China releases three 'wrongfully detained' Americans, US says

US President Joe Biden greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting in 2023. AFP

China released three Americans as part of an agreement between the Biden administration and the Chinese government, US officials said on Wednesday, marking a rare moment of detente between the rival nations. 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 representative 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 representative said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

A statement from the National Security Council said the three Americans would be reunited with their families “for the first time in many years”. Politico, which first reported the news, said the prisoners had been released in a swap but the NSC did not mention who the US might have released. Bloomberg and AFP cited anonymous sources saying an unspecified number of Chinese prisoners had been freed by the US.

Mr Swidan was detained on drug charges in late 2012 on a business trip to China. His family and supporters say there was never any evidence he had drugs and that his driver and translator had blamed him. The other two released prisoners had been convicted of espionage. The outgoing Biden administration has now secured the release of more than 70 unjustly detained Americans around the world, officials said.

US-China relations have been on tricky ground for years over major disagreements between the world’s two largest economies. The release of Americans deemed wrongfully detained in China has been a top agenda item in each conversation between the US and China, and Wednesday’s development suggests a willingness by Beijing to engage with the outgoing Democratic administration before Republican president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January.