Washington DC [US], November 29 : A US official has confirmed that three American citizens who were released after being detained for years in China were back in the United States.
The three - Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung returned to the US through Lackland Air Force Base, part of Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, an administration official confirmed Thursday (local time) as per NBC News.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council (NSC) said in a statement on Wednesday that the three Americans are on their way back to the US and they will soon be reunited with their families for the first time in many years.
The US government determined that Texas businessman Mark Swidan and Long Island Chinese businessman Kai Li were "wrongly detained" by the Chinese government, the Voice of America reported.
In exchange for the three American nationals citizens, The New York Times reported that one of the Chinese citizens released may be Xu Yanjun, an intelligence officer of China's Ministry of State Security. According to NBC. In addition to Xu Yanjun, Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese American who became a citizen through military service, was also included in the prisoner exchange agreement.
The NYT quoted John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights organization in San Francisco, as saying: "This shows that they not only want to give Joe Biden a parting gift, but also send a signal to Donald Trump that important concessions may be made in the future."
NYT cited two US officials to report that Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer serving a 20-year sentence after he was arrested in Brussels in 2018 and extradited to the United States in a dramatic F.B.I. operation.
During a global summit in Peru earlier this month, President Joe Biden discussed a potential prisoner swap with Xi Jinping, the leader of China, the NYT said.
The news outlet said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the three Americans while he was flying back to Washington from a diplomatic mission to Rome, and as the three men were on their way back to the United States. Earlier this year, at meetings in New York and Vientiane, Laos, Blinken pressed his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, repeatedly on the need for China to release all wrongfully detained Americans.
Biden, has now helped secure the release of more than 70 Americans that the US considered wrongfully detained overseas, according to the White House.
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