3 Americans detained in China are released in prisoner swap, official says

Three American citizens who had been detained for years in China were released, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.

They are Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung.

Li, 62, who is from Long Island, New York, was detained in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in 2018 on espionage charges his family says are baseless. Swidan, a Texas businessman in his 40s, had been detained since 2012 and was sentenced to death with a reprieve in 2019 after being convicted on drug-related charges that a United Nations working group said had no evidential basis.

Li and Swidan were considered “wrongfully detained” by the State Department.

John Leung, an American in his 70s who also has permanent residency in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, was sentenced to life in prison last year after being found guilty of espionage by a court in eastern China. Leung, who was detained in 2021, had been a member of a pro-Beijing group in the United States and had been pictured with senior Chinese officials, according to Hong Kong and Chinese news outlets.

Their release was part of a prisoner swap for Xu Yanjun, an officer of China’s Ministry of State Security, and Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national, a U.S. government official said.

Yanjun was arrested after an alleged attempt to steal technology from GE Aviation, an American aircraft engine supplier. Chaoqun was accused of spying for the Chinese government.

“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” the State Department spokesperson said in a statement about the Americans.

According to a senior U.S. official, the three Americans released from China are safely in U.S. custody and on planes heading back to the U.S.

The White House has not said who, if anyone, was being freed in exchange for the U.S. citizens.

The senior official as well as another U.S. official said the release had been in the works for months.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he had worked closely over the years with Li’s son, Harrison Li, “to speak directly to the highest levels of the Chinese and U.S. governments to advocate for Mr. Li’s release and safe return to his family in Huntington, New York.”

“Even when it felt like there was no hope, we never stopped believing that one day Mr. Li would return home,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “I look forward to welcoming Mr. Li back home to New York very soon.” 

For the families of all three freed Americans, “this Thanksgiving there is so much to be thankful for,” he added.

The news was first reported by Politico.

The announcement on Wednesday follows the surprise release in September of American pastor David Lin, whom like Li and Swidan the U.S. had classified as wrongfully detained. He had been jailed in China since 2006 after being sentenced to life in prison on charges of contract fraud.

The Dui Hua Foundation, which monitors prisoner rights in China, estimates there are about 200 American detainees, more than in any other foreign country, including Americans who are imprisoned as well as those who are prevented from leaving the country while a case is under investigation.

The State Department classifies only a handful of them as wrongfully detained. Beijing says all cases are handled in accordance with the law. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday in Beijing.

Biden administration officials had raised the issue of Americans detained in China in multiple meetings with their Chinese counterparts, including one between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru earlier this month.

But their families had been frustrated by the slow pace of progress, particularly as major prisoner exchanges were negotiated with Russia and other countries. In September, Swidan’s mother, Katherine Swidan, and Harrison Li were among relatives who appeared before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China to press the Biden administration to do more.

“I have now spent a third of my life missing my dad,” Li said at the hearing. “Every day, I wake up and shudder at the thought of him crammed into a tiny cell with as many as 11 other people.”

Li said that in the last eight years, his father had suffered a stroke, lost a tooth and spent more than three years “essentially locked in his cell 24/7” due to China’s “zero-Covid” pandemic restrictions. He also expressed concern that efforts to release his father and others could be slowed by the change of administration in January.

Other families who appeared at the hearing are still waiting for the return of relatives detained in China, including Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt. Many others have not made their cases public for fear it could obstruct their loved ones’ return. 

CORRECTION (Nov. 27, 2024, 6:32 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Kai Li’s age. He is 62, not 70.