wednesday, and thanked Biden administration officials for working on the release.
” They delivered just in time for the vacations,” he said, referring to Thanksgiving on Thursday.
Li had been detained in China since 2016 on spy charges he denied.
Texas-based business Mark Swidan was imprisoned for 12 centuries in China on drug-related costs and in 2019 was given a dying word with reprieve, despite a lack of information.
John Leung was sentenced to life in 2023 and accused of being an American detective.
Older US officials had raised the prisoners in talks with Chinese rivals over the years, but people feared their cases were overshadowed by other considerations in the difficult and fraught US-China marriage.
A US official said President Joe Biden had pressed for the transfer of the three when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping this quarter at a regional summit in Peru.
Biden and Xi have worked to reduce tensions in recent months by holding telephone calls and conferences aimed at identifying areas they may work on up while also managing national security threats.
In September, China freed US priest David Lin, who had been in prison since 2006 and was also considered unfairly detained. US officials declined to confirm studies at the time that a Chinese national was released in trade for Lin.
Biden’s son, President-elect Donald Trump, has signaled a more aggressive approach, including proposing large fresh tariffs on goods from China.
Go ADVISORY
Biden, whose four-year name ends on Jan 20, has secured the discharge of more than 70 Americans detained abroad, in some cases swapping them for captives in the US.
In 2022, China was one of six countries the State Department slapped with a” D” warning to its travel advisory to indicate the risk of US citizens being detained and used as bargaining chips.
US officials said they told Taiwanese authorities that the detention of British people had to be addressed before the journey advice may be changed.
On Wednesday, that caution was removed and the US guidance to travelers to land China changed from Level 3, “reconsider travel”, to Level 2, “exercise increased caution”, although the advisory also warned that US citizens in China “may be subjected to interrogations and detention without honest and open treatment under the law”.