Who are the three Americans released by China in prisoner swap deal?

Beijing has released three Americans in a prisoner swap deal who are now on their way home, the Biden administration said on Wednesday. As per reports, the agreement swapped three Chinese nationals who were convicted of espionage. The US State Department said that the three of them were wrongfully detained in China for years.

“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” said Sean Savett, a National Security Council spokesman.

As per the State Department, Mark Swidan, of Houston, Texas, Kai Li, of Long Island, New York, and John Leung, a permanent resident of Hong Kong would soon be "reunited with their families for the first time in many years."

More details about the deal are awaited, but a senior official told ABC News that China agreed to lift an exit ban on another American who was stopped from leaving China. The Chinese embassy has not said anything about it yet.

The US is releasing Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer who was arrested in Brussels in 2018 and had been serving a 20-year sentence. He was nabbed following a dramatic FBI operation and extradited to the US. 

Who are the Americans being released by China?

Katherine Swidan, Mark Swidan's mother, posted a photo of her son with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Roger Carstens the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs on the plane.

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"My son Free at Last," she said. 

Swidan was arrested in 2012 while he was there for business purposes and to buy flooring, fixtures and furniture for his own home. He was accused of being involved in a drug operation and sentenced to death in April 2019. 

Kai Li's son, Harrison Li, said in a statement on X that his father and the other hostages would reach Joint Base San Antonio Wednesday night.

"We are thrilled that Kai is on his way home along with [Mark Swidan] and John Leung. Thank you, [President Joe Biden], and everyone who made this day possible at long last. Please keep bringing them home," he said in his post.

Sixty-two-year-old Li was born in Shanghai but immigrated to the US 35 years ago. He owned an export business involving the redistribution of products from Boeing and a subsidiary. As per his family, he was detained immediately upon landing in Shanghai in September 2016. 

Beijing detained him claiming that he had given "five state secrets to the FBI", later sentencing him to 10 years. His family said that all he did was have "routine communications", something that was "necessary to ensure compliance with US export laws."

His son told lawmakers in September that his father was in dire conditions in China where he had suffered a stroke, lost a tooth, and was locked in solitary confinement for three years.

Leung, who is 78 years old, was arrested by Chinese authorities in April 2021. He was charged with spying and sentenced to death in May 2023. ABC News reported that he was "found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated personal property of RMB 500,000."

The prisoner swap had been in the works for a long time, but was kept a top secret. In Peru during a summit earlier this month, President Joe Biden discussed a potential prisoner swap with President Xi Jinping.