3 American citizens imprisoned in China for years released

Three American citizens who have been locked up in China for years have been released.

Politico, which first reported the story, claimed that Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and John Leung have been released as part of a prisoner swap between the U.S. and China.

Swidan, a 48-year-old Texas native, was arrested 12 years ago for allegedly manufacturing and trafficking drugs. He was then put on trial for an agonizing five and a half years before being sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. A court upheld that death sentence last year.

The Dui Hua Foundation, a prisoner advocacy nonprofit based in San Francisco, claimed that the evidence against Swidan was “entirely circumstantial,” and in 2020, the U.N. determined that Swidan’s detention was “arbitrary,” Politico reported.

“I’m just elated and excited — I can’t even believe it,” his mother, Katherine Swidan, told the outlet after learning the news of her son’s release.

The family had previously expressed concerns about his health and possible suicidal ideation.

Both Li and Leung were convicted of espionage.

Li, a 60-year-old Chinese immigrant who lived in New York, was arrested by Shanghai police in September 2016, according to the AP. In July 2018, a court sentenced him to 10 years in prison, another sentence that the U.N. later described as “arbitrary,” as well as “political and not criminal” and “at least in part attributable to his status as a foreign national of Chinese heritage,” Politico said.

Li suffered a stroke while incarcerated, CBS News reported.

Leung, a 78-year-old permanent resident of Hong Kong, was arrested in 2021, accused of spying in China on behalf of American intelligence agencies since 1989. Last year, he was sentenced to life in prison and had more than $70,000 worth of property confiscated.

‘Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years.’

Though CBS News and the AP indicated that the U.S. State Department classified all three men as “wrongfully detained,” Politico reported that Leung — whom CNN described as “a veteran leader of several pro-Beijing groups in the United States” — was not considered to be “wrongfully detained” by either the State Department or the U.N.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel was similarly vague about Leung’s case in May 2023, telling CNN cryptically: “Broadly on wrongfully detained designations, that work is a deliberative process that is ongoing.”

In any case, all three are now free and should be back in the U.S. “in a few hours,” a senior White House official said, according to Politico.

“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” the White House said in a statement.

A statement from a National Security spokesman indicated that China no longer has any wrongfully detained Americans in custody: “Thanks to this administration’s efforts and diplomacy with the PRC, all of the wrongfully detained Americans in the PRC are home.”

They are expected to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center outside San Antonio, Texas, which is equipped to give former hostages psychological evaluations and help them reacclimate into society.

The men were released to U.S. custody in exchange for “unidentified Chinese nationals,” CNN reported. The U.S. has also officially reduced the travel advisory level for China from three to two, encouraging Americans to exercise “increased caution” in the communist country rather than to “reconsider” traveling there.

The Chinese embassy in Washington declined CNN’s request for comment.

The release of the detainees comes at the tail end of the Biden-Harris administration, and some outlets are declaring it a last-minute victory for the outgoing administration.

The release also comes just days after President-elect Donald Trump promised to impose a 10% tariff on Chinese goods in retaliation for China reportedly manufacturing fentanyl and then shipping it into the U.S.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

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