Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) called on China to release two more American citizens.
The top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee said “hostage diplomacy” is on the rise, a day after the Chinese regime released an American citizen and pastor who had been detained for nearly 20 years.
The State Department announced on Sept. 15 that David Lin, who was on a missionary trip to China in 2006 when he was detained, has returned to the United States.
Lin, now 68, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for what Washington says are wrongful charges of contract fraud.
“I am extremely glad to hear David Lin was freed from his 17-year-long wrongful imprisonment by the CCP,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) stated in a Sept. 15 post on X, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
“His capture, like so many others, marks a rising trend of hostage diplomacy by authoritarians around the world. However, Kai Li and Texan Mark Swidan still remain CCP prisoners—and must be freed now.”
This is not the first time the Chinese regime has used its judicial system to arrest or detain foreigners in order to exert political leverage. Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians released by Beijing in September 2021, are further examples, according to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).
About a month before Spavor and Kovrig were released, McCaul wrote on X, then Twitter, that the two Canadians “have done nothing wrong.”
“The CCP’s hostage diplomacy is the behavior of a rogue state, not a global leader.” he said.
Swidan, a Texas businessman who has been wrongfully detained in China since 2012, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2019 after being charged with alleged drug-related crimes, according to the State Department.
A Chinese court denied his appeal and upheld the ruling in April last year.
Li has been detained in China since September 2016. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 on espionage charges that his family says are “politically motivated.”
On Sept. 15, Free Kai Li, a website dedicated to raising awareness of Li’s detention, called on the Biden administration to help release the detainee.
“Welcome home, David Lin. We are thrilled to see [President Joe Biden’s] leadership in finally bringing home an American citizen from China,” an X post reads. “Now we need him to #FinishTheJob to bring Kai home too—before another admin change resets the bilateral relationship.”
The CECC is scheduled to hold a hearing on Sept. 18 addressing Americans detained in China. Among the witnesses are Nelson Wells Sr., father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells Jr.; Harrison Li, son of Kai Li; Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle Hunt; and Peter Humphrey, journalist and former prisoner in China.
The State Department’s travel advisory asks U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel” to mainland China because of “arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” including exit bans and wrongful detention. The agency says Beijing has several reasons for prohibiting foreigners from leaving the country, such as compelling individuals to participate in Chinese investigations or resolving civil disputes in favor of Chinese citizens.
Currently, more than 200 Americans are under “coercive measures” in China and more than 30 are under exit bans, San Francisco-based advocacy group Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement that also welcomed Li’s release on Sept. 15.
Last year, Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders warned in a report that the Chinese regime “has massively increased the number of people placed under exit bans over the past decade.”
“Anyone may be a target—human rights defenders, businesspeople, officials, and foreigners,” the report reads.
The James Foley Legacy Foundation, an organization that advocates for the freedom of all U.S. hostages abroad, said Lin’s release “is an encouraging sign” in a statement on X.
“We hope all Americans wrongfully detained in China are reunited with their families ASAP.”