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BRINGING HOME AMERICANS 

DETAINED IN CHINA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov 
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

House Senate 

CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, 

Chair 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts 

BRIAN MAST, Florida 

JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia 

MICHELLE STEEL, California 

SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania 

ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon 

ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa 

RYAN ZINKE, Montana 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

ANGUS KING, Maine 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

LAPHONZA R. BUTLER, California 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State 

MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce 

THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor 

UZRA ZEYA, Department of State 

PIERO TOZZI, Staff Director 

TODD STEIN, Deputy Staff Director 

(ii) 
C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS

Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from New 

Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ....................... 1 

Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-chair, 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................................................ 3 

Statement of Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American citizen Nelson 

Wells, Jr. ............................................................................................................... 4 

Statement of Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li ................... 6 

Statement of Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle 

Hunt ...................................................................................................................... 8 

Statement of Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence specialist, Sinologist, 

and former prisoner of China .............................................................................. 10 

Statement of Katherine Swidan, mother of detained American citizen Mark 

Swidan .................................................................................................................. 12 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

Wells, Sr., Nelson .................................................................................................... 39 

Li, Harrison .............................................................................................................. 41 

Hunt, Tim ................................................................................................................. 42 

Humphrey, Peter ..................................................................................................... 44 

Swidan, Katherine ................................................................................................... 55 

Smith, Hon. Chris .................................................................................................... 56 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff ................................................................................................... 57 

McGovern, Hon. James P. ....................................................................................... 58 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Submission of Jason Ian Poblete, Counsel and President of the Global 

Magnitsky Justice Campaign .............................................................................. 59 

Submission of Benedict Rogers, co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch ... 61 

Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, ‘‘Foreign Prisoners in China: 

Abuse, Forced Labour and a Denial of Human Rights,’’ a briefing, July 

2023, submitted by Benedict Rogers .................................................................. 62 

Submission of Cedric Witek, advocate for detained American citizen David 

McMahon .............................................................................................................. 72 

Submission of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, Inc. ............................... 74 

Submission of Cynthia Sun, researcher, Falun Dafa Information Center .......... 77 

Submission of Sir William Browder KCMG, head of the Global Magnitsky 

Justice Campaign ................................................................................................. 78 

CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form ......................................................... 81 

Witness Biographies ................................................................................................ 83 

(iii) 

(1) 

BRINGING HOME AMERICANS 

DETAINED IN CHINA 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, 

Washington, DC. 

The hearing was held from 10:14 a.m. to 12:29 p.m., in room 106, 

Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Representative 

Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on 

China, presiding. 

Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and Representatives Steel and Nunn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONALEXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chair SMITH. The hearing will come to order, and good morning 

to all of you. 

We open today’s hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is back 

in the United States after nearly two decades unjustly detained. 

Pastor Lin’s crime was that he worked to strengthen the Protestant 

Chinese house church movement. For this, he received a life sentence. We are overjoyed for the Lin family. This Commission has 

pressured both the previous administration as well as this one. 

And we’re happy that the Biden administration helped facilitate 

his return. So much—the agony that all of you here are experiencing, not just today but every single day and night—I don’t know 

how you do it. You know, it’s got to be beyond words cruel what 

the Chinese Communist Party has put you and your loved ones 

through. 

Despite the release of David Lin, we now know, and we know beyond—(off mic)—more than anywhere else in the world. Wrongfully 

detained U.S. nationals are serving—(off mic)—Mark Swidan, Kai 

Li, Nelson Wells, and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these hard facts— 

you know these hard facts all too well. They have all languished 

far too long in Chinese prisons. The Foley Foundation identifies 11 

wrongfully detained Americans in China, including those subjected 

to exit bans. John Kamm, however, the preeminent expert on political prisoners in China, estimates that there are 200 or more American citizens coercively detained (with 30 Americans being held 

under exit bans, where U.S. citizens are stopped from leaving 

China) to settle economic disputes or to coerce their relatives to return to China to face alleged crimes. 
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This is absolutely unacceptable. If the Chinese government 

wants to improve relations with the United States, they should release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned without condition 

and unilaterally end the use of exit bans, a form of de facto hostage 

taking that violates Article 12 of the International Covenant on 

Civil and Political Rights, a treaty that the PRC has signed, though 

it has not yet ratified. And I would note parenthetically that they 

went for years getting all kinds of accolades here in Washington 

that they had signed that covenant—(off mic)—that covenant and 

didn’t ratify it. And it’s not enforceable anyway. But it is a good 

statement of principles, and we wish that they would at least ratify 

it. 

The release of American citizens should be the first thing President Biden says to Communist Party Xi Jinping whenever they 

talk. Their names should be mentioned so often that Xi Jinping 

memorizes them. Their cases should be agenda item No. 1 at every 

meeting the Secretary of State has with Chinese officials. And 

every U.S. official traveling to China—and that includes Members 

of Congress, Senate and House, and of course members of the administration at every level—they should be constantly raising the 

names of those who are being held—Americans being held in captivity. 

Every channel of the U.S. Government must be focused on the 

release of wrongfully detained Americans. It’s that simple. All 

Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic assistance 

to gain their transfer out of prison or at the very least, to have 

more frequent U.S. consular official visits, more frequent and 

longer visits with their families, and better access to legal representation and health care, which is almost nonexistent. Given the 

legal system in China, and the poor prison conditions, more Americans should be considered by the State Department to be unjustly 

detained. That list needs to grow based on the facts. 

How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons receive a 

transparent trial, with a genuine legal defense, in an impartial 

Chinese court? In China’s rule by law system, where the Party can 

dictate sentences of guilt or innocence—and it’s so often guilt— 

there is none of that. It doesn’t exist. (Off mic)—of the poor conditions in PRC prisons where Chinese and foreigners alike are forced 

to work long hours, where they are often tortured or mistreated by 

guards and other prisoners, where they suffer from insufficient 

medical care and nutrition. 

Your testimony today about what you and your families have endured while jailed should be—and we will submit it as—evidence 

of torture to the U.N. Committee Against Torture for its upcoming 

review of China. We need more people speaking out. There’s been 

far too few voices. And, of course, the U.N. has a golden opportunity, particularly the U.N. Committee on Torture, to speak out, 

and to do so robustly. I will ask our staff to work with you to submit your testimony to the United Nations High Commissioner for 

Human Rights and the U.S. Mission in Geneva. 

But that’s just the start, given the number of Americans detained and the Chinese Communist Party’s willingness to engage 

in this ongoing atrocity. To that end, I will introduce, along with 

Tom Suozzi, a bill that will, among other things, direct the U.S. 
3 

Department of State to create a strategy for gaining the release of 

your family members, gain insight into the diplomatic tool the 

State Department is using for your family members—Executive 

Order 14078, Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully 

Detained United States Nationals Home, seek more transparent information from the State Department about the cases of your loved 

ones, including gaining access to the resources Congress allocated 

to assist families with the financial burdens of advocacy. 

I know this is a very tough and emotional day for our witnesses, 

but every day and every night is tough and emotional. Again, I 

don’t know how you endure it. No amount of words or empathy 

from us can replace your missing loved ones. I hope you know that 

our purpose here today, in an absolute bipartisan way—and Senator Merkley and I work like brothers on these issues and we will 

work very hard. And I know here in the Senate, and of course over 

in the House—(off mic)—not personally done enough either, and so 

it’s time we did more as well. Thank you so much for being here. 

Your loved ones are in my prayers. 

[The prepared statement of Chair Smith appears in the Appendix.] 

I yield to my good friend and colleague, Co-chair Senator 

Merkley. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

OREGON; CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for 

convening this hearing. And much appreciation to each of you for 

coming. 

For more than two decades, the Members of Congress and executive—(off mic)—who have been unjustly jailed by Chinese authorities for seeking to exercise basic human rights. Our Commission 

maintains a Political Prisoner Database that currently has 2,764 

nationals of the People’s Republic of China known or believed to be 

detained. And as the Chairman pointed out, the Foley Foundation 

has a list of about a dozen individuals—American individuals 

wrongfully detained in China. But estimates by human rights organizations go up to about 200. Two hundred Americans detained. We 

don’t know the exact number. 

What we know is this—even one American detained as a political 

prisoner in China is too many. If an American breaks the law in 

China, that individual can be prosecuted just as a Chinese national 

would be here in the United States. But here’s the problem—many 

laws of the PRC are not consistent with—(off mic). And the rule of 

law is undermined by political considerations. Now, our U.S. Government has been developing some tools to counter this—the executive branch issued directives—by President Obama in 2015—to implement an interagency response to overseas hostage taking, including the creation of a special Presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department. 

In 2020, President Trump signed into law the Robert Levinson 

Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. In 2022, 

President Biden issued an executive order to authorize sanctions 

against foreign government officials and others who are complicit 
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in hostage taking. With these tools, and under President Biden’s 

leadership, we have seen a decrease—a 42 percent decrease—in the 

number of detained Americans overseas since the peak of 2002, according to the Foley Foundation. Now, there have been some highprofile returns, including some from Russia, including Paul 

Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others. But 

not every American detained overseas gets a spotlight. 

Today we are putting a spotlight on three individuals, Kai Li, 

Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, who have been unjustly detained in China for eight or more years. We want to hear their 

story from their family members today, because in hearing your 

story we’re then able to tell the story. We can tell the story to the 

administration, to the media. Most importantly, we can carry that 

message and work toward their release with the government of the 

People’s Republic of China. 

Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental anguish. We want to make sure they get proper care and counsel. But 

most of all, we want them united with their families. And we’re 

joyful that David Lin has been released, that he’s now reunited. I’m 

sure—what a celebration that is. But we want a celebration for 

each of your families. Reportedly, China wrongly holds more Americans than any other country. We want to know why the Chinese 

government refuses to allow them to come home. 

Our U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has met with the 

three Americans that we’re focused on today. Secretary of State 

Antony Blinken raised their cases directly with President Xi. But 

despite these efforts, despite the tools we have, representations 

made, the Chinese government continues to turn a blind eye to the 

suffering and the heartbreak. So here today we’ll not only hear 

your stories, but your stories represent the stories of so many 

Americans with family members detained. And they’ll help inform 

us of the circumstances, but also help us ponder what more we can 

do, as Chairman Smith has suggested. We look forward to hearing 

from you. 

[The prepared statement of Co-chair Merkley appears in the Appendix.] 

Chair SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Merkley. 

I’d like to introduce our distinguished witnesses—oh, Michelle 

Steel, one of our commissioners, I understand, has just come online. She’s going to have a few opening comments. 

Commissioner Steel. 

STATEMENT OF MICHELLE STEEL, 

A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA 

Representative STEEL. Yes. Americans detained in China. As already mentioned, there are more Americans detained by the CCP 

than anywhere else in the world. But this doesn’t stop at Americans. The CCP and other communist governments, such as North 

Korea and Vietnam, are imprisoning journalists, human rights defenders, religious figures, and dissidents. 

One of my constituents had been wrongfully detained in a Chinese prison for nearly two decades and just returned home this 

week. And David Lin is a pastor from Garden Grove who was in 

China helping—building a church. He can finally see his family 
5 

and meet his grandchildren he never met before for the first time 

in 20 years. Mr. Lin isn’t the first person to be jailed for life for 

committing contract fraud. It is appalling that the CCP requires 

Christian churches to pledge loyalty to the Communist Party. I’m 

grateful that he’s back in the United States. 

I have other constituents who live in fear of their loved ones 

being apprehended by the CCP. One of my constituents had a loved 

one tracked by text messages and arrested by CCP authorities 

while we were in the process of helping them flee the country. According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnamese authorities have convicted at least 163 people since 2018 for exercising their right to 

freedom of association or freedom of expression against the Vietnam communist government. 

And I have written many letters to President Biden with the 

names and sentences of journalists and other prisoners of conscience and urging him to take action to secure their release. As 

we speak, I’m advocating for the release and protection of Y Quynh 

Bdap with them and urging his resettlement in the U.S. or Canada. He’s a Vietnamese citizen and U.N.-recognized refugee being 

held in Thailand on false charges by the Vietnamese communist 

government. 

I have urged the State Department to redesignate Vietnam as a 

country of particular concern, due to their human rights abuse. I 

especially requested that Secretary Blinken prioritize addressing 

Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, who has faced continued religious persecution by his government. And I’m hopeful that shining more light on 

the communist authorities falsely detaining innocent people will 

help bring justice to those already in prison and prevent future 

detainments. 

And I’m so happy that Chairman Smith is having this meeting 

today and talking about the detainees—that we really have to 

bring them to a free country. And, you know, our job is not done 

yet, and we are still working. Thank you for having this meeting 

today. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you so much, Commissioner Steel. And 

thank you for joining us, and for your leadership, which has been 

ongoing and very effective. 

I’d now like to introduce our very distinguished panel of people 

who are fighting so hard for their loved ones, beginning with Nelson Wells, Sr. He’s the father of Nelson Wells, Jr., and a native of 

New Orleans, Louisiana. He and his wife, Cynthia, who is here 

with us today as well, now live in Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells 

is a 20-year U.S. Army veteran stationed all over the country and 

world, including a stint in the Middle East during the Gulf War. 

His wife Cynthia worked as an Army recruiter for the Department 

of Defense for 28 years. Both are retired and are now advocating 

full-time for their son’s release. 

Then we’ll hear from Harrison Li, who is a doctoral student 

studying statistics, who has begrudgingly had to become a political 

advocate for his father, Kai Li. Never expected he would have to 

do this. He is originally from Long Island, New York, and currently 

lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves on the steering 

committee of the Bring Our Families Home Campaign, an advocacy 

group of families of Americans wrongfully detained around the 
6 

world working together to try to cut through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance for and information on their wrongfully detained family members. His greatest wish is for his father 

to be home and in good health, to see him graduate next spring, 

after missing his college graduation in 2018. 

We’ll then hear from Tim Hunt, who is the brother of Dawn 

Michelle Hunt, and a native of Chicago. He attended Whitney 

Young Magnet School and DePaul University and served as a Chicago police officer for 28 years. So thank you for that service, as 

well as to you, Nelson Wells, for your service in the military. But 

he worked everything—beat, car, plainclothes, bicycle, mounted, 

and forensic unit roles. Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his mother, father, and three uncles were all Chicago police officers as well. Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating tirelessly for his sister’s release from prison. 

We’ll then hear from Peter Humphrey, who is a British sinologist 

who has spent half a century working and studying in China and 

lived there for 25 years as a student, teacher, journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence detective, and then prisoner. In 

2013, Peter and his American wife, Yu Yingzeng, were wrongfully 

imprisoned on false charges of illegal information gathering. Their 

only crime was to have offended someone with connections in the 

Chinese Communist Party. It was all about revenge. 

Since his release in 2015, Peter created a support network for 

the families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their welfare and for 

their release. Through his work he has become a specialist on justice and imprisonment in China and is undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners in China. In addition to his work with 

families and the wrongfully detained, he is also an external research affiliate at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional columnist and documentary advisor, 

and has been a guest speaker at universities and think tanks about 

China’s judicial and penal system. I would like to thank you for 

that great work. After suffering so much, you are just giving back 

so well to try to help all the others who have been left behind. 

I’d now like to yield such time as he would like to take to Mr. 

Wells. 

STATEMENT OF NELSON WELLS, SR., FATHER OF 

DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN NELSON WELLS, JR. 

Mr. WELLS. Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-Chair Merkley, and 

esteemed Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on 

China. Thank you for inviting me and our advisor, Peter Humphrey, to testify at this hearing on Americans detained in China. 

My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. I am a native of New Orleans, Louisiana and live in Haughton, Louisiana. I am appearing before you 

on behalf of my wife, Cynthia Wells, our family, and asking for 

your assistance in bringing home our son, Nelson Wells, Jr., who 

has been unjustly imprisoned in China for 10 years. 

I served in the United States Army for 20 years, and Cynthia 

served at the Department of Defense for nearly 28 years. We have 

been stationed and traveled all over the United States and the 

world, and most often brought our two children with us. In the 

spring of 2014, we were awakened in the middle of the night by 
7 

a call that no parent ever wants to receive. Paraphrasing, the male 

caller said: I am a companion of Nelson. He’s in trouble. He’s been 

arrested in China. They’re going to kill him. Naturally, I thought 

it was a prank, a scam. We didn’t even realize Nelson, at 40 years 

old, was in China. When we called his wife in Japan, she learned 

that he had taken a trip to China. And we knew we had a problem. 

Over the next weeks and months, we reached out to the United 

States embassy multiple times to find Nelson, or a record of his arrest. But they could not locate him. It was not until we contacted 

Mr. John Kamm at the Dui Hua Foundation that we were able to 

confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested. For Nelson’s part, 

he had been incarcerated all that time in China, a country where 

he was only visiting, where he did not read or speak the language, 

and where he did not know if we were looking for him or even 

knew that he had been arrested. 

Frightened and desperate, Nelson was willing to do anything to 

improve his conditions, even plead partially guilty so that he could 

enter the prison system to be allowed phone calls home. Ultimately, we learned that Nelson had been arrested on drug charges. 

As he was leaving the country, he naively agreed to carry a bag 

of what he thought to be baked goods for a so-called friend through 

the security at the airport. Those baked goods were allegedly laced 

with illegal drugs. For that one mistake, that one betrayal, none 

of our lives will ever be the same. 

Nelson originally received a life sentence, but that sentence was 

ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence did not include time 

served. This means that Nelson will not be released until the year 

2041. In the years since 2014, my wife and I have become consumed with efforts to secure Nelson’s release, to ensure his safety 

and health while in prison. We expended almost all of our savings 

in those early years via trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson, without meaningful guidance from our own government. 

For years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to the 

White House, to State Department officials, to Democrats and Republicans, to anyone who was in a position of influence. But our 

calls for assistance went unanswered, until recently. American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful, but some case officers were 

better than others, and they change frequently. One of Nelson’s 

former best case officers is working with your committee now, and 

his current case officer is outstanding as well. But no matter how 

good or how well meaning, with each swap it feels like we—like 

Nelson—is starting all over. 

This inconsistency takes a toll on him, as have the years of incarceration. Over the years, Nelson has suffered from debilitating 

chronic pain, seizures, malnutrition, internal issues, dental pain, 

severe depression, and thoughts of self-harm. We also know that, 

based on family history, Nelson needs regular cancer and heart 

health screening. He also needs regular contact with a mental 

health professional, regular calls, ideally video calls, with us, and 

the ability to speak English with another person on a regular basis. 

We’re thankful to those who have helped us, but we often feel 

that meaningful change is blocked at every turn. For example, Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held unjustly. We’ve 
8 

been told that humanitarian release is not a possibility. And although Nelson has also sought to utilize the 2018 law in China 

that allows for prisoners to be transferred to an American facility 

without a bilateral treaty with the home country, the United States 

still requires a treaty. And so Nelson remains in Chongqing prison. 

Whatever the path, we are asking, pleading with this Commission, with Congress, with the administration, and with the Chinese 

government to work together on behalf of our son to create a pathway for outright release or prisoner transfer to a home prison. I 

hope you will read my longer testimony and attachments so that 

you understand our full story. I look forward to answering your 

questions during and after the hearing. Learn more about 

Nelson, my son, whom I love, and follow our story at 

www.nelsonwellsjr.com. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Nelson Wells, Sr. appears in the Appendix.] 

Chair SMITH. Thank you so much, Mr. Wells. 

Mr. Li. 

STATEMENT OF HARRISON LI, 

SON OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN KAI LI 

Mr. LI. Thank you, Representative Smith and Senator Merkley, 

for convening this important hearing. It’s been a long time coming. 

All of us here have suffered far too many years. And it is about 

time—it’s past time for more attention on our loved ones’ plight, to 

bring them home. 

Today marks 2,932 days—that’s more than 8 years—since my 

dad, Kai Li, was arrested in Shanghai, China. He spent 2 months 

under ‘‘residential surveillance at a designated location,’’ during 

which he was held at a secret location, interrogated day and night 

with no access to legal counsel. Then almost a year passed before 

he was subjected to a closed-door trial, and another year went by 

before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing so-called 

state secrets—even though these alleged secrets can be freely found 

and searched on the internet, even in China. 

More than 3 years ago now, the United Nations Working Group 

on Arbitrary Detention issued a landmark decision calling for the 

release of my dad on the basis that his detention was, in fact, arbitrary. And yet, despite all of this, in more than 8 years we have 

seen no visible positive movement on my dad’s case. Since 2022, I 

am fortunate to have gotten to know a really large number of families of American hostages and wrongful detainees around the world 

through the Bring Our Families Home Campaign. 

In that time, we’ve seen the campaign shrink dramatically from 

18 families now down to just 6. And that’s because of Americans 

who have come home from Afghanistan in September 2022, from 

Venezuela and Iran in October 2022, Russia in December 2022, 

Niger and Rwanda in March 2023, then Iran again in September 

2023, Venezuela again in December 2023, Russia again last month, 

and finally, of course, just this past Sunday we were thrilled to see 

that David Lin was finally released and reunited with his family 

after 18 years in China. 

In fact, I got that news just as I was on the train coming down 

here to D.C. And each time we get this news, it’s a really complex 
9 

mix of emotions because, of course, you know, we’re just so thrilled 

for these families. We know, of course, what it’s like to have a 

loved one unjustly missing for so long, and to know that the family 

is finally being made whole again, and that they’re on the road to 

recovery. You just can’t help but feel your heart swell with pride 

and happiness. But at the same time, it raises the question for us, 

What about my dad? When will it be his turn? 

One thing that has become clear to us, in light of all these recent 

developments, is that when the various parts of our government— 

from the State Department to the National Security Council all the 

way up to the President himself—when they put their heads together to come up with creative solutions, American hostages and 

wrongful detainees in fact do come home. Frankly, it’s incredibly 

impressive seeing how last month’s Russia prisoner swap materialized, just the sheer level of effort and coordination it took really 

shows that these cases can be solved. And now seeing an American 

finally come home from China last week in a major diplomatic 

breakthrough, to us there’s really no reason now why my dad—who 

has now spent more time behind bars than Paul Whelan, Alsu 

Kurmasheva, and Evan Gershkovich combined, cannot come home 

too. 

Unfortunately, time is not on our side. No matter who wins November’s Presidential election, we will have a change of administration. And we know from experience, unfortunately, that that 

means months or even years where absolutely no progress on these 

cases will be made. And that’s because communication channels 

will need to be reestablished, reworked, and carefully worked out. 

The good will that the Chinese government has built up by releasing Pastor Lin will fade. And so the next few months before President Biden leaves office is a critical window for getting my dad 

home, and getting home all of the Americans wrongfully detained 

in China. 

Personally, I’ve now spent a third of my life missing my dad. 

Every day, I wake up and shudder at the thought of him crammed 

in that tiny cell with anywhere from 7 to 11 other people, no climate control, unable to sleep in the summer due to the heat, experiencing the mental and physical anguish that Peter here, unfortunately, can tell you about firsthand, having spent 2 years in the 

very same prison and the same brigade where my dad is now being 

held. In his time in captivity, my dad has suffered a stroke, he’s 

lost a tooth, he’s endured draconian COVID–19 lockdowns that had 

him essentially locked in a cell 24/7, for over 3 years. And so I ask 

President Biden, how much longer does he need to suffer? Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Harrison Li appears in the Appendix.] 

Chair SMITH. Mr. Li, thank you, too, so very much. And for pointing out that there is a window of opportunity right now. There 

needs to be a surge. I do hope that whoever wins the Presidency 

will move quickly on this issue as well to bring Americans home; 

but you’re right, the chaos, the beginning of a new administration 

can frustrate those efforts. The idea that there needs to be a surge 

right now is well taken. Thank you for that. 

Mr. Hunt. 
10 

STATEMENT OF TIM HUNT, BROTHER OF 

DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN DAWN MICHELLE HUNT 

Mr. HUNT. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, and 

members of the Commission, thank you for inviting me today to 

tell you the story of my sister, Dawn Michelle Hunt. Dawn is incarcerated in Guangdong Women’s Prison. She was arrested in 2014 

and charged with smuggling, a charge she vehemently denies. 

Since her incarceration, I’ve written hundreds of letters to officials, lawyers, and anyone else who would listen. Over the years, 

things have changed. My sister and my family are getting worn 

down. Dawn’s health has been failing, and our father’s health is 

failing as well. 

It all started when my sister was tricked into believing she had 

won a contest. She received an email stating that she had won an 

all-expenses-paid trip to Hong Kong. She didn’t believe it at first, 

but checked on the company and believed they were legitimate. 

She was in Hong Kong for 9 days and she told me that the organizers treated her well. She went sightseeing, shopping, and started to trust the organizers who put together her trip. After exploring Hong Kong, she was asked if she wanted to visit mainland 

China. After her positive experience in Hong Kong, she agreed. She 

went to mainland China and traveled around for another 9 days. 

The organizers then asked if she wanted to visit Australia. Once 

again, she agreed. Before she left for her Australia trip, she was 

told that she also won some designer purses. Trusting the organizers, she took the purses and packed them in luggage given to 

her by the organizers. It was at the airport, waiting to board her 

Australia flight, that she was called by airport security. They escorted her to a room and her luggage was in the room as well. She 

was asked if the luggage belonged to her, to which she responded 

‘‘yes.’’ She stated that she was asked multiple times, and each time 

she stated ‘‘yes,’’ not knowing drugs were in the lining of the 

purses. 

I hope you can see that something like this could happen to a 

lot of people. As a matter of fact, in May of this year, the Secret 

Service issued a warning for law enforcement to educate the public 

on similar schemes. Such a warning didn’t exist in 2014. 

After her trial she was found guilty and received the ‘‘death penalty with 2-year reprieve.’’ She was duped. She was scammed! She 

trusted the wrong people! She doesn’t deserve this! My sister is 

trusting and believes that people are good. This ordeal has hurt her 

and has taken years from her life. 

While in prison she has developed physical ailments (uterine 

fibroids and possibly ovarian cancer) according to the doctors who 

examined her in prison. She has received numerous blood transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised that she needs 

a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of distrust. How can she 

trust the same people who have incarcerated her after she cooperated with the Chinese authorities? 

When I visited her recently in prison, I could see the depth of 

her depression. She has lost weight, her eyes are bulging. She has 

an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her complexion is very 

pale. She told me that she still has to work in the prison despite 

her illness but that she can’t lift heavy objects because her fibroids 
11 

might rupture and she would start bleeding. After my visit to her, 

I updated my father on her condition. I had to leave out some details of her physical appearance because my dad is 91 and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. I wanted to avoid giving him an 

additional shock. 

I’d like to share a bit about my father. He’s an Army veteran and 

a retired Chicago Police Sergeant of 32 years. Policing is a family 

business; I followed in my dad’s footsteps and served on the Chicago PD for 28 years until my recent retirement. 

Dawn Michelle is my dad’s only daughter and he is devastated 

by her predicament. In a strange way, my dad is locked up as well. 

He is worried that with all this, he’s not going to live long enough 

to see his daughter free and safe. He’s getting worn down, just like 

my sister. We’ve gotten our hopes up over the years, only to be disappointed again and again. This hearing today offers us some new 

hope that Dawn will not be forgotten. I’ve come to learn that Chinese law allows for transfer of prisoners out of China and it doesn’t 

require a bilateral prisoner extradition treaty. It is our hope that 

this mechanism can be used by the State Department to get Dawn 

Michelle out of a Chinese prison, get her the medical care she desperately needs, and get her back home to her family. 

And I’d also like to add that my sister sent me a handwritten letter. And in this handwritten letter, she refused the surgery. And 

she said, and I’m going to quote this to bring some of her own 

words to this hearing: ‘‘I, Dawn Michelle, refuse to take the surgery 

and will hold China liable for all the consequences from August 11, 

2021, in regard to my tumor and safety of my life.’’ 

I say this because China knows, in addition to the U.S. Embassy, 

that Dawn Hunt is innocent and has been since June 2016. There 

is written documentation of the status in the courts and computers 

of Guangdong No. 1 Detention Center. She also goes on to say, and 

I’m going to quote this—she says, ‘‘The American government has 

sided with China and knows of my innocent status from Judge 

Zhang Hui Ting in May 2016, but did nothing for their own citizen 

and did not prevent me from coming to the Chinese prison but left 

me out to dry.’’ 

Gentlemen, this isn’t political for me and my family. I’m just asking you, as a brother, just bring my sister home. Do whatever it 

takes; just bring her home. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Tim Hunt appears in the Appendix.] 

Chair SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hunt. 

Mr. Humphrey. 
12 

STATEMENT OF PETER HUMPHREY, JOURNALIST, DUE DILIGENCE SPECIALIST, SINOLOGIST, AND FORMER PRISONER 

OF CHINA 

Mr. HUMPHREY. Good morning to you all. I have submitted detailed written testimony and will keep my oral remarks brief. 

I’ve spent almost 50 years involved with China in various roles. 

And two of those years were in Xi Jinping’s prisons—also my 

American wife, Yingzeng Yu, both of us falsely accused of illegal information gathering for my due diligence company. And I have described this experience in great detail in the FT magazine in a long 

article a few years ago, and in the written testimony that I’ve submitted to you at this hearing. 

After my release, in between battles with cancer, PTSD, and a 

former client who got us into trouble, I decided to work to help 

other families suffering from similar ordeals. I have about 25 cases 

around the world in different countries, and I’m mentoring and 

supporting such families with a loved one locked up in China. I’ve 

accumulated many case studies and carried out a great amount of 

related research. 

The most important lesson from all of it is that not a single 

American prisoner held in China has had a fair and transparent 

trial, and prisoners there from any other country as well, for that 

matter. China’s judicial system is a political system of oppression. 

It is not a system of justice. All of its organs—the police, the prosecution, the judiciary, the prisons and the Chinese lawyers—form 

a single organic whole, all controlled by the Communist Party. No 

judge is independent or impartial. He is just a messenger of the 

Party. 

The system is exploited by connected individuals to harm their 

perceived opponents and rivals. Cases are built upon forced confessions, often televised, and upon forced witness statements. Inside 

China’s prisons, the prisoners, including Americans, are subjected 

to horrendous daily living conditions. In addition, there is forced 

labor for the prison’s commercial profit. There is the withholding 

of proper medical treatment, even for cancer. And there is the writing of mandatory thought reports, in other words brainwashing, to 

mention just a few things. 

And speaking of labor, these are Christmas cards that were packaged for a Western supermarket chain called Tesco by foreign prisoners in Shanghai’s Qingpu Prison, including American prisoners. 

The U.S. Government withholds the total number of Americans 

held in Xi Jinping’s jails. Based on my inquiries and research over 

the years, I estimate up to around 300 Americans may be in some 

form of incarceration in China or under exit bans, mostly just because they are Americans. It is possible that not all of them are 

registered with American consulates. 

Now, just remember, none of them have had a fair and transparent trial. Some are in dire health. Some are over 50, aging rapidly. Some of them have been in Xi’s jails for over 10 years and are 

there for life. I don’t think any of them deserve to be there. It 

doesn’t matter what they’re accused of. It doesn’t even matter 

whether they are guilty or not, when they have never had a fair 

and transparent trial in an independent court with an impartial 

judge. And in Xi’s China, they never will. 
13 

Today, we see some new examples of American prisoners coming 

into the public view—Nelson Wells, Dawn Michelle Hunt, and 

David McMahon. They are horrific cases. They are the tip of an iceberg. And let me say something about David’s case. David 

McMahon is the most egregious case, the most toxic case, the most 

disgusting example of China’s injustice. He is one of my mentees. 

I shared a cell with him for 1 month in Shanghai in 2014, while 

he was trying to appeal. I interviewed him for a whole month. I 

call it an interview because throughout my life I have been a professional interviewer. I’ve conducted thousands of interviews as a 

journalist, and then as a corporate investigator. And I know that 

David is innocent. 

This American primary school teacher was falsely accused and 

framed of molesting a 6-year-old child, a girl, in the Shanghai 

French School. How toxic can you get? I hope you will read the 

written testimony that I have submitted on David’s behalf in his 

absence today, plus the testimony from investigator Cedric Witek 

and ex-prisoner Marius Balo. And I hope that you will read the 

protest letter that David McMahon wrote this year personally, on 

his 43rd birthday, in the 11th year of a 12-year sentence on a false 

conviction—an American robbed of his prime by the Xi Jinping system. Or I can read it for you, if you want me to. I have it here. 

I can read a snatch, yes? Let me get through this, Congressman, 

and then if you think I’ve got time I’ll read a snatch or two from 

it, okay? 

Today, only three Americans held in China have been on the list 

of the U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs. One has just been 

released, to our joy, probably because of this imminent hearing on 

the calendar, which China was very well aware of. The timing 

seems to be not a coincidence at all. But I believe that all Americans held in China qualify to be on that list, first of all, because 

there is no independent judicial system and none of them have had 

a fair and transparent trial. And that is the key criterion for qualifying them to be on that list based on the Levinson Act. 

It’s good that we have this act, but I believe the U.S. Government should treat all American prisoners in China equally. I believe the U.S. Government must abandon its policy of nonintervention in these judicial cases in China and should intervene in them 

all. It has a duty of care to protect its citizens against abusive dictatorships and their so-called judicial systems. It can lead the 

world in this pushback like no other country can. I imagine that 

these families wonder which candidate in the upcoming election 

will bring their loved one home. 

In the final points and recommendations of my written testimony 

I’ve called for legislation that would increase the onus on the U.S. 

Government to take real action for its citizens imprisoned in China. 

As Alex Karp, the founder of software firm Palantir, said a few 

days ago: If you touch an American, we’re going to make you and 

your friends’ life hell. And that’s the way it should be. Americans 

are suffering in Mr. Xi’s dungeons. The United States must hold 

China to account. Just imagine a new kind of Magnitsky Act to target this problem. 

So thank you very much. Those are my remarks. If you would 

like me to read from David McMahon’s letter, I’ll do that. 
14 

‘‘My name is David McMahon. And I’ve been imprisoned for the 

past 11 years for a crime that never happened. Maybe you’ve heard 

of me. I’ve sent letters to Ambassador Burns and to Roger 

Carstens, but neither has responded to me. I’m hoping you will. 

[‘‘you’’ is referring to the Consul General Scott Walker in Shanghai.] 

‘‘I get released, as far as I know, in 1 year. [Actually, it’s next 

May.] I think it’s probably too late for anyone in the State Department to try to help me get released. I’m not asking for that anymore. What I’m asking now is this: Why didn’t you help me when 

you had the chance? I’ve read the entire Levinson Act. My case 

qualifies. I’ve read, copied from the SPEHA website, what they consider to determine wrongful detention. But when my case was rejected [by SPEHA] they refused to tell me why. I don’t think you, 

anyone at the State Department, anyone at the FBI, any French 

law enforcement agency, or any of the Chinese investigators can 

justify what’s been done to me. I’m not going to try my case in this 

letter, but I will simply state I am completely innocent. 

‘‘There are approximately 13 U.S. citizens in this prison. [By the 

way, one of them is Kai Li. They’re in the same place.] The State 

Department currently is only helping to recognize the release of 

one. [He means Kai]. One out of thirteen. From a country where 

all men are created equal, you only help one person? 

‘‘I remember when Brittney Griner’s story was in the news. I 

don’t believe for a moment that she was a drug trafficker, but let’s 

be clear, she brought a small amount of illegal drugs into Russia. 

Her arrest was not in any way arbitrary. She was not arrested because of her race, sexuality, nationality, religion. She was arrested 

because she had drugs on her. And while the sentence handed to 

her was absurd, make no mistake about it—she was kind of guilty. 

Now I look at the Levinson Act, and I look at the SPEHA website, 

and I ask myself: How the hell does her case qualify for help? 

‘‘I’m wrongfully imprisoned. I’m not telling you how to feel, but 

if I worked for the State Department, I’d be ashamed. Innocent 

Americans left to suffer while celebrities are home in time for 

Christmas. I used to think America was better than that—but I digress. If you know why my case was rejected for help, or if you can 

find out, I feel that I deserve to know. The SPEHA’s secret process 

of deciding who to help and who to abandon totally lacks transparency. The decision not to help me not only hurt me very deeply, 

but my entire family. We deserve an explanation.’’—David 

McMahon, Qingpu Prison. 

[The prepared statement of Peter Humphrey appears in the Appendix.] 

Chair SMITH. Peter, thank you. 

We have a short video from Kathrine Swidan, the mother of 

Mark Swidan. She could not be here, but she asked that we play 

it right now. 
15 

STATEMENT OF KATHERINE SWIDAN, 

MOTHER OF DETAINED AMERICAN CITIZEN MARK SWIDAN 

Ms. SWIDAN. My name is Katherine Swidan. I’m the mother of 

Mark Swidan. He’s been wrongfully detained in China, Jiangmen, 

China, for 3,641 days, nearly 10 years. In a few days, it’ll be a 10- 

year anniversary. 

The way I would describe Mark is, he’s a good man, he’s funny, 

he’s very smart, he’s also gracious. Loves his mama. While I was 

on the phone with him at his hotel, I heard a lot of commotion. And 

he said, Hold on, Mom. And Chinese police got into his apartment. 

They said, we need to take you in for questioning. And the phone 

hung up. We figured, Okay, he’s going to be questioned, they’ll find 

out the truth. There’s nothing there. And they’ll let him go. Didn’t 

happen. 

I just can’t fathom what Mark is going through. I know he’s suffering. I received about 300 pieces of artwork, countless letters. He 

said, ‘‘I’m in a lot of pain, physically and mentally. I’m in a dark 

place.’’ He’s made out on this picture to be his own superhero, that 

nobody’s going to help him so he has to do it himself. It took 8 

years before anyone paid attention to me. I feel like I’m one little 

woman against all China. 

When Mark comes home—I say when, not if—but when Mark 

comes home I have to be greeting him coming off of that plane. And 

he said, Mama, I will come home in a box of ashes or walking off 

the plane, but I will come home. 

[Video presentation ends.] 

Chair SMITH. Katherine, thank you for producing and submitting 

to this Commission that very moving video about your son. I know 

you’re watching and know that, like our very distinguished people 

here who are advocating for their loved ones, we will work on that 

case as well, as a Commission, and do everything we can. And 

Peter, thank you for the way you have taken the cruelty you suffered, and your wife, and now have turned it into advocacy, and 

with the precision of a journalist asking all the right questions and 

doing everything you can to assist and to get us, in government, 

to do our part. Because again, there are some well-meaning people, 

but we don’t do enough. And I think we have to triple our efforts. 

This hearing, to me, is a pivot point for us to take that next series of steps. And again, Mr. Li, your thoughts that this is a time 

for the Biden administration to really triple its efforts before it 

leaves—I agree with that. If that does not happen, know that we 

will try, with whomever wins the White House, to make this a very 

high priority. These are Americans. These are your loved ones. And 

we can’t sit by and say, Well, there’s only a few that are on the 

list. I mean, that is absolutely—you know, I love the statement 

that you gave from David McMahon, ‘‘who to help and who to 

abandon.’’ I mean, that says it all. All have to be helped! All have 

to be helped! And, you know, I read The New York Times piece, 

Tim, by Mara Hvistendahl, who, parenthetically, has testified before my committee in the past. She is an absolute truth teller. And 

she writes for The New York Times. And it was a very moving 

piece that she did. She did quote that your father, I believe it is, 

had said that he believes that she [Dawn Michelle Hunt] has been 

raped by the guards and of all things, a family of police officers 
16 

who have protected innocent people your whole life, you know your 

father, you, your relatives—to have that kind of indignity, that cruelty imposed upon her. That, again, motivates all of us, I think, to 

triple our efforts as well. And we will, I guarantee it. 

I know, and Mr. Wells, you are concerned about this as well— 

that African Americans have been mistreated, perhaps even more 

so, because of racism. I remember reading extensively about how 

African students in China were mistreated so very often. So, you 

know, there they are studying in China and not being well treated. 

So there is a significant racist issue with an undertow of hatred toward Africans and African Americans that has to be taken into 

consideration. All people are equal and need to be protected. We 

need to be aware of that. And that needs to come into the equation 

as well. 

You know, the whole idea of not having a treaty or a way of 

transferring a trickle of people that are on the list—that is unacceptable. As you said, Peter Humphrey, all these trials are sham 

trials. All these processes that are undergone—if you’re accused, 

you’re guilty, that’s it. And it’s just how long you’re going to serve, 

and on trumped-up charges to boot. So there is no judicial independence. The judges are all part of the Chinese Communist Party 

apparatus. And we need to realize that and not put our head in the 

sand like ostriches, you know, and say, Well, we can’t deal with 

that. 

Trumped-up charges—it’s the worst game in the book. If I go to 

China tomorrow, they could trump up—I’m barred right now from 

going because of my advocacy. But, frankly, if I go, I am always 

aware that something can be put into my suitcase—because they 

come in and they check your suitcases anyway. They rifle through 

them when you’re in a hotel. You know, it might be harder to do 

that to somebody that’s an elected official, but not beyond. Your 

families are totally at risk. 

So—window of opportunity. We need to surge. But the surge has 

to go right into the next administration. This has to become the 

priority. These Americans have been left behind, and Xi Jinping 

has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that in the annals of history he will go down as one of the worst dictators. But that doesn’t 

mean everybody around him has to be complicit in that. You know, 

there are people who hopefully will say, wait a minute. Time out. 

The maltreatment needs to stop. You know, it brings dishonor to 

the Chinese Communist Party to treat people in this horrendous 

way, and not honor. Yes, they’re feared. Big deal. But it brings dishonor and loss of face to so mistreat people and trump up charges. 

And I get your point about David Lin. You know, what about 

your families? You were so happy for him to be released, joyous. 

But I understand the sense of disappointment that you feel anew. 

Hope rises, but—and, again, this idea of celebrities always getting 

the additional focus, whatever they are. You know, I’m glad that 

reporters and basketball players—very glad that they get out. But 

you’re all celebrities, especially in the eyes of God. We’re all equal 

in the eyes of God. And, you know, all people are equal and need 

to be treated so. So I would ask that all of us focus on that, too. 

The media doesn’t cover the hardworking American man or 

woman, or like your sister, Tim, who got tricked. How easy it is for 
17 

them to trick your sister, as they did. So I would just ask if you’d 

want to respond to that—the idea that there should be no differentiation between a celebrity and somebody who’s a good, honest, 

hardworking person like yourselves. And, again, not only the U.S., 

but the world, has to stop its complicity by its indifference. And I 

know—and maybe you could speak to how the State Department 

has handled your cases. 

I know, because I just chaired a hearing on child parental abduction—I wrote a law on it 10 years ago—and they feel that they get 

short shrift from the U.S. Department of State. There are great 

people at the Department of State. But very often the individual 

cases get crowded out by big geopolitical concerns, and to me it 

should be the other way around, because the canary in the coal 

mine is how well or poorly they’re treating that individual, that 

vulnerable person. And I think we need to make the biggest statement and push for your families. They’re Americans. They need to 

be rescued. 

So if any of you would like to speak about how well or poorly you 

think the State Department—and without any fear of retaliation. 

You know, we’re all here to work for you. And that goes for the 

U.S. Department of State. It goes for the President. Goes for Members of Congress, House and Senate. So, I mean, you pay our salaries, you elect us. We have an obligation, a duty, to respond as aggressively and as effectively as we can. And again, Tim, reading 

that New York Times piece, just, again, the mistreatment, and Mr. 

Wells as well, because they’re African American, that’s a further 

abomination in this process. So if any of you would like to speak 

to that. 

Mr. Hunt. 

Mr. HUNT. Yes. Thank you, Senator. The State Department, 

American Citizen Services, they have been helpful in some ways. 

When my father went to visit my sister, he actually missed his 

flight home. And when I went to pick him up, he wasn’t on the 

flight, and I thought he was detained as well. And I did a quick 

phone call, and the person at ACS, she located him, told me, made 

me feel comfortable. And said, hey, he missed this flight. He should 

be—he’s on this flight. He should be on his way home. However, 

as Mr. Wells stated, these officers change quite frequently. So it’s— 

I’m not trying to downplay it—it’s almost as if when you call someone or when you write an email, it would be the same as if you 

have a problem, you call customer service, and they say, Oh yes, 

well, I’m going to transfer you to another department, and then you 

have to explain it all over again. 

And unfortunately—I won’t make light of it—that’s sort of how 

it is. And if it’s that way with us, imagine how it is trying to get 

information from the prison about our loved ones, if the officers 

who are taking care of our loved ones continue to change. They 

don’t know our loved one’s story. They don’t know if they need 

medical attention. They don’t know if they’re—what they’re going 

through, because they’re new. And try as they might, they have to 

get caught up with each individual case. And, just to bring up 

quickly, it took me between six and eight months to visit my sister 

because the Chinese prison didn’t submit the paperwork to give to 

ACS, so I could have permission to see her. However, ACS was 
18 

helpful in facilitating my visit. But it took that long for me to have 

that visit arranged. 

Chair SMITH. Mr. Li. 

Mr. LI. Yes. Thank you, Chair Smith, for asking the question. I 

will say—yes, I echo Tim’s statements about ACS. You know, they, 

for the most part, try their best to help. They have been able to 

push for monthly consular visits for my dad. But of course, at the 

same time, it has varied. We’ve seen so many officers come and go 

very quickly. So, you know, it’s hard to maintain that long connection. 

I also wanted to speak to another aspect, which Peter touched 

on, reading from David’s letter, about designation of cases by the 

State Department. Now, of course, my father is fortunate to be one 

of the cases that has been designated, but obviously that’s not the 

case for the others on the stage. And I fully agree that there’s no 

transparency in that process. You know, for the first 4 years my 

dad also was not designated by SPEHA. We asked for it and we 

just got the response—no. You know, it’s not going to happen. 

I’ve worked with a lot of other families who are trying to go 

through this process in other countries. And it’s really—it’s really 

the same. You know, the Levinson Act is great, but there’s no 

timeline for a response. There’s no transparency. And it really does 

seem like families are owed that at a minimum. They should be 

provided the opportunity to be told, if no, then why not? And what 

additional information is needed? But to my understanding, that’s 

never been offered to any of the families. It’s unfortunate that it’s 

creating this kind of division. You know, it really should not be the 

case. And I think this process of designation needs to be reviewed 

thoroughly for that reason. 

Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I would like to say that 

what Tim and Harrison said, I agree 100 percent on some of the 

things. And I share their same pain. But one of the things that appalled me the worst is when we called the embassy—and they 

couldn’t find my child. It took an outside source to find him. And 

then after they did find him, we didn’t know how to navigate 

through this at all, period. So we wondered, how could they—you 

all—support us in trying to get Nelson home? My response to what 

they said was an angry one. And I have spoken with an outburst 

many times on Zoom calls. I guess they probably feel they don’t 

want to deal with Mr. Wells. 

And the reason is because I think the policies should be improved. I think they should have more power to be able to visit, to 

be able to get the medical records that we are demanding for the 

prisoners. When we asked them if there was any way they could 

advise us on legal representation, they said, No, this is not something we can do. So if you’re a family with no political background 

or power, you’re out there all alone. And I believe that the embassy, being that they are supposed to support American citizens, 

should be more accountable for helping us in getting the support 

we need. If it hadn’t been for Cynthia, as strong as she is, and 

staying up all night, and corresponding with Mr. Humphrey, Mr. 

Kamm, we would probably have never found Nelson. And to me, I 

think we need to do a better job. Thank you. 
19 

Chair SMITH. Recently, I put together a meeting with families— 

left-behind parents through parental child abduction. Like I said, 

I wrote a law on that. And we had Rena Bitter, who’s the Assistant 

Secretary for Consular Affairs, sit in on that meeting, as well as 

other administration people. And the beauty of it was she sat 

across from people who had very serious criticisms that needed to 

be taken into account and then rectified. And she walked away 

after a 2-hour meeting—it was just recently we did this—saying, 

we need to change this, we need to work on that. 

I would love if you can come back, whenever you can. We can put 

it together as quickly as you can come. She’s a very responsive person. She runs it all. There’s always a problem with crossing into 

the political side with the assistant secretaries who manage— 

human rights becomes a sub-issue. And that’s been on every 

human rights issue, from religious freedom to you-name-it. But, 

again, these are American human rights that are being violated 

with impunity. But I would invite you, if we could put together 

that meeting—we’ll do it. And if you can come and share this with 

her and her staff, I think that will lead to serious reform. Because 

she has been responding extremely well on the parental abduction 

issue. And she’s done that before with some of the issues that we’ve 

brought to her attention. 

So I would invite you. We’ll put it together, a week, 2 weeks, 

whatever works for you and her. Roundtable, no press, just talk 

and get it right. Because I think that feedback, they don’t get it 

necessarily. It does not percolate up to the top. 

Mr. Humphrey. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I’ll just pick up on the comments the other three 

witnesses made about service on the ground, as it were—ACS, etc. 

I mean, everything Mr. Li said I can certainly confirm, because I’ve 

been involved in many cases, not just some of these here. Their experiences are very, very, similar to my wife’s as well, because my 

wife was in prison at the same time—an American citizen. And one 

of the questions that people often ask me about our experience is, 

How well did your government perform? How much did they help 

you? And I always answer this in a two-tiered way. 

I say, well, you know, there’s the nanny and messenger service, 

first of all. And that’s the service provided by consular officers who 

visit people in the prisons. And they’re allowed to bring messages 

and letters and sometimes reading material, and so forth, and to 

carry messages from you back to your family. I call that the nanny 

and the messenger service. And I say, well, that service is provided 

very well by the U.K. consulate, in my case, and by the U.S. consulate in my wife’s case. But there’s this other level of service— 

which I think is necessary, and that is at the higher political 

level—which is completely lacking. 

So it comes down to, when people visit us, you ask them for this 

or that, you ask them to do this or that. And they say, I’m sorry, 

we can’t—we can’t intervene in your case. That was the phrase I 

heard many times during consular visits. And my wife also heard 

this phrase many times. And that’s wrong. You know, where there 

is no real justice—you can’t treat China as a country under the 

rule of law in the way we understand the rule of law to be for our 

own citizens. You have to intervene. 
20 

And finally, in connection with the same issue, after my release 

and when I started investigating my own case, and what had happened to me and all the things I didn’t know when I was behind 

those walls, I tracked down a former ACS officer—in other words 

a State Department officer—who had been coincidentally both the 

visitor to my wife and the visitor to David McMahon at the same 

time in the Shanghai detention center. That’s the pretrial detention 

center. I tracked him down and I interviewed him twice for a couple of hours as part of my investigation, and he told me how he 

would come away from visits to David McMahon feeling very, very 

troubled because—and then he said, there’s a film I want you to 

watch. It’s called ‘‘The Hunt.’’ ‘‘The Hunt’’ is a Danish film about 

a schoolteacher who is falsely accused of molesting a young boy, 

and the whole thing balloons into a witch hunt and this poor man 

is almost harassed into suicide. And so he was basically telling me 

that he did not believe David was guilty. He visits him—visited 

him many times in his capacity and he was coming away from this 

thinking, This man is innocent—but I’m not allowed to say that. 

And when his superiors found out that I’d been talking to him 

about this—he was silenced. I find this very unacceptable and I 

think it’s an illustration of this problem of ‘‘we cannot intervene.’’ 

We must. We absolutely must intervene in these cases. 

Chair SMITH. Senator Merkley. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wells, in your testimony you note that American Citizen 

Services in Beijing was very helpful in arranging visits or helpful 

in visiting, calling, communicating, reporting back. Were any of 

those visits by you or your family or were those visits they were 

conducting and then reporting back to you? 

Mr. WELLS. Mr. Merkley, all those visits were from ACS. We 

never had any visits at all, period. All information that we get is 

from them and every communication—we may have phone calls 

that we will engage or some Zoom calls that we set up—basically 

they will give us a personal comment as we speak. But it’s always 

been emails and done by them. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. And I assume you’ve all sought to visit but 

always been turned down? 

Mr. WELLS. Yes. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. And Mr. Li, have you been able to visit your 

father? 

Mr. LI. Senator Merkley, I have never visited my father in prison. I believe—you know, he spent 3 years in a pretrial detention 

center where no outside visits were allowed. Now that he’s in the 

prison I believe he is allowed visits from family but I’ve personally 

chosen not to visit my father as much as I would like to due to the 

inherent risk to myself and my family for doing so. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. This is something I’m going to follow up on 

in terms of trying to understand what the norms are and the protections are for Americans to be able to visit their family members. 

And Mr. Hunt, you noted that your sister had a series of things 

and I think that was your observation. You were able to visit her? 

Mr. HUNT. Yes, Senator. In June of this year I went to visit my 

sister. If you’d like to know I can tell you how it was. ACS did arrange that visit. However, there was a letter that ACS was sup-
21 

posed to tender to me and that letter was the letter that allowed 

me to visit my sister. It was basically the permission slip to visit 

her and they didn’t give it to me until the day of my visit. There 

was nothing that I had before that except the communication from 

ACS but not the communication from the Chinese government— 

that had their seal and their stamp that allowed me to visit. 

So I still visited her without that letter, and I just want to highlight the point that I didn’t access my emails once I was in China 

so the permission slip that ACS gave me—I should have gotten 

that earlier so I had it. I just went there with an ACS communication from our government, not a permission slip from their government. So that was one risk that I inherited. 

In visiting her, just so you know, there are armed guards—military-type guards that are outside of the prison that escort you with 

long guns, weapons, everything. They took my passport. They held 

my passport, so I understand why Mr. Li would not want to visit 

because there’s no guarantee you’re going to get your passport 

back. After this hearing I don’t believe it would be advisable for me 

to go and visit my sister again. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. And you mentioned ATS. ATS stands for—— 

Mr. HUNT. ACS. American Citizen Services. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Oh, American—oh, ACS. Okay. Just to clarify. 

And that is a group that’s formally liaised with our State Department? 

Mr. HUNT. Yes, it’s part of the State Department. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Part of the State Department. Okay. 

I look forward to learning more about that because I know visits 

can be pretty meaningful to those of our families that are detained, 

but the risks, the uncertainty about what else might happen, one 

injustice implies another injustice may occur. 

Several of you mentioned a law—a Chinese law—and you expand 

on it in detail, Mr. Humphrey—a 2018 PRC law on international 

judicial assistance and criminal matters, and you say that—if I understand the testimony right—this law allows for the opportunity 

for foreign prisoners to be transferred to a facility near their home 

which I assume is back, in this case, in the United States. 

But then you note, ‘‘To the best of my knowledge the U.S. Government has never explored this mechanism on behalf of any individual.’’ Are there other governments that have been able to utilize 

this? Has Canada been able to utilize this? Have European countries utilized—— 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I know of two successful cases by France bringing citizens home that way. The other cases are not so prominent 

countries, not so obvious democracies, such as Turkey, for example. 

But France has been very diligent in helping its citizens get out of 

these situations in China. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. So at least one Western nation has been able 

to utilize this—— 

Mr. HUMPHREY. Yes. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. And I think that in your testimony you note 

that a response from our government as to why they have not explored this mechanism is that we do not have a transfer treaty 

with China—and you note that a transfer treaty is not required. 
22 

Mr. HUMPHREY. Yes. I mean, between governments it is possible 

to establish what’s called a PTA, which is a prisoner transfer 

agreement. That is a treaty and it provides a framework for prisoner transfers. I know a lot have been done with some of the Middle Eastern countries but America doesn’t have one. Some European countries do and they have used the treaty mechanism to 

manage transfers. 

But the point about the law, Senator—the Chinese law—is that 

it provides a nontreaty pathway to do something similar on a case 

by case, individually negotiated basis, and the onus is on the foreign government to open the discussion by saying, We would like 

to speak to you about such and such a person, and this should be 

directed toward the Chinese ministry of justice and the Chinese 

ministry of foreign affairs. 

And there is no requirement on China’s part that a PTA must 

exist bilaterally with that particular country in order to use this 

law. The American government, however, has taken the position 

that we can’t do it without a treaty with China because somehow 

our law doesn’t allow it. But I have actually not seen any law 

which disallows this. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Are you aware of whether our State Department has pursued the possibility of such a treaty? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. The possibility of what, sir? 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Such a treaty, a treaty on—— 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I don’t think so. I’m not aware that they have. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Well, certainly, this is something that we can 

follow up on as well, both the treaty strategy and the use of the 

2018 law in the fashion that France has used it. 

Just as we’ve noted in all your testimony, China is not a ruleof-law nation and so I’m well aware that no matter what they have 

in their law, when it comes to their strategy—and we see their 

strategy of transnational repression all the time—of what they’re 

doing to their own citizens as well as detaining our citizens, my 

heart really does go out to each of you on your family members detained under these various premises. I think about my own children and if my own child had been told they won a contest, and 

then developed a relationship over time, going to Hong Kong and 

then to China and then invited to go to Australia and then told 

that they won some purses—they get to take those, too—how easy 

and seductive that scam is. Or to carry baked goods laced with 

drugs or to have something invented to detain somebody. Or to 

send a message to everyone else, in the case of your father, Mr. Li. 

And our relationship with China, I think, has really taken a terrible turn under President Xi. My impression is that these circumstances became much more difficult and common following Xi 

coming to power. I’m not sure if that’s accurate but, Mr. Humphrey, could you comment on that? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I think that’s accurate to say. As an overview of 

this whole thing over the last 10 or 12 years—we’ve seen the situation growing steadily worse in China’s prisons and in particular for 

foreign prisoners whom he is trying to drag down to the same 

treatment as Chinese prisoners, whereas 12 years ago foreign prisoners were treated much better. 
23 

Senator, there was another point in connection with your original 

question to me and that is that there’s a very able American lawyer based in Beijing. His name is James Zimmerman, known as 

Jim Zimmerman, and we have a memo from him on the subject of 

this Chinese law where he sets out the case along the lines I just 

described to you, and we would be happy to share that memo with 

you. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Great. That would be—— 

Mr. HUMPHREY. And I can also assure you that John Kamm 

holds a similar view as well on this topic. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Great. And, Mr. Wells, you mentioned in the 

beginning it was very hard to find anyone in the U.S. Government 

to help. As you see others go through this—is the place that you 

direct them to now, this American Citizen Services branch of the 

State Department, is this the key group to help facilitate contact 

with the Chinese government in regard to detained individuals? 

Mr. WELLS. Yes. I think that’s something that they definitely 

need to improve on, and one of the things that was brought to my 

attention—Mr. John Kamm, he’s a great advocate—there was always a list whenever an American was detained overseas that 

would come on his radar and the shocking thing was when we 

spoke to him he said, I’m surprised that Nelson didn’t come on our 

radar. 

So when we contacted the embassy he was able to find them before the embassy was and I was confused because it took his information—for him to give it to us and for us to give it to them and 

that was when they were able to find him. 

Co-chair MERKLEY. Right. No, that does raise real questions 

about why—what network existed that our government didn’t succeed in accessing when you were in need. 

You’ve given us—you’ve shared your stories which, as I mentioned in my initial statement, by you speaking to us you’re really 

speaking to our Nation, and this process publicizes not just your 

individual cases but the overall challenge that we face with citizens 

being detained in China. And so you’ve given us some ideas of how 

we might pursue improvements. So thank you very much for taking 

the time and effort to be here. I hope that there is a celebration 

in each of your futures. You’re not only helping your own family 

members, you’re helping many other families as well. 

Thank you. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you, Senator. 

Just to conclude, have any of you had any contact with our Ambassador, Nicholas Burns? Has he been in contact with you? 

Mr. LI. Yes. I will comment that in our case Ambassador Burns 

has been in touch with our family. He has, fortunately, visited my 

father three times in prison. We’re grateful for the work that he’s 

doing for my father and I know he’s also visited Mark Swidan. But 

ultimately, he’s not going to be able to bring them home; we need 

a more coordinated, larger government effort. 

Chair SMITH. Okay. Mr. Wells. 

Mr. WELLS. For our family we’ve had no contact at all, and to 

my knowledge I’m not sure he’s even aware of my son. 

Chair SMITH. Well, he will be after today. So thank you for that. 

Mr. WELLS. Thank you. 
24 

Chair SMITH. Mr. Hunt. 

Mr. HUNT. No. My family has had no contact with him. 

Chair SMITH. Again, if you’re not on the right list you don’t have 

contact and that’s contemptible. As Peter Humphrey pointed out, 

this is not a rule-of-law country. So we will do our level best to engage him. 

You know, interestingly enough, Daniel Kritenbrink, who is the 

assistant secretary for Near East and Pacific Affairs—he’s on this 

Commission. So it would be very helpful, with you as the family 

members, to have that kind of meeting with a member of the Commission who is also a point person for the administration with regard to policy. 

And I would also add that Uzra Zeya is also—she’s the undersecretary. She’s been at some of our hearings and I know her staff is 

following this today. We’ll put together a meeting to just convey all 

of this and your points. 

I have to say this. I understand how frustrating it is when they 

change case officers and somebody is reading a chart somewhere, 

maybe, about your case. One time I was so frustrated with this 

transfer of the case to someone else who has no idea what your 

case is all about. That’s if they even open up a case for you. 

It reminded me of a—I’m a big ‘‘Seinfeld’’ fan and there was one 

famous episode where George Costanza had the Penske file and he 

kept holding the file saying, I’ve got it—and nothing was happening with it. It was just information that was going nowhere, 

nothing actionable. So, you know, by being here today my hope is 

it’ll help make your cases actionable. 

Mr. Li, I know that yours already is but, Mr. Wells and Mr. 

Hunt, yours are not, at least the way they should be. So we’ll work 

on that and we’ll try to get Daniel and others to come and meet, 

as well as the head of Consular Affairs. 

I have found that Consular Affairs is very often empathetic but 

it stops there, as you pointed out, Peter, when it gets to the political side. And this is something that causes consternation at the 

political level so, therefore, we drop it and don’t do all that we can 

do. Your point is well taken. 

Michelle Steel, by the way, is still with us. Commissioner Steel, 

do you have a question or any comment you want to make? 

Representative STEEL. Yes. 

Chair SMITH. Oh, good. 

Representative STEEL. I just have questions because I’ve been engaging with the State Department. I have another constituent 

that’s been detained in China. So we try to work with them and 

we tried to ask the State Department how they negotiated the release of Pastor Lin this time. 

So to all the witnesses, how can we improve policy tools and resources to deter foreign governments from engaging in the wrongful detention of U.S. nationals and citizens of other countries such 

as China, Vietnam, North Korea, and others? Are there policy options? Could Congress consider disincentivizing foreign governments for engaging in the wrongful detention of U.S. nationals? 

Anybody can answer this if you have any idea. 
25 

Mr. HUMPHREY. It sounds to me really like a question for Senators and Congressmen to address. I don’t think any of us really 

are qualified to make such suggestions at a really high level. 

Representative STEEL. So you don’t have—— 

Mr. HUMPHREY. What deterrence we could introduce to deter 

that awful government in Beijing from arresting so many Americans—it’s hardball, you know. 

Representative STEEL. Yes it is. It is. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. You have to play hardball back. What else can 

I say? I mean, obviously, I’m not suggesting that you go around arresting lots of Chinese citizens who are innocent in America, but 

you are the leaders and you have to fight back for your citizens. 

Representative STEEL. Thank you, Mr. Humphrey. The thing is 

that, while we’ve been working with the State Department, a lot 

of times we get very frustrated and, you know, open up the conversation. That’s the State Department issue that was the one I 

asked. 

What’s going to be so helpful—what role do other leaders and 

those global platforms have in raising awareness on this issue, especially corporate America or people with major platforms? Should 

they criticize abuses and raise awareness? I’m saying this because 

I actually sent a letter out before the Beijing Olympics. We had 17 

corporate sponsors for the Olympics. They spent billions of dollars, 

and I asked them can you use a little bit of that platform to find 

out—to let the whole world know what China is doing, how China 

is abusing the system, and they’re the one detaining our—and not 

just our, citizens but at the same time the human rights violations 

that they’ve been practicing. It’s just awful that, you know, we hear 

those stories. 

So do you think it is good that these corporations—by the way, 

after we sent a letter out to those 17 Olympic sponsor corporations, 

none of them answered. So do you think that they should use major 

platforms and then, you know what? We have to let the whole 

world know what China is doing. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I think that this problem, the types of prisoners 

who we’ve been discussing today—and we’re not talking about Chinese political prisoners or religious prisoners in general but the 

type of prisoners we’re talking about today are people who are accused of common crimes—I would call them common crimes, 

whether it’s theft or fraud or rape or whatever, whether they’re 

guilty or not, and this is a systemic problem that so many people 

are getting prosecuted and convicted on totally murky bases, with 

no fairness, no transparency, no proper defense. 

So it is systemic. It’s the Chinese system and one thing you can 

do is talk more to other governments of similar mind and spirit 

about this to try to exert more international influence, put more 

pressure on China to behave. I don’t see that happening very much 

when it comes to the prisoners who are accused of common crimes. 

I think they’re very often forgotten about. But you can do that, I 

think. You only need to get four or five or six governments together 

on the same page on the same platform. 

I will point out that later this month the Australian Senate is 

holding a hearing similar to this one. They have an inquiry ongoing 
26 

and they will report in November. I will be speaking at this Senate 

hearing there. 

And I think that’s another example of how you can connect. In 

the U.K. we’ve had a lower key thing last year which I participated 

in and I’m working at the moment to try and get something like 

this convened in the EU parliament as well. So I would suggest 

that one way of strengthening your muscle internationally is to 

combine with other countries to provide a united front against 

China to behave. 

Representative STEEL. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. I yield back. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you so much. 

Commissioner Nunn. 

Representative NUNN. Well, thank you, Chairman, very much for 

bringing us all together here to talk about just a—historically challenged Beijing. 

As we look at bringing Americans home—I think you have highlighted specifically the intent of the Communist Party within China 

to use Americans as a pawn in a larger political game, so let me 

be clear from the git-go, Mr. Chairman, that any nation that holds 

Americans hostage to exert their political will against the United 

States is, first and foremost, responsible for those Americans’ safety and their safe return to the United States, and second, that the 

full weight of the American people is looking on those countries to 

be responsible actors in making sure those hostages are brought 

home. 

We expect our citizens to be treated well and we expect them to 

be released. As an Air Force officer for more than two decades serving on our Nation’s front line, I know that no mission is complete 

until every American makes their way back to U.S. soil. 

It is completely unacceptable, even though China is our numberone trading partner, that there are more Americans detained in 

China than anywhere else on Earth. Due to the lies and deceptions 

of the Chinese Communist Party we are unsure exactly how many 

Americans are even being held today on the mainland in China. 

But what we do know is that our fellow Americans, including 

this incredible panel before us today, are on the front line of exposing how many Americans are being held in captivity including Kai 

Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt. 

Each faces unknown health concerns, potential threats of torture, 

mistreatment at the hands of the CCP, and I want to begin by 

thanking each of you for taking time to come here today to share 

your stories and be the face for so many stories that remain 

unspoken at this time. 

The threats from the CCP range. We know that its false imprisonment for trumped-up charges of espionage simply for preaching 

Christianity in China—to family members who were detained and 

used as political pawns against the United States. These Americans have unjustly and unfairly found their freedom stolen by the 

Chinese Communist Party. 

It’s our duty today to bring attention to these very important 

cases and work hard to ensure that we bring all of our brothers 

and sisters back home. So thank you each and, Mr. Humphrey, I’d 
27 

like to begin with you. You are a China expert. You’re a former 

CCP detainee yourself. 

In June of this year four citizens from my state, teachers from 

Iowa teaching at Cornell, were viciously attacked in rural China 

simply for being Westerners. But, certainly, it appears that the attack may have been propagated by an anti-West feeling stoked by 

local officials. 

According to ABC News these four instructors from Cornell were 

brutally attacked simply by bumping into a 55-year-old Chinese national. There seemed to be an overall hostility toward Westerners 

throughout the region. So I want to begin. Does the CCP look for 

opportunities to target, attack, and arrest ordinary citizens while 

operating in China? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. What we can say, I think, is that the CCP under 

Xi Jinping’s leadership—in other words, him—has fostered an atmosphere of xenophobia in China during his reign and we’ve seen 

it expressed initially in policies toward the outside world and we’ve 

seen it expressed in constraints and harassment of foreigners in 

China. 

But there’s an element in the Chinese population which takes 

these kind of signals as signals to get rough with people and— 

there was a prisoner—American prisoner—held in the same cell as 

Nelson Wells some years ago. He’s out now. He’s a footballer and 

his name’s Wendell Brown, from Detroit, and he was certainly a 

victim of that type of arrest where he was working, coaching in 

China, and he started to get bullied in a bar because he was with 

a Chinese woman and some local people started a fight with him 

and he got arrested and jailed for brawling. 

I think he was held for a few years—two and a half years, something like that—and a skillful Chinese lawyer got him out in the 

end with a reduced sentence. That’s an example of the atmosphere 

that you’re talking about, Commissioner Nunn. 

Xi Jinping has engendered an atmosphere of hatred of the outside world in China today. Not everyone buys it but the kind of 

people who beat up, you know, your four guys from Iowa—they 

were victims of precisely this atmosphere which he has created. 

He came to power saying, you know, we need to clean up all this 

foreign trash we’ve got in China. That was precisely the time when 

we saw this wave of people getting arrested and imprisoned in the 

category of Dawn Hunt, Nelson Wells, and Mark Swidan. They 

were all taken in that period as that atmosphere was being 

whipped up by the new Xi Jinping regime. 

I hope that answers your question. 

Representative NUNN. Mr. Humphrey, thank you very much. And 

let me first say as somebody who has worked as a counterintelligence officer in Guangzhou, a large swath of Chinese people 

truly believe in a greater humanity and it’s a salute to those who 

are trying to push back against this type of brutality coming out 

of it. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. Yes. 

Representative NUNN. But this is clearly a dictate coming from 

the CCP trying to identify leverage, in my opinion, against the 

United States. And their tactic now has become this incarceration 
28 

of U.S. citizens to use as leverage. And this goes for Hamas or anyone else. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I agree with you entirely. 

Representative NUNN. Let me ask this. When the CCP arrests 

and detains American citizens, what do you believe is the ultimate 

goal when they take these individuals, as you know, for brawling— 

for years in a Chinese detention facility? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I mean, I think in a way they see it, like, as a 

warehouse, and they’re building up inventory in that warehouse to 

trade off when they need to. In fact, one of my—one of my detention center guards, a senior one, once said to me, we’re just a warehouse. We move people in and at some point in time we move people out. So that metaphor is very applicable, I think. They’re building stock to trade on. 

Representative NUNN. That is frightening and I think absolutely, 

something we would say in the military, building a stock of blood 

chits that they get to cash in—that happen to be U.S. citizens that 

they’re housing. In your words, and I think it’s correct, 

warehousing American citizens for a time that they want to gain 

leverage over the United States. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. Yes. 

Representative NUNN. Can I just briefly—what are the tactics 

they’re using—you noted instigating a brawl to be able to identify—are these intended targets? Are they looking across the 

board? Is it happenstance? How do they go after what you call 

these common crimes to be able to draw a noose around an American? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I do think it’s partly happenstance and opportunism when an opportunity arises and it involves those kinds of 

people—those kinds of Chinese people, those elements. They take 

the opportunity. I mean, I know many cases where foreigners including Americans have been subjected to this treatment over the 

last 10, 12, 15 years. It’s been quite common. 

Representative NUNN. Mr. Humphrey, you brought up a very 

good point here. This is not unique to just the United States. They 

are targeting other nations as well. Could you share with us who 

else is being targeted in these wholesale roundups of foreigners? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I think the Japanese are a particularly favorite 

target because even though there’s not such a large number of Japanese in prison in China, they’re harassed a lot because there’s a 

lot of hatred toward the Japanese nation in China. 

But we see it also with Australia. Australia has a substantial 

number of prisoners in China, and we see it in general toward the 

laowai, the dabizi, or the foreigners around in China. There are 

less of them now because in recent years they’ve been leaving in 

an exodus, you know. There are far fewer foreigners in China now 

because of this atmosphere which has been created. 

Representative NUNN. I’d like to talk to the families, particularly 

those who have loved ones currently in detention there. It’s an 

open question, but, Mr. Li, I’ll start with you. Your father was arrested on unspecified so-called espionage charges. How are Americans treated when they go through these Chinese courts? You had 

a front row seat to it. Is it transparent? Is there an appeal process? 

Does the accused get any kind of defense? 
29 

Mr. LI. Thank you for the question, Mr. Nunn. 

Yes. Look, it’s certainly not a transparent process. I think that 

goes without saying. Like I said, my father did not have access to 

legal representation in the first six months when he was being interrogated. The trial was behind closed doors. 

Members from the consulate tried to attend but were not able to 

get in and, you know, it’s because allegedly the trial is about ‘‘state 

secrets’’—so that’s a convenient way for them to bar access to the 

trial. 

So it’s certainly not a transparent process. It’s a long process. 

You know, for my father it was two years from initial detention to 

sentencing. For a lot of others it’s been, unfortunately, much, much 

longer. 

In terms of an appeal process, such a process exists. My father 

did appeal his sentence. Ultimately, it got denied. I am not aware 

of a single case in which an appeal has been successful. 

Representative NUNN. Mr. Wells, first of all, thank you for your 

military service and long-rendered sacrifice for our country. You 

are now fighting another battle, to bring your son home. When he 

was detained by the Chinese, can you speak about or are you 

aware of the type of environment he was placed in once in the Chinese detention facility, how he was treated, and what updates you 

have on his well-being? 

Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Nunn. 

As I stated before, it took us a while to find Nelson. He was in 

a detention center quite a long time and while he was there he 

wasn’t able to reach out to us. So when we did find out where he 

was and we contacted numerous lawyers and that didn’t work out 

well, but there was one lawyer that picked up the case and he said, 

I will try to assist Nelson. 

But by the time he got there Nelson had already gone to trial 

and, as Harrison said, it was closed. He didn’t have anybody to 

speak for him so it had to be through interpretation. But it was already stamped that Nelson was going to be guilty regardless. 

But one of the things that the lawyer did tell us, he said, while 

I was there I was able to do two things. The first thing is that I 

listened to what the case was about, and he said that it was inconclusive. He said, As far as I’m concerned Nelson should be free. 

The second thing that he was able to do is to tell Nelson that 

your parents are aware that you are in this situation and that they 

are doing everything they can so that you will not feel like you are 

all alone and by yourself. 

Those were the only two things that he was able to do. But when 

Nelson finally talked to us—and you’ve got to remember that all 

his phone calls are monitored. They are censored. So when he had 

the opportunity to talk to us he started telling us the duress that 

he was under, how he was being treated, how the guards were handling him and doing things that—to me, it’s inhumane. 

So he was crying out, Pops, get me out of here! Get me out of 

here! I can’t take it! So I told him—as we started discussing—they 

hung up the phone. He was able to give us another call—six 

months later. He asked us were we making any progress, and he 

was still in this detention. So he said, I’ve got to get out of here, 
30 

so I set up an appeal and the appeal should help me get out. Is 

there any legal assistance that you could help me with? 

And I told him that we were—it’s hard to tell your child that 

your hands are tied. So I told him I was not capable but I will do 

everything I could. So that’s when he decided—under coercion and 

having been through what he was going through—he decided to do 

a plea. And at that point, that’s when they accepted his appeal, 

and then they agreed to put him in a regular prison system to get 

him out of detention. 

And then he was able to give us code on telling us how he was 

being treated. He would reminisce about a movie or anything of 

that nature and say, Pops, remember this movie? It went like this, 

and that’s how we understood what he was going through. 

Nelson has been attacked because in the situation that he’s in— 

he’s the only American and only black American in the prison 

where he’s at. So he has no communication with anyone to speak 

English. Everything he does has to be within himself, internal. All 

the guards are Chinese, all the inmates are Chinese, and so he has 

been attacked just for who he is, being American—a black American. He has been put in the hospital several times as well as the 

fact he’s been attacked by guards, which was just recently. 

So the situation that he’s going through when he communicates 

this to us, we tell ACS and we ask them to do more frequent visits 

because from Beijing to where Nelson is I understand it’s quite a 

distance so they will only go see him every 3 months. 

Well, we were requesting that they would go see him at least 

once a month because of the fact he’s out there on his own. And 

the correspondence that we get to him when we send it through— 

like Mr. Humphrey said, it’s a nanny service. When we give him— 

our family members write letters to him and books that we try to 

send to him, and it is being screened by the guards and they won’t 

allow him to have it. So that means it’ll be at the prison but he 

can’t receive it because of the fact they feel it’s not appropriate. So 

it takes away from his communication with his family and loved 

ones. 

So to answer your question, while he was in the detention center 

he tried to explain that he was sleeping on the floor and, as Mr. 

Li said, because of the weather he said, Send me some clothes so 

I can weather the winter because the windows are open. There’s no 

way to close the windows. 

So his plea to us has always put an emotional strain on us as 

well, because we know our child is suffering. And that detention 

center, for those that go there and stay there for long periods of 

time, that’s a stressful situation. 

Representative NUNN. Mr. Wells, you are doing so much for your 

son even just by being here today to raise awareness to the American people. As a father I compliment you. As a warrior I thank 

you, and for your son Nelson not only do our hearts go out, there 

must be action taken on our side to hold the Chinese accountable 

and you have our commitment for that. I’m grateful for you being 

here. 

Mr. Hunt, thank you for your service, first and foremost, as a 

Chicago police officer. You are one of these great heroes from the 

heartland. You have been on the front line here in the United 
31 

States protecting our country and, certainly, there is a need for 

public safety. But it is different when a foreign country seeks out 

Americans to use as political tools. 

Your sister Dawn, a woman detained inside China—speak to us 

about what the Chinese have put her through while in the detention facility and what information you’ve been able to get out because we hear reports here of health concerns, of potential threats 

of torture, of mistreatment at the hands of guards, particularly of 

women. I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you. 

Mr. HUNT. Thank you, Mr. Nunn. 

Yes. My sister conveyed to my father that she was sexually assaulted in the detention facility. I understand what Mr. Wells was 

saying because his story is the same story that I have. Denial of 

access to reading materials. Only being able to have anything in 

Chinese and she doesn’t understand it. The cold, laying on the 

floor, wanting—requesting blankets. The food. Everything—Mr. 

Wells, everything that you’ve—every story that you’ve heard is correct. 

Our citizens are being mistreated, abused, and it’s coordinated. 

It’s not something that is a ‘‘one off.’’ It’s not, Oh, it happens to this 

prisoner—it doesn’t happen to others. It happens to every prisoner. 

I understand that we are convened here today so we can give you 

information. I hope you take this information to heart and I say 

this because during the visit with my sister there was a person 

who was standing right next to her with the headphone and listening to everything we said, taking notes. 

I asked my sister about the sexual assault. She briefly looked up, 

looked down, and there was a tension there I could see in her eyes, 

I could feel, and she said no. But I knew she was under duress. 

I knew that her freedom to tell me the truth had been taken away. 

Now imagine, not only is your freedom of movement taken but 

your freedom to tell the truth, your freedom to speak up, your freedom to cry out, your freedom to ask for help is taken as well. That’s 

what I need this panel to understand. That’s what all of our family 

members are going through right here, right now. 

Representative NUNN. Mr. Hunt, that is powerful. It is real. 

Mr. Chairman, I am so grateful for you doing this fact-finding 

hearing that is bicameral, that is bipartisan, that has the White 

House’s ear, and it is clear that not only does more need to be done 

but we have to recognize the strategic threat here as well as the 

tactical human suffering that’s going on. 

We’ve heard, Mr. Humphrey, that this is a coordinated effort by 

the Chinese Communist Party to build a warehouse of U.S. citizens 

in detention facilities that these families and so many, many more 

are going through right now—that there is intentional coercion of 

American citizens while in Chinese detention facilities to either 

plead guilty so they can speak to their family and have at least 

some hope of an appeal—or remain in solitary confinement year 

after year and, as you’ve each highlighted. In any country in the 

world we would consider this to be barbaric. 

But in a country that presents itself as an equal to the United 

States—to strip another citizen of not only their freedom but their 

humanity—this must be called into question, they must be held accountable, and we need to recognize that China not only is playing 
32 

the long game here but they continue to build an arsenal of Americans to be held in detention at a time and place of their choosing 

to be able to negotiate against the United States. We should never 

allow this to happen. 

I thank the panel for being here. Our hearts are with each of 

your families. We will maintain the fight. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Nunn, and I would ask 

you—I’ll give the last word to each of our witnesses. 

But before that, as you probably know there are four levels of 

travel advisory. The first is ‘‘exercise normal precaution,’’ No. 2 is 

‘‘exercise increased caution,’’ No. 3, the State Department calls it 

‘‘reconsider travel,’’ and No. 4 is ‘‘don’t travel.’’ Right now the PRC 

is ‘‘reconsider travel’’ because of the arbitrary enforcement of laws 

and people being incarcerated simply because they happen to be 

Americans. 

In your view should the State Department now go to ‘‘don’t travel’’ since we have a situation where your family members traveled 

and have now been unjustly detained and harassed and imprisoned? It seems to me that would get the attention of the Chinese 

Communist Party as well. Because it’s an open risk. People are 

traveling there not even knowing that there is a travel advisory, 

that it’s number 3 on the 4 scale. But perhaps it’s time for No. 4 

to be imposed. 

Peter, do you want to respond to that? 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I’ll be very quick. There’s one phrase I’ve been 

using for quite some years now and it’s starting to dawn, and that 

is ‘‘nobody is safe in China.’’ Nobody. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. HUNT. Don’t travel to China. That needs the security level. 

Whatever you do it needs to be raised to the highest it could be 

raised to. Don’t travel. 

Chair SMITH. So that’s your word to the administration? 

Mr. HUNT. That is my word right here right now. Don’t travel. 

None of us here want to have another story. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. LI. I will say this. It’s been reported in the media that the 

Chinese government has requested the United States to reduce its 

travel advisory from level three down to level two or level one and, 

you know, I think it is laughable that that they are even willing 

to consider that, while they keep our loved ones arbitrarily detained. 

And so I think that the Chinese government clearly wants more 

Americans to travel to China. But as long as our loved ones are 

being held, as long as there are so many people at risk, then that 

travel warning must be escalated. 

Chair SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Wells. 

Mr. WELLS. If this would put pressure on the Chinese regime I 

say don’t travel. No one should even go there. 

Chair SMITH. I appreciate that. You know, I now give you the 

last word. I do by unanimous consent ask that the statements of 

Bill Browder be included; Ben Rogers, who we’ve worked with— 

both of those men—for years; Cedric Witek, Cynthia Sun, Jason 
33 

Poblete, Katherine Swidan, who was on earlier with her son, and 

the Foley Foundation. Without objection, so ordered. 

But I’d like to give the four of you the last word, if you would, 

and I can’t thank you enough. This, to me, is a pivotal hearing. You 

know, motivation is everything but information that motivates— 

you have motivated us to do even more and we will. I guarantee 

it. 

Mr. Wells. 

Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I am grateful that we and all of these people who are in the same 

situation as us are here today in front of you all to raise awareness 

of our situation as well as the other Americans that are there. 

My last comment is that there were always three, and Mr. Li 

knows that these were on the radar of our administration and we 

tried to get Nelson’s name included, and today you all have done 

that for us, as I know Tim agrees. 

But there’s one thing that you will notice—the picture that all 

of you put out there. If you notice, everybody else is in civilian 

clothes—but my son is in his prison uniform. And I was apprehensive and afraid but I knew I needed to do this because everything 

that we do is going to help get him home. 

But that uniform prison picture that’s out there—Nelson has received death threats. He has received harassment and been attacked because of that picture; they tried to force him to say how 

that picture got to us, and because we could not tell how it was 

done, Nelson has suffered at their hands. 

So I am proud and happy to be here. This picture has now shown 

the American people about my son but I’m also afraid of what 

might happen to him from this. So I know you all are going to be 

diligently trying to help us but there’s one other thing that I wish, 

that you all can at least get the American citizens, consulars, to 

make more frequent visits to Nelson, to make sure they don’t harm 

my child because if the illness doesn’t take him out, I’m afraid they 

will. Thank you. 

Mr. LI. I would just like to end with this statement, you know, 

building off what Mr. Nunn just mentioned of China wanting to 

present itself as a country that is equal to the United States, yet 

at the same time engaging in these horrific practices, ripping apart 

our families, ripping apart our loved ones, torturing them physically, mentally, it needs to stop, and whatever other bilateral 

issues that need to be worked out irrespective of that, these cases 

have a tangible solution. 

The Chinese government has our loved ones. They can do the 

right thing and release them, and it’s incumbent on our elected 

leaders to call for that, to make that the number-one priority in 

their diplomacy because it is something tangible, something doable, 

something with a clear-cut solution. So it should be one of the easiest things to get in diplomatic discussions. I think by bringing 

awareness to this issue that it is easy to get swept under the rug 

because we are individual families, ordinary Americans who have 

a difficult time getting attention. 

We need to be heard. We need to be made a priority. And so I 

thank you, of course, Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, but also 

all the commissioners on the CECC for convening and organizing 
34 

this hearing and this forum to listen to our voices and take to heart 

and understand just what we have been going through and why it 

needs to be rectified immediately. Thank you. 

Mr. HUNT. First of all, I’d like to—I thank you, Mr. Chairman 

and Mr. Humphrey and everyone who’s here on this panel. Thank 

you for allowing us to speak. I will state this just to repeat what 

you said about how to keep up the pressure. 

You asked whether we should raise the threat level. Of course. 

The other Senator asked, Is there something we could do socially 

by holding these companies responsible and yes, of course. I say 

this because my sister was making lithium batteries. That was her 

job, her duty, while she’s incarcerated. 

I’m not sure what products these lithium batteries go to but I’m 

sure that some of these are imported here in America. I’m sure the 

citizens here need to understand and they need to know that the 

Chinese motto was ‘‘rehabilitation through labor’’ and a lot of this 

labor, as Mr. Humphrey says, goes into making greeting cards that 

we purchase. 

There needs to be a sort of transparency on what products are 

being made by prison labor and if that—if those things are transparent then that puts pressure on them as well as what you said, 

raising the threat level because, from what Mr. Humphrey said, if 

there’s going to be a warehouse of Americans that they’re going to 

use to gain political favor or use to do something to, I guess you 

could say, move the needle on their side by releasing a citizen from 

America—that needs to stop—and we need to put all types of pressure on them through political, economic, judicial means. 

Whatever we can do to bring everyone home, we need to do it. 

No one should be in this situation and this panel should not grow. 

There should be fewer of us, not more of us. Thank you. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. I prefer to leave most of these final words to 

these three very courageous families that you’ve got here today. 

But I’ll just say one thing very, very briefly, and that is that I 

think it is incumbent upon Congress to legislate to deal with this 

problem of the prisoners in the categories that we’ve discussed 

today. 

You mentioned you received a statement from Bill Browder, who 

we could say was the creator of the Magnitsky Act concept—you 

know, a great campaigner who brought that about here. It was 

aimed heavily at the time against other countries, especially Russia, for human rights abuses and wrongful arrests and mistreatment of prisoners and so forth and we need something like that 

here to confront this problem with China. 

So I think it is incumbent upon Congress here to push some legislation forward which will be punitive in nature and also will be 

holding the U.S. Government to greater account to actually act and 

punish China for these kinds of wrongful detentions and arrests. 

I hope to see that in the next year or two. I realize that you’re 

going to go through some changes over the coming year which may 

slow some progress down. But this is a bipartisan issue and I don’t 

really think it matters who’s running the administration. I think 

it is incumbent upon every Congressman and every Senator to get 

behind something like this. Thank you. 
35 

Chair SMITH. Thank you. We do have a duty to act and we must, 

so thank you. Who do we help and who do we abandon? To paraphrase again, we help all and abandon no one and I can’t thank 

you enough for the powerful testimony and for the love that you 

have shown for your loved ones. It’s incredible. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the hearing was concluded.] 

A P P E N D I X 

(39) 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF NELSON WELLS, SR. 

Good morning, Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and the esteemed members of the 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Thank you for inviting me and our 

advisor, Peter Humphrey, to testify at this hearing on Americans detained in China. 

BACKGROUND

My name is Nelson Wells, Sr. and I am appearing before you on behalf of my wife, 

Cynthia Wells, and our family, asking for your assistance in bringing home our son, 

Nelson Wells, Jr., who has been unjustly imprisoned in China for 10 years. We are 

natives of New Orleans, Louisiana, but relocated to Haughton, Louisiana in the 

aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We lost many of our worldly possessions to that 

storm, but nothing prepared us for the loss we would experience in 2014. 

In the spring of that year, we were awakened in the middle of the night by a call 

that no parent ever wants to receive. Paraphrasing, the male caller said, ‘‘I’m a companion of Nelson’s. He’s in trouble. He’s been arrested in China. Do you have 

money? Hurry up! They’re going to kill him!’’ Naturally, I said, ‘‘Hang that phone 

up.’’ I thought it was a prank, a scam. We didn’t even realize Nelson, then a 40- 

year-old man, was in China. We thought he was at home in Japan, where we had 

recently spoken to him by phone, and he had been living with his wife and children—two daughters and a son—from two different marriages. 

I served in the United States Army for more than 20 years, and Cynthia served 

at the Department of Defense for nearly 28 years. We have been stationed and traveled all over the United States—from the South to the South Pacific—and the world. 

At each opportunity, we brought our children, Nelson and his sister, Kendria Wells, 

with us. Thus Nelson always had a love for travel, and it was not unusual to us 

that he settled in Japan, where his wife is from. But due to a medical condition he 

suffered from a traffic accident, we were discussing the possibility of the family relocating to the United States permanently, so that he could get better treatment and 

expand his professional opportunities. Unfortunately, it was not to be. 

When we called his wife, our daughter-in-law, we learned that he had taken a 

trip to China. He is a dedicated husband and father, and we are a close family, so 

after he did not return immediately and we did not hear from him, we knew we 

had a problem. 

Over the next several weeks and months, we reached out to the United States 

Embassy multiple times to find Nelson or a record of his arrest, but they could not 

locate him. It was not until we took matters into our own hands and contacted Mr. 

John Kamm at the Dui Hua Foundation, which tracks and assists American detainees oversees, that we were able to confirm that Nelson had indeed been arrested. 

We think that somehow he had not been considered an American citizen—even 

though he, his wife, and his children all are citizens—and had fallen through the 

cracks. Only then did the U.S. Government begin working on behalf of our son. By 

then, precious months had passed. 

For Nelson’s part, he had been incarcerated all that time in China, a country 

where he was only visiting, where he did not read or speak the language, and where 

he did not know if we were looking for him or even knew he had been arrested. 

It must have been torture for him. It was not until a Chinese lawyer we hired appeared at one of his court proceedings and passed him a note that he learned we 

were aware of his predicament. The lawyer could not represent Nelson, but he was 

able to provide him with a lifeline. Frightened and desperate to reach out to us and 

unfamiliar with the documents he was being presented, Nelson was willing to do 

anything to improve his conditions, even plead partially guilty so that he could 

enter the prison system and be allowed phone calls home, more regular contact with 

American Citizen Services, and other benefits. It was at that time that we were able 

to speak with our son, albeit on short calls that were heavily monitored and would 
40 

disconnect abruptly when he attempted to share sensitive details about his treatment or condition or when we would express our own frustration. 

We learned that Nelson had been arrested on a drug charge. As he was leaving 

the country, he naively agreed to carry a bag of what he thought to be baked goods 

for a so-called friend through security at the airport. Those baked goods were allegedly laced with illegal drugs. That so-called friend made it through, but Nelson did 

not. For that one mistake—that one betrayal—his life, his wife’s life, his children’s 

lives, and our lives will never be the same. 

PRIORITY CONCERNS

Though Nelson admitted partial guilt, he did not speak the language, never received proper due process, and did not have adequate legal representation to be able 

to offer a defense to the allegations or fully understand the terms and consequences 

of his pleadings. There were some bright spots: Nelson originally received a death 

sentence, but that sentence was ultimately reduced in 2019 to 22 years. We are 

thankful to the Chinese government for that, but his sentence did not include time 

served. This means that Nelson will not be released until the year 2041 when he 

is in his late 60s, if by some miracle he survives. 

In the years since 2014, my wife and I have become consumed with efforts to secure Nelson’s release and to ensure his safety and health while imprisoned. At first, 

we did not have access to trusted lawyers or advisors that we could count on to advocate for Nelson and not take advantage of us. We expended almost all our savings 

in those early years via trial-and-error efforts to help Nelson and without meaningful guidance from our own government. With the exception of some former prisoners 

who were able to get messages to us and third-party advocates, we were virtually 

alone and operating in the blind. For years, we wrote letters to our Members of Congress, to the White House, to State Department officials, to Democrats and Republicans, to anyone who was in a position of influence, but our calls for assistance 

went unanswered. 

American Citizen Services in Beijing was helpful in visiting, calling, communicating with, and reporting back on Nelson, but some case officers were better than 

others and they changed frequently. One of Nelson’s best officers is working with 

your Committee now, and his current case officer is outstanding as well. For that, 

we are forever grateful. But no matter how good or how well meaning, with each 

swap of a case officer, it feels like we, like Nelson is starting all over—having to 

re-tell his story, re-teach his spoken and unspoken language, and recount his mental 

and physical health challenges. The inconsistency takes its toll on him, as have the 

years of incarceration. 

While in the beginning we heeded warnings not to shine a public light on Nelson’s 

story out of fear of retaliation against him, his declining health has forced us to escalate our efforts to share his story and gain attention for him in the hopes of 

mounting political and public pressure and ultimately diplomatic intervention. 

While it shouldn’t be this way, we have seen with other released prisoners that public pressure—and perhaps nothing else—works; it encourages the government to 

prioritize your loved one and to advocate more aggressively for their release. 

Over the years, Nelson has been a target for being one of the few Americans and 

Black Americans in the prison, which has exposed him to harsher treatment and 

sometimes physical attack. He has suffered from debilitating chronic pain, seizures 

(a Chinese MRI report shows he has an atrophying of the brain), malnutrition, internal issues, dental pain, severe depression and thoughts of self-harm. We also 

know that based on family history, Nelson needs regular cancer and heart health 

screenings, which it is not always clear he has received. He also needs regular contact with mental health professionals, regular calls and ideally video calls with us, 

and the ability to speak English with another person on a regular basis. Without 

these things, we fear that he will die in prison from physical or mental illness and 

without our ever seeing him again. 

Thus, my wife and I built a multidisciplinary team of China legislative and communications experts, including Peter Humphrey, who is also testifying today, and 

also with the help of Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, who 

is a childhood friend. We decided to share Nelson’s story loudly, beginning in Louisiana with KSLA’s Domonique Benn. After her 2023 story on our fight for Nelson’s 

release, we began garnering attention from Louisiana to Washington and beyond. 

We are especially thankful to Senator Bill Cassidy and his team, who are working 

on our behalf, and the many journalists in the United States and China who have 

reported on our story. We are also thankful to the Commission for inviting us here 

today to share our story—the story of everyday Americans who found themselves 

in the midst of an international diplomatic nightmare. 
41 

Still, a meaningful change in Nelson’s circumstances has remained out of reach 

and only underscores the difficulty, and sometimes hopelessness, of our situation, 

where we feel thwarted at every turn. For example: 

1. Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or as being held unjustly, even 

though he received an impossibly harsh sentence for a first-time offender and did 

not receive proper due process, which means his case has not received the same diplomatic attention as others within the State Department. 

2. Nelson’s declining health, length of time served, and record of good behavior 

certainly should make him eligible for some sort of humanitarian release, but we 

have been told that this is not a possibility. It should be noted that over the past 

decade, Nelson has been a cooperative prisoner. Indeed, he promised me personally 

that he would not fight, even if he is provoked or attacked. He doesn’t want to do 

anything to make his situation worse. 

3. Nelson has also sought to utilize a 2018 law in China that allows for a prisoner 

transfer to an American facility, absent a bilateral treaty with the home country 

(Law of the People’s Republic of China on International Judicial Assistance in 

Criminal Matters). Unfortunately, the United States still requires a treaty to engage 

in those negotiations and so Nelson remains in Chongqing Yudu Prison. 

We are at a loss as to what to do next, but whatever the pathway, we are asking, 

pleading with this Commission, with Congress, with the Administration—including 

the State Department and the Justice Department, and with the Chinese government, to work together on behalf of our son to find a solution that brings him home 

to us. 

When our country asked us to serve, my wife and I did so unreservedly and without hesitation. I even served in hardship posts, including during the Gulf War. I 

am asking now for your help on behalf of my child. He is a man, but as every parent 

here knows, he is still my child, and I cannot leave him behind. I am asking you 

also not to leave him—an American citizen—behind. We leave no man behind, 

right? We are people of faith, but he is losing faith. He feels alone. He feels helpless. 

We all do. I do not know how long I will be able to implore him to hang on. 

Please help our family by creating a pathway for outright release or prisoner 

transfer to a home prison. Please make improvements to the process for meaningfully working with detained citizens and their families so that they have help in 

navigating these crises and are not targets for abuse. The State Department should 

be focused not only on care for detainees, which is important, but also on offering 

resources and pathways for release, which is critical. 

Finally, we must improve diplomatic relations with China so that our citizens can 

travel abroad safely and that when an arrest happens, we can ensure their fair 

treatment. We were once told by a State Department official that Nelson should 

have never been in China in the first place and that citizens are warned about traveling there. In addition to this being a callous statement, it is also an unfair one, 

as those types of warnings were less clear in 2014 than they are now. More importantly, what good does that do Nelson or our family now. We still must bring him 

home. I am sure the official meant no harm, but no family should ever ask for help 

from the government only to be ridiculed. 

In addition to Nelson, we ask that you collectively help the hundreds of other 

Americans who are languishing in Chinese prisons and prisons elsewhere, who are 

perhaps worse off than us—Americans who are not before you today, who have not 

received media attention, who do not have Members of Congress working on their 

behalf, and who are known only to their loved ones. They need to have their stories 

told. They need someone to fight diplomatically for their release and at the very 

least for their fair treatment, their health, and their safety. 

On behalf of my son and all the sons and daughters who are still incarcerated 

on foreign soil, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward 

to answering your questions during and after the hearing for the record. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HARRISON LI

Today marks 2,932 days—more than 8 years—since my dad, Kai Li, was taken 

by the Chinese government as a bargaining chip. He spent 2 months under ‘‘residential surveillance at a designated location’’ during which he was held at a secret location and interrogated harshly day and night without any access to legal counsel. 

Then almost a year passed before he was subjected to a closed-door sham trial, and 

then another year went by before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing 

so-called ‘‘state secrets’’—even though said ‘‘secrets’’ are freely searchable even on 

the firewalled Chinese Internet. More than 3 years ago now, the United Nations 
42 

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention demanded his release in a landmark decision. Yet despite all this, we have seen no positive movement in his case or those 

of the other Americans wrongfully detained in China. 

Officials at all levels of the U.S. Government constantly reassure us that securing 

my dad’s freedom is their ‘‘highest priority.’’ Yet their actions, or rather the lack 

thereof, show otherwise. Since the day President Biden took office, our family has 

made countless requests through the State Department, Congress, and White House 

National Security Council to meet with him. In that time, the President has met 

with the families of many Americans detained in places like Gaza, Syria, Russia, 

and Iran, while every single one of our requests has gone unanswered. 

In my last two trips to D.C., I sat outside the White House with the families of 

several other wrongful detainees in the Bring Our Families Home Campaign. Both 

times, we watched the President and/or his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, meet with the families of other detainees, leaving us out in the cold. Why are 

we ignored like this? The administration is always quick to note that not all hostage 

families who’ve met with the President have seen their loved ones come home, and 

conversely many Americans have come home without meeting with him. But the 

numbers are clearly in the favor of those who have met with the President. That’s 

not surprising, because as the reporting around last month’s prisoner deal with Russia illustrates, when Jake Sullivan and the President put their heads together with 

hostage families, they can collectively come up with creative solutions to bring 

Americans home. Unfortunately, we do not see this happening with the China cases, 

even as my dad alone has now spent more time behind bars than Paul Whelan, 

Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva combined. 

Time is running out. No matter who wins November’s Presidential election, we 

will experience a change of administration. We know (from experience, unfortunately) that that means months or years where no progress will be made as bilateral relationships and communication channels are re-formed. The next few months 

before President Biden leaves office thus form a crucial period for the administration to leverage the work they’ve put in to stabilize the broader bilateral relationship against the prospect of another spy balloon incident and negotiate a fair deal 

that will finally bring my dad home. Simply mentioning my dad’s name in bilateral 

engagements won’t be enough. And so we need all of you to raise your voices these 

next few weeks and call on President Biden to stop ignoring us and lead a wholehearted effort to bring my dad home before he leaves office. 

I have now spent a third of my life missing my dad. Every day, I wake up and 

shudder at the thought of him crammed into a tiny cell with as many as 11 other 

people, in deplorable conditions that Peter [Humphrey] here can unfortunately tell 

you about firsthand, as someone who spent two years in the same prison. In the 

last eight years, my dad’s suffered a stroke, lost a tooth, and endured draconian 

COVID–19 lockdowns for more than three years without climate control. President 

Biden, how much more does he need to suffer before you stop ignoring us? 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIM HUNT

My sister Dawn Michelle Hunt is incarcerated in Guangdong Women’s Prison. She 

was arrested in 2014 and charged with smuggling, a charge she vehemently denies. 

Dawn was born on 12 June 1971, so she is now 53. She was a receptionist at the 

time she was arrested. As I write this, I think of the numerous times I’ve written 

to officials, lawyers, and anyone else who would listen. I think I’ve written this type 

of letter hundreds of times since her incarceration, but over the years, things have 

changed. My sister and my family are getting worn down. Dawn’s health has been 

failing, and our father’s health is failing as well. 

It all started when my sister was tricked into believing she had won a contest. 

She received an email stating that she had won a cash prize. When she contacted 

the contest organizers, she didn’t believe it at first, so she checked them out online 

and was surprised that the info they gave her checked out. With that, she sent them 

her passport information and they sent a ticket for her to travel to Hong Kong. She 

was there for nine days and she told me that the organizers treated her well. She 

went sightseeing, shopping and started to trust the organizers who put together her 

trip. After exploring Hong Kong, she was asked if she wanted to visit mainland 

China. After her positive experience in Hong Kong, she agreed. She acquired a visa 

for mainland China while she was in Hong Kong with the help of the organizers 

who put together her initial trip. She then flew to mainland China and traveled 

around, sightseeing and shopping for nine days. She was then asked if she wanted 

to visit Australia as part of her prize. Once again, she agreed. 
43 

Before leaving for her Australia trip, she was told she also won some designer 

purses. Excited about her upcoming trip, and trusting the organizers, she took the 

purses before her flight, not knowing drugs were sewn inside the linings. She explained to me that the organizers wanted her to pack the purses in her luggage. 

She told them that her luggage was full so she and some people who organized her 

trips went to the Baiyun leather market and the organizers purchased an additional 

bag for her. 

She told me that while she was in the airport in China, on her way to Australia, 

she was called by airport security. They escorted her to a room and the luggage she 

checked (she checked two pieces) was in the room as well. She was asked if the luggage belonged to her, to which she responded ‘‘yes.’’ She stated that she was asked 

multiple times and each time she said ‘‘yes,’’ not knowing drugs were in the lining 

of the purses she won from the organizers of the contest. She told me that she even 

paid a small excess weight fee since the luggage was slightly over the weight limit 

when she checked in for her flight. 

I hope you can see that something like this could happen to a lot of people. As 

a matter of fact, in May of this year, the Secret Service issued a warning for law 

enforcement to educate the public on similar schemes. Unfortunately, my sister was 

arrested in 2014 and never received any such warning. 

After her trial, she was found guilty and received the ‘‘death penalty with two 

years reprieve.’’ She was duped. She was scammed! She trusted the wrong people! 

She doesn’t deserve it. Although she told me it happened when she was taking a 

flight to Australia, a journalist said a court record says she was on her way to 

Qingdao in China on an internal flight. I don’t know the reason for this discrepancy. 

The death penalty for this? 

In the years she was detained before her trial, she cooperated with the authorities, answered all their questions, and produced the emails she received from the 

organizers but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. 

Since her incarceration, she has developed physical ailments (uterine fibroids and 

possibly ovarian cancer) according to the doctors who examined her in prison. She 

has received numerous blood transfusions due to heavy bleeding and has been advised that she needs a hysterectomy, which she has refused out of distrust. How 

can she trust the same people who have incarcerated her after she cooperated with 

the Chinese authorities? How can she trust the same people she tried to help apprehend the organizers who had duped her? 

My sister has never been street-smart. She’s trusting and believes that people are 

good. Being her older brother, I’ve seen her disappointed and upset when people in 

her life turn out to be something different from what they displayed. This has hurt 

her and has taken years from her life. When I visited her recently in prison, I could 

see the depth of her depression. She has lost weight; her eyes are bulging. She has 

an abdominal bulge on her right side, and her complexion is very pale. She told me 

that she still has to work in the prison despite her illness but that she can’t lift 

heavy objects because her fibroids might rupture and she would start bleeding. 

After I visited her, I updated my father on her condition. I had to leave out some 

details of her physical appearance because my dad has recently been diagnosed with 

cancer and I wanted to avoid giving him an additional shock. I’d also like to share 

a bit about my father with you. He’s an Army veteran and a retired Chicago Police 

Sergeant of 32 years. I once witnessed him save our next-door neighbors when their 

house caught fire. Witnessing that event made such an impression on me as a kid 

that I followed in his footsteps and became a Chicago Police Officer and retired after 

28 years. 

Dawn Michelle is my dad’s only daughter, and he is devastated by her predicament. In a strange way, my dad’s locked up as well. He’s almost 91, freshly diagnosed with prostate cancer, has other health issues and is worried that with all this, 

he’s not going to live long enough to see his daughter free, safe, and at home. He’s 

getting worn down, just like my sister. 

As I stated at the beginning of this statement, my family is getting worn down. 

We’ve gotten our hopes up, only to be disappointed again and again. The hearing 

that you’re having regarding the cases of unjustly detained Americans in China offers new hope. 

Chapter 8, Transfer of Sentenced Persons, in The Law of the People’s Republic 

of China on International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters, offers a path for 

Americans incarcerated in China to come home, and it doesn’t require a bilateral 

prisoner transfer treaty. This hearing gives my family a bit more hope that not only 

will my sister, who was unjustly detained, have a path to come home, but also other 

unjustly detained Americans as well. We need the CECC’s help, and we need its 

advocacy to bring our loved ones home. 
44 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PETER HUMPHREY

INTRODUCTION

I am a British citizen. Half my family is American. My wife and son are American 

citizens. For much of my life I have interacted with American institutions. I have 

spent 49 years involved with China as an academic, teacher, journalist, corporate 

investigator, and philanthropist. I hold a degree in sinology from Durham University in England. I am currently an external affiliate of Harvard University’s 

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, a member of the UK think tanks RUSI and 

Henry Jackson Society, and a pro bono mentor to families of foreign prisoners in 

China. I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were wrongfully imprisoned in China 

in 2013–2015 on false charges of illegal information gathering for our due diligence 

firm, ChinaWhys, in an extensively publicized case. Since our release in June 2015 

I have created an information and support network among families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their welfare and their release, as well as interviewing newly released prisoners in order to track changes in the prisons. Before testifying to this 

commission, I have testified to the UK Parliament and the Australian Senate and 

I have provided evidence to support China-related legislation in the EU Parliament 

on China due diligence and the import of prison labor products. 

I am testifying to the CECC both as a specialist on justice and imprisonment in 

China and as a foreign victim of unjust imprisonment. I have a wealth of personal 

experience and insight after being a fly on the wall inside the Chinese prison system 

for 2 years, and one of the first victims of dictator Xi Jinping’s crusade against foreigners, and for the past 9 years an activist who is exposing judicial and penal 

abuses that all foreign prisoners and detainees in China face. 

In my statement I will include some high-level observations in addition to some 

examples of abuse in China’s prison system, and I will touch upon the cases of some 

American prisoners that I have followed and supported. Finally, I will also make 

some observations and suggestions for improving policy in areas that need review 

and change. 

First, let me also state that although we can see a number of American families 

presenting their cases of unjust imprisonment in China to this CECC hearing, there 

are a massive number who cannot or will not do so, largely due to fear of retribution 

against their loved ones locked up in one of Xi Jinping’s jails. In addition, the communication of Americans languishing in China’s prisons is deliberately obstructed 

by Chinese authorities, making it impossible for them to issue their own statements 

and pleas for help directly to such a hearing. We must keep all those Americans 

in our minds and hearts as we digest the testimony of the few who are able to testify. Regardless of class background, level of wealth, skin color, religious creed, or 

the crimes they are alleged by Chinese institutions to have committed, and whether 

‘‘guilty’’ or not, they deserve equal support, as Americans. Some of them have been 

in Xi’s jails for more than 10 years and are in dire health. 
45 

1 I cannot name this client here, for legal reasons, in order to comply with a legal settlement 

between the Humphrey family and the client, the terms of which are confidential. I can only 

refer to the public dockets. 

THE HUMPHREY AND YU WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT CASE

The story of what happened to me and my family in the clutches of China’s judicial and prison system has been extensively documented and written about in the 

media and in the American litigation records of my lawsuit against a former client 

of mine. 

In short, after decades of benign involvement in China, one morning in July 2013, 

I and my American wife Yingzeng Yu were suddenly detained, our Shanghai offices 

and apartment were raided at dawn and our 10-year-old due diligence consultancy 

company was shut down without any legal grounds. I was 57 at the time, and my 

wife was approaching her 60th birthday. Our son, an American citizen, was 18 at 

the time and had just completed high school—our arrest orphaned him for the next 

2 years and seriously damaged his educational path and career ambitions. Our only 

crime really was to have offended somebody who we had investigated and profiled 

for a multinational client who suspected her of defaming the company. She turned 

out to have powerful connections in the Communist Party and arranged for us to 

be arrested in revenge.1

We never received a fair and transparent trial and we were treated inhumanely 

during 2 years of wrongful captivity. We spent over a year in a Shanghai detention 

center and the remainder of the period in prisons—me in Shanghai’s Qingpu Prison 

and my wife in Shanghai Women’s Prison. 

The detention center was like a penal facility from day one and not a pre-trial 

detention facility. My cell was unfurnished and it incarcerated 12 men in a floor 

space of 17.5 square yards. The off white paint and plaster in the cells was rotting 

and peeling off the walls and ceiling. The other cellmates were mostly Chinese. Occasionally there would be another foreigner, from Africa or Asia. The ceiling lights 

were kept on 24/7. There was no furniture, no bed to sleep on. We slept on a bare, 

rough wooden floor, which was our bed, our breakfast and dinner table, and where 

we had to squat or sit cross-legged for most of the day. We never received outdoor 

exercise, sunshine or fresh air. The toilet was a hole in the corner of the cell open 

to the view of every cellmate and the surveillance cameras. There was never a moment of privacy. The only privacy was inside your own head. We ate three times 

a day from doggy bowls containing food that was pushed through the bars of the 

cell by convict laborers. The food comprised gritty rice, scraps of vegetable, and the 

occasional sliver of meat. The food lacked vital vitamins and minerals and we all 

suffered from malnutrition and diarrhea, and quickly lost weight and grew weak. 

I lost 22 pounds. The cell provided no hot water but only cold water running from 

a tap in a crumbling stone sink. Medical attention was grossly inadequate. One cellmate was dying from heart disease and another, a Chinese-born American citizen, 

was suffering from a failing liver transplant that he had undergone just weeks before he was arrested on murky fraud charges in the middle of his own wedding 

party. The detention center authorities refused to acknowledge my prostate cancer 

situation and withheld medical treatment for it for the whole duration of my arbitrary detention there. 

I and my wife were subjected separately to daily interrogations by the police 

(PSB) and initially also by State Security (MSS) who tried to pin an espionage 

charge on us. In the end they charged us with illegal information gathering under 

a law which at the time of our business activities did not make our business activities illegal. (Since our release China has introduced new laws which make all information gathering potentially illegal, regardless of the means used to gather it.) During this detention and interrogation period, I and my wife were allowed no contact 

with each other. After 6 months we were allowed to write letters to each other but 

these took weeks or months to travel 300 meters through the concrete walls of the 

detention center due to three layers of censorship. They were censored and sometimes confiscated without us being told. We were not allowed to discuss our case 

in these letters. Correspondence with family was highly restricted. No family visits 

were allowed. This severely hampered our efforts to help our 18-year-old son who 

was suddenly cut adrift by our disappearance and had no access to our family funds. 

But we received occasional welfare visits from our respective U.S. and UK consulates bringing messages, letters and reading material. 

In short, the conditions in the detention center in their totality added up to torture designed to crush the human spirit and force out a confession, and failed to 

meet the standards required by international conventions or treaties that China has 

signed. 
46 

2Qingpu Prison is the very same prison where Kai Li and David McMahon are held today. 

In April 2014, my wife’s brother, Bernard Yu, an American citizen born in Ohio, 

died in Maryland from a fast-moving cancer accelerated by the stress that he was 

experiencing in handling his younger sister’s incarceration. His situation was withheld from my wife until our trial and she never had a chance to say goodbye to him. 

He was her only other close relative from her original nuclear family. She was only 

informed of his death on the morning of our sham trial in August that year, which 

seriously destabilized her in court, no doubt intentionally. 

During our detention we were allowed only minimalist meetings with defense lawyers, whose hands were tied by a rule that requires all Chinese lawyers to obey the 

Communist Party or lose their license. These meetings never enjoyed any privacy. 

The meetings were held in a cell with bars between me and the visiting lawyer and 

were held under surveillance. No documents were supposed to be exchanged. 

Needless to say, our defense was thus rendered useless. On 8 August 2014, we 

were taken to a court for a show trial that lasted 1 day and we were sentenced immediately—me to two and a half years and my wife to 2 years. We decided not to 

appeal because we were falsely led to believe that life would be easier in a prison, 

especially for my wife who was ill with swollen kidneys, and because the time required for an appeal process might exceed the length of our sentence. 

For 1 month between the trial and my transfer to prison, I was in a transit cell 

for men who had been sentenced and were either awaiting transfer to a prison or 

were in the process of appeal. It was in this cell that I met the American prisoner 

named David McMahon, whose travesty I am separately presenting to this hearing, 

David having authorized me to take his case public over 5 years ago. I was so 

shocked by the sheer injustice of his case that I spent that month in interview 

mode, getting to know him as well as possible and assessing his case. We shared 

reading materials including books, magazines, and judicial documents and became 

good friends. David McMahon was a primary school teacher who worked at the 

French International School and had been falsely accused of molesting a 6-year-old 

girl in school. He showed me his indictment and judgment documents, family photos 

and love letters and I concluded that he was a normal heterosexual man in a normal loving heterosexual relationship with a female American school teacher, who 

would never be a pedophile and who had been wrongly accused. He was the victim 

of a witch hunt by a French mother whose daughter had been molested the previous 

year by another American teacher who was indeed a fugitive pedophile, Hector 

Oruela, and who was extradited to America and is now serving a long jail term for 

crimes he had committed in the U.S. Oruela was never tried in China and the 

French family resented this. They seized upon a proxy fantasy that their daughter 

had been molested by David. 

Life in Qingpu Prison 2 was certainly not easier than in the detention center even 

though I was placed in a cell block designated exclusively for around 150 foreign 

citizens. Again I was in a 17.5 square yard cell shared among 12 cellmates, a standard cell size in Shanghai. The cell had two-tier bunk beds on each side with a very 

narrow floor space in the middle. Lights were kept on 24/7, although dimmed at 

night. Food was similar to the detention center, although warmer, cleaner and with 

a bit more protein, eaten in a separate ‘‘activity room,’’ at tables, served by fellow 

prisoners. We received one boiled egg per week every Sunday. There were restrictions on receiving or sending our letters—all are censored by language officers 

known as ‘‘letter captains.’’ And restrictions applied to receiving reading material— 

subjective censorship decisions are made by officers who confiscate anything that 

they deem to have a political nature. 

I was placed in a ‘‘training cell’’ where a ‘‘chief prisoner’’ was assigned to bully 

me, and a particular officer known to be sadistic was placed in charge of my cell 

with the specific mission to bully me into signing a confession. Other prisoners were 

ordered not to speak to me because I was a British ‘‘spy.’’ 

Most of the prisoners were participating in mandatory manufacturing labor and 

some were employed as corridor cleaners or food servers. I boycotted the labor system and got away with it, perhaps because my sentence was short and I had no 

interest in earning points for a sentence reduction. Only through labor and through 

writing mandatory thought reports and confessions of guilt can you earn merit 

points and apply for sentence reductions. I had no intention of confessing to a crime 

that I had never committed. Most prisoners with longer sentences (including life 

terms) crumbled and many innocent people falsely confessed to uncommitted crimes 

in order to obtain sentence reductions. 

In connection with forced prison labor among foreign inmates, I published a series 

of articles in the Sunday Times in December 2019 about Qingpu inmates packaging 
47 

Christmas cards for the British supermarket chain Tesco, and Quaker Oatmeal sachets for PepsicCo. (See reading list at the end of this statement.) 

During my time in Qingpu, I witnessed frequent rough handling and beating of 

foreign prisoners and instances of brutal solitary confinement for the most minor 

of offenses such as refusing to get out of the bunk bed. Solitary included food deprivation, sleep deprivation, and water boarding sessions that were performed by trusted Chinese convicts, according to prisoners who suffered this treatment. 

Overall, the conditions in Qingpu Prison added up to torture as defined in the 

international treaty on torture and the international convention on minimum standards of treatment for prisoners which China has signed. 

In Qingpu, again, medical attention for my prostate cancer was deliberately withheld, this time on blatant illegal grounds: Whenever I asked for treatment, I was 

told, ‘‘You have not confessed.’’ It was only in the 21st month of my captivity in 

April 2015 that I finally obtained an MRI scan confirming my tumor. I managed 

to get this information out to my son and to my consular representative. I made 

clear I would use this news to overcast an impending visit later in 2015 to the UK 

by President Xi Jinping. Soon afterwards, I felt that certain wheels were moving 

to try to get rid of me. 

The most senior officer of the foreign cell block, and the governor of the prison, 

tried to negotiate with me to formulate some kind of statement—they wanted an 

acknowledgement of guilt but they were not going to get it and never did. In the 

end they settled for a fudged statement full of conditional clauses, ifs and buts. And 

even this I signed only under duress. In June 2015 they finally released me with 

my wife, after fabricating paperwork that claimed we had acknowledged our crimes, 

behaved well in prison and reformed. All of this was a sheer box-ticking fabrication, 

a show. A big lie. 

We arrived in the UK on 17 June 2015. I underwent 5 years of prostate cancer 

treatments which failed. The 2 years in captivity without medical treatment for it 

had allowed it to advance to a dangerous point. In the end, in 2020, I had to undergo the removal of my prostate in its entirety to save my life. Although life-saving, 

this has brought life-changing consequences and daily management issues. I also 

underwent 5 years in and out of PTSD counseling, which has been unsuccessful. I 

still suffer from painful flashbacks and panic attacks. Although I have obtained 

some triumphs and exonerations outside China, delving into the fine details of my 

ordeal remains a huge mental and emotional struggle and I remain fragile as a result of my mistreatment, sometimes unable to marshal my thoughts as clearly as 

I could before this ordeal. A man leaves a prison, but a prison never leaves a man. 

PRISON POPULATION

There are no reliable official statistics for the number of prisoners in the People’s 

Republic of China because China intentionally obfuscates the situation. Based on 

piecemeal data available from various sources, and on my own experience inside the 

system, on anecdotal information from prisoners and on my research, I estimate the 

prison population to be approaching ten million in various forms of regular and irregular incarceration. 

Based on my most recent research, I estimate the number of foreigner prisoners 

in China to be approaching 10,000, having doubled under the rule of Xi Jinping. 

Two very large segments are Africans and China-born foreign citizens. Very few foreign governments have disclosed how many of their citizens are held in China. Australia has disclosed that 55 Australians are being held. Canada has admitted to 

there being 92 Canadian prisoners in China. Japan has admitted to 17 Japanese. 

America and the UK and many other countries have withheld such data, citing 

‘‘privacy concerns’’ as an excuse. But these total numbers are not a matter of privacy 

at all. The public needs to know. My own research estimates that there are close 

to 300 Americans, including many China-born American citizens, held in various 

forms of incarceration and detention in China or subject to exit bans. 

The American prisoner segment in Chinese prisons has ballooned since the 2000s 

as a result of a cooperation agreement on transnational crime between China and 

the United States during the Obama-Biden administration in areas such as drugs, 

pedophiles, trafficking and money laundering. The PRC seems to have taken this 

as a green light to arrest Americans. Then, in 2012/2013 when Xi Jinping took 

power in China, Chinese newspapers suddenly started talking about cleaning up all 

the ‘‘foreign trash’’ on China’s streets and the arrest of Americans gathered pace. 

It was in this period that egregious false imprisonment drug cases such as those 

of Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt occurred. 

By all accounts and standards, China’s prison system is indeed a veritable 

‘‘gulag.’’ Its inmates are victims of injustice, as I will demonstrate here, and they 
48 

3See photos at the top of this document. One photo shows me in a steel cage for the fake 

TV confession. 

are forced to work against their will to the profit of the prison system and its officers. 

JUDICIAL AND PRISON SYSTEM

Publicly available research and firsthand testimony make it clear that China’s 

legal system, judicial system and prison system act as an organic whole to exercise 

repression, resulting in systemic abuse on a massive scale, including wrongful imprisonment. 

Research and firsthand experience make it clear that police, prosecutors, and 

judges all hail from the same stable—the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And 

lawyers are compelled to obey the Communist Party, making them part of the same 

unfair and opaque system. Trial judgments are not determined by the judge on a 

case but are handed to the judge by a Communist Party committee who sits above 

him, known at the local level as the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and at 

the national level as the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. At every stage, 

whenever an official signs off on a detention order, a charge, an indictment, a judgment, they are taking a political step and immediately they have a political stake 

in this decision not being found to be mistaken and then reversed. In this sense, 

every convicted prisoner is a political prisoner, a prisoner of the political system. 

As a victim and as a fly on the wall inside the system for 2 years and having 

conducted many investigations for the private sector over a 15-year period when I 

was in the due diligence business in China before my arrest, I observed that Chinese police do not conduct investigations with any real detective work or forensic 

procedures. They rely upon extracting confessions from detainees who are interrogated day by day under duress locked inside cages (as was I) with no lawyer 

present, and by extracting so-called witness statements (which are also often coerced) to frame the case the way they want it to be. Contradictory evidence is not 

allowed. People like American citizens Nelson Wells, Jr., Dawn Michelle Hunt, 

David McMahon, Kai Li, David Lin, Mark Swidan, to mention but a few, never 

stood a chance. (Nor did I and my wife.) 

The system during Xi Jinping’s reign has also often used televised forced and false 

confessions broadcast on the main party-owned outlets CCTV and CGTN in violation of the country’s own laws and constitutional provisions on trials, to prejudice 

a trial and poison Chinese public opinion. I and my American wife were the first 

foreign victims of this illegal practice.3 Our false TV ‘‘confessions’’ were broadcast 

to the world without our consent or awareness at the time. 

After my release, I waged a campaign and legal action in the UK alongside an 

NGO against CGTN and CCTV. It resulted in the UK TV regulator Ofcom fining 

CGTN and stripping its UK broadcast license over the illegal forced confession 

broadcasts of me and my wife and over the fact that CGTN was owned by a political 

party, which is illegal in the UK. I also assisted other victims to file similar complaints. I would encourage other countries such as America to follow the UK lead 

on such action. (This would not be an assault on freedom of expression, it would 

be an action to protect the human rights of Americans abroad.) 

There is no fair and transparent judicial process. Defense lawyers are prevented 

from conducting genuine and vigorous defense. No defense witnesses are allowed to 

be called to court. (Multiple defense witnesses wanted to testify in support of David 

McMahon but were not allowed.) Defense evidence is not permitted to be presented. 

Defense lawyers who try too hard are debarred or jailed. Prosecution witnesses are 

not required to appear in person—only written testimonials are presented and cannot be challenged. There is no cross-examination of prosecution witnesses by the defense. 

As many as 99.9 percent of prosecutions in China result in convictions and sentences. And 99.9 percent of appeals are rejected. As beneficiaries of an open and fair 

judicial system in, say, America and the UK, we know that such glorious figures 

are simply not credible. 

China’s pre-trial detention centers do not function like pre-trial custody regimes 

but as penal regimes from day one, even when a detainee has not been indicted, 

tried and convicted of any crime. The harsh conditions which I described in my long 

FT Weekend Magazine article published in February 2018 (https://www.ft.com/ 

content/db8b9e36-1119-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277) have grown worse since my own 

stay in the Chinese prisons. I have interviewed released foreign prisoners, who have 

reported unspeakable woes in pre-trial detention. The detention centers are designed to crush the human spirit with the result that many prisoners falsely confess 
49 

to a crime they never committed. Grown men and women cry inside those walls 

every day. 

In the post-trial prisons, the Xi dictatorship has steadily toughened and harshened prison regimens for foreign prisoners, reducing food rations, exercise, family 

phone calls, letter writing, the receiving of comfort packages, reading materials and 

so forth, and sentence reductions have become impossible to obtain without signing 

false confessions and submitting to coerced manufacturing labor. 

Keep in mind one very important thing: Among the millions of prisoners in the 

system, not a single prisoner has ever had a fair and transparent trial. Not a single 

one. Sentences tend to be reckless, inconsistent, and disproportionate to any offense. 

The entire system is arbitrary and subject to the whims of Communist Party officials and their friends. The system works to favor anyone with ‘‘guanxi’’ (connections) to use the law to bash people they dislike. The tone of this behavior has been 

set from the top down. This results in substantial harm to masses of innocent people. 

As a result we cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, treat China as being 

a country under the rule of law and we should not accept any charges or trial judgments against our citizens at face value. They must all be challenged. 

FORCED PRISON LABOR SYSTEM

China’s entire prison system holding many millions of prisoners is in fact at the 

same time a gigantic, self-perpetuating commercial enterprise which brings profits 

to the state, and income to prison officers, in other words a ‘‘gulag.’’ This funds prison operations across the country. Foreign prisoners are not exempt from such labor. 

Every Chinese prison imposes forced production labor on its prisoners for the commercial gain of the prison system. I have observed that prison officers are employed 

as labor supervisors, marketing and sales managers, and they get bonuses and 

perks for winning orders and for high production output. Designated officers go out 

to win orders and contracts from commercial manufacturers. Every prison has incorporated one or more companies to hold this business. 

Those of us who have been guests of Xi’s jails have witnessed this system in practice. Those who refuse to participate in this labor get no merit points for sentence 

reductions. All other privileges such as spending on the prison shopping system, 

calls to family, family visits, reading and letter writing, etc., can be withheld if you 

refuse this work. Even food rations can be reduced. Recalcitrant prisoners get sent 

to solitary. (I personally was threatened with solitary when I refused to sign a confession.) 

Prison campuses contain entire factories making a range of goods, from sports 

shoes, apparel and daily hardware items, to electronics such as keyboards and appliances. Chinese prisoners work up to 12 hours a day 6 days per week. The seventh 

day is spent on writing thought reports and on ideological study and on handwashing clothes. 

Accidents are frequent in the factories. I met many Chinese prisoners (and some 

other Asians) in the Shanghai Nanhui Prison hospital with broken bones caused by 

factory accidents. 

Foreign prisoners, including Americans, in most prisons, do not usually perform 

heavy factory labor (except Pakistani prisoners who are all held in Xinjiang) but 

perform manual tasks that require no machinery. Most perform this labor in a work 

room in their own cell block. In Qingpu Prison, where I was held, they worked five 

and a half days a week, occasionally more. However, in some other prisons, African 

prisoners have complained that they are working 12-hour days every day—the same 

hours as Chinese prisoners—and consider themselves as ‘‘slave labor.’’ 

The typical work of foreign prisoners, including Americans, includes making gift 

bags for retail chains (including China’s biggest duty-free shopping chain), making 

packaging materials, packaging items such as Christmas cards, plastic tags for retail display racks, keyboards, and breakfast oatmeal sachets, as witnessed among 

the foreigners in Qingpu Prison. 

I wrote extensively in the Sunday Times in December 2019 about the packaging 

of Tesco Christmas cards and Quaker Oats as revealed by foreign prisoners at 

Qingpu Prison in a message smuggled out inside a Tesco Christmas card box and 

found by a little girl in London at Christmas in 2019. [See page 54 for links to the 

articles.] 

While a prisoner in Qingpu Prison, I personally witnessed items being made or 

packaged for labels bearing the names 3M, H&M, C&A. Other prisoners that I have 

interviewed after their release have listed additional brands owned by companies in 

a number of countries appearing on items being made or packaged in Qingpu Pris-
50 

on. These names have included PepsiCo, Tesco, Zara, and Disney. These practices 

are repeated in all Chinese prisons. 

With this system, Chinese prisons make huge profits for the authorities. There 

is no incentive to release prisoners early. There is every incentive to keep prisoners 

in prison for as long as possible to squeeze more labor out of them. And there is 

an incentive to grow the prison population. 

Thus millions of prisoners are engaged in this enterprise against their will and 

without fair reward. For the Uighurs in Xinjiang labor camps things are even worse. 

Most of the almost ten million prisoners in China are performing forced labor for 

the commercial gain of the prison system and hence for the CCP dictatorship. 

I advised on and participated in a documentary film premiered last year which 

investigated forced prison labor in China, SOS from a Chinese Prisoner, which can 

be viewed here. It contains some remarkable details. https://vimeo.com/manage/ 

videos/894499408/952924accf. 

DUE DILIGENCE

Before I was wrongfully imprisoned for 2 years in 2013, I had spent almost 20 

years as a Reuters journalist, and then 15 years as a private sector due diligence 

and anti-fraud investigator running my own well-regarded consultancy, named 

ChinaWhys with offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. 

I have extensive experience in performing due diligence in China for multinational companies, including many large manufacturing companies with deep and 

complex supply chains, and many American law firms. For example I have conducted investigations for Dow Chemical, Dell, Apple, PepsiCo, Terex, Baker Mackenzie, Jones Day, H&M, BMW, Daimler, Unilever, and Rolls-Royce Engines, to 

mention only a few. 

In general, many multinationals sub-contract work to Chinese factories, which in 

turn may further sub-contract parts of their own job to other small factories and 

so on. This creates a complex and murky supply chain. So very often a multinational 

has no knowledge of what is going on at the bottom, such as the use of a prison 

enterprise or child labor. To illustrate this very simply, a fashion company may commission a Chinese factory to make the trimmings for a pair of trousers. But that 

Chinese factory contracts another factory to do the zippers, and another one to do 

the buttons, and another to do packaging, etc. Tesco had no idea that its Christmas 

cards were being packaged by a prison. Much of the work done by foreign prisoners 

is indeed such packaging and simple manual assembly. 

The only way that companies become aware of this prison labor is when a prisoner manages to smuggle out a whistle-blowing message and it gets into the media. 

This happened with the Tesco Christmas cards in December 2019. Since then I have 

seen several similar messages emerge from various other Chinese prisons, related 

to completely different products including pregnancy test kits made at a prison in 

Tianjin and PPE products such as COVID masks made in a prison in Guangdong, 

all sold in Europe. 

It was always difficult for due diligence investigators to drill to the bottom of the 

chain but Xi Jinping has recently erected barriers to all information gathering by 

foreign companies and their agents, making meaningful on-the-ground due diligence 

impossible today. First it introduced privacy restrictions that limited due diligence 

activity. And the latest example is the new anti-espionage law introduced last year. 

Now, many activities that previously might have been treated merely as privacy 

matters have been moved under the spying law and could result in life sentences. 

In these circumstances, multinationals cannot satisfactorily check whether a Chinese company is using prison labor or other illegal unsocial labor. The only way to 

avoid this risk today is not to do business in China at all. Anybody who says you 

can avoid it is either lying or fantasizing. 

LIFE AND DEATH MATTERS

The Chinese prison system weaponizes prisoners’ health and medical care as an 

instrument to extort written confessions to crime, refusing to provide needed medical attention to prisoners who refuse to admit guilt. This is what happened to me 

and many others. They refused to treat my suspected prostate cancer and by the 

time of my release after 2 years I had developed advanced prostate cancer and then 

had to battle it for 5 years after my return to the UK. Finally my treatment failed, 

my cancer relapsed and my prostate had to be removed. I am lucky to still be alive. 

Imagine what this means for anybody held in such conditions with a long sentence to serve, such as Americans Nelson Wells, Jr., Mark Swidan, Dawn Michelle 

Hunt, David Lin and many others. 
51 

This practice is the norm in Chinese prisons. Medical treatment is also withheld 

simply to avoid spending money on it. I learned of several Chinese deaths inside 

my prison from untreated cancers. Since my release I have learned that a number 

of foreign prisoners have died soon after their own release, and at least two foreign 

prisoners in my cell block have died from cancer inside the prison in the last few 

years. 

USG SHOULD TREAT ALL AMERICAN PRISONERS IN CHINA EQUALLY

I have reviewed many cases of foreigners imprisoned in China including Americans. I mentor the families and/or prisoners in around 25 cases on a pro bono basis, 

to varying degrees as needed. I and other volunteers have analyzed the situations 

of prisoners including available judicial documents, for prisoners such as Nelson 

Wells, Jr., David McMahon, Dawn Michelle Hunt, Mark Swidan, and Kai Li. I have 

followed other cases closely without being directly engaged to assist. 

In all cases I have concluded that material and forensic evidence was absent in 

their prosecution, that these convictions are false, and that these cases would be 

thrown out of court in a country under the rule of law. I have concluded that not 

a single one of these prisoners received a fair and transparent trial and a proper 

defense. I have concluded through my wider research and experience that beyond 

these few cases, not a single prisoner in China as a whole has received a fair and 

transparent trial. The key values of justice that we espouse in democratic countries 

under the rule of law, and enshrined in the American Constitution, are absent. 

America has a law known as the Levinson Act which sets criteria for defining who 

is arbitrarily detained and a hostage. Those thus defined are supposed to go onto 

the list of cases handed to the office of the Special Envoy on Hostage Affairs 

(SPEHA). Only three from China have made it onto the list. However, all American 

prisoners meet the criteria by dint of not having received a fair and transparent 

trial in front of an independent court. This needs to change. All Americans held in 

China are arbitrarily detained persons by this classification alone, not to mention 

the other criteria listed in the Levinson Act. 

Nelson Wells, Jr.—the judicial documents show a lack of material, forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. His self-defense arguments were ignored and 

he was never allowed to tell his story in full in court. Mr. Wells is over 50 and critically ill after over 10 years of a life term in prison. He would receive medical parole 

if he were not a foreigner. He qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America under Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the Chinese side. 

David McMahon—the judicial documents show a lack of material, forensic evidence and a lack of proper defense. The only witness was a 6-year-old girl who was 

clearly primed and manipulated by her mother and the prosecution to utter sheer 

fabrications and fantasies. He has served 11 years from an uncommuted 12-year 

sentence. He has never admitted any guilt—because he is innocent. When he returns to America in May 2025 he plans to sue parties who have harmed him. 

Dawn Michelle Hunt—the judicial documents show a lack of material, forensic 

evidence and a lack of proper defense. She initially received a death sentence, now 

commuted to life. She is over 50 and critically ill in prison and qualifies for a prisoner transfer to America under Chinese law. The USG has not explored this opportunity with the Chinese side. In addition, she would receive medical parole if she 

were not a foreigner. Throughout her captivity Chinese authorities have obstructed 

her communication with the outside world and prevented her from telling her story 

until the family managed to get it into the New York Times on 11 Sept 2024. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/world/asia/china-us-woman-imprisoned.html. 

Mark Swidan—the judicial documents show a lack of material, forensic evidence 

tying Mark Swidan directly to the crimes ascribed to him and a lack of proper defense. They show he was an innocent bystander who had somehow fallen socially 

into bad company without knowing the people. His fault was being in the wrong 

place at the wrong time with bad people, while his only reason for being in China 

was to explore the flooring products sector. For this he was sentenced to death now 

commuted to life. His story has been well told very loudly by his brave and vociferous mother Katherine, who is elderly and ailing and fears that she will never see 

her son again. Mark is critically ill, as witnessed by his own ambassador (Nicholas 

Burns) and would receive medical parole if he were not a foreigner. He should qualify for a prisoner transfer to America under Chinese law. The USG has not explored 

this opportunity with the Chinese side. 

Kai Li—I have had no sight of his judicial documents proving the charge of espionage against him. I understand that these have been sealed by the Chinese authorities on grounds that it is an espionage case. This is a very convenient way for an 

enemy with powerful connections in the Shanghai establishment to cover up a delib-
52 

erate act of false imprisonment perpetrated by a business rival. (My own judicial 

records are now also sealed.) Sources have pointed to a private business dispute 

being illegally criminalized against Mr. Li. I have seen other instances of this in 

Shanghai involving citizens of foreign countries. Other prisoners released from 

Qingpu say Mr. Li has ailments common to his age (62) but that he is coping reasonably well, working in the mini library of the foreigners cell block, with 2 years 

of a 10-year sentence still to serve. 

CHINESE LAW ON PRISONER TRANSFERS

A Chinese law promulgated in 2018 commonly known as the PRC Law on International Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters contains a Chapter 8 that sets out 

a pathway and mechanism for a foreign prisoner to be transferred to a facility in 

their home country. Separately, a bilateral agreement known as a Prisoner Transfer 

Agreement (PTA) exists between China and many countries but not with the United 

States. The 2018 PRC law puts the onus on the United States to open a discussion 

with China’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs on any individual 

case. It does not require the pre-existence of a bilateral PTA. 

To the best of my knowledge the USG has never explored this mechanism with 

China on any individual case. I have even been told it is impossible because ‘‘we 

don’t have a prisoner transfer treaty with China.’’ But that is not the way the Chinese law reads. And it is not the way relevant NGO leaders and American lawyers 

in the U.S. and China see it. 

I also noticed on my last reading of the U.S. State Department’s guidance notes 

to its officers on the topic of American prisoners abroad that it does not even seem 

to be aware of this Chinese law. This has been a wasted opportunity to assist unjustly held American prisoners in China, none of whom have had a fair and transparent trial. 

FINAL COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• In their aggregate, the harsh conditions in China’s pre-trial detention facilities 

and prisons are tantamount to torture per international treaties and conventions. 

• China’s judicial and prison system violates international norms and treaties 

such as the U.N. conventions on torture and on minimum standards for the 

treatment of prisoners. 

• The Chinese prison system is a political system of oppression and slavery, not 

a justice system. 

• The Chinese system is not the rule of law and should not be viewed by America 

as though it is. In America we all know what the rule of law is. 

• Forced labor products from China’s prison system are entering our economies, 

including America’s. We must legislate stronger laws to prevent this and we 

must enforce the legislation. 

• Prisoners held in China for alleged common crimes (including Americans) are 

just as much victims of human rights abuse as China’s own political and religious prisoners. The scale of this abuse is immense. In a system where every 

prosecution is political, all American prisoners are de facto political prisoners. 

America needs to recognize this and to act and legislate accordingly. 

• Not a single prosecution case in China would survive the scrutiny of a court 

in America, the UK, or any other country under the rule of law. This postulation is very simple to put to the test in a simulated courtroom or even on a 

college campus. 

• Countries which uphold the genuine rule of law, such as America, should abandon their practice of non-intervention in Chinese judicial cases involving U.S. 

citizens. 

• In every case of a U.S. citizen being detained in China, the U.S. Government 

should challenge the processes and practices and the lack of transparency. 

America should intervene robustly both legally and politically in the cases of 

its citizens in China. This requirement should be contained in legislation. 

• America owes this duty of care to its passport holders. This must not be only 

the privilege of one or two selected prisoners on the SPEHA hostage list. It 

must be the government’s response to all such cases, regardless of skin color, 

class background, or the nature of the alleged crime. 

• Congress should bring pressure on the USG to fully test the 2018 Chinese law 

on foreign prisoner transfers outside and beyond any bilateral treaty. 
53 

• America must impose mandatory due diligence requirements on all its firms to 

make them drill down their supply chains to ensure that there is no prison 

labor or other unsocial labor or illegal practices in the chain. Where China 

erects barriers to adequate due diligence, American firms must be legally required to abandon said business projects. 

• Legislators and government should internationalize the issue of prison abuse 

and arbitrary and wrongful detention in China as a systemic concern. It is no 

less a human rights issue than political and religious persecution, and the scale 

is enormous. 

• America should actively consider negotiated swaps for prisoners held for alleged 

‘‘common crimes,’’ or even a mass swap, exchanging Chinese prisoners held in 

American jails for American prisoners held in China. Past experience (in China 

and Russia and elsewhere) shows this is a possible avenue. 

[Recommended media docs for reference—internet links appear on the next page.] 
54 
55 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATHERINE SWIDAN

Mr. Chairperson, distinguished members of the Commission, thank you for allowing me to share some thoughts with you today. My name is Katherine Swidan from 

Luling, Texas, and I am the mother of Mark Swidan, an American citizen who has 

been unjustly detained in China for 12 long years. 

Mark is not just a statistic; he is a son, a brother, and a friend whose absence 

has left a gaping hole in our hearts and family. We are grateful for the congressional resolutions passed by the House and Senate last year. I thought he would 

be home by now, but 12 years into this, I am concerned that I will never see him 

again. 

I wish I could be with you today, but my health is failing, and I need to remain 

strong and heal for the day Mark finally comes home. Over a decade has passed 

since Mark was taken from us, and every day without him is a day too long. Despite 

overwhelming evidence of his innocence and the arbitrary nature of his detention, 

Mark continues to languish in a foreign prison, deprived of his freedom, his health 

deteriorating, and his hope fading. I do not want my son to become another Otto 

Warmbier or James Foley. 

I understand that diplomacy is complex and that negotiations with foreign governments can be delicate. However, the Chinese government has expressed a willingness to resolve my son’s case, presenting proposals that, regrettably, have been met 

with reluctance or outright rejection by the Biden-Harris administration. Time is 

not a luxury that Mark or our family can afford. Every moment lost is a moment 

Mark is denied justice, a moment our family cannot regain. 

Despite all the talk about human rights abroad and the U.S. taxpayer funding annual reports on human rights abuses around the world, there are no such reports 

about Americans like Mark unjustly detained overseas. We rightly highlight the suffering of the people of Tibet, the Uyghurs, and repressed Christians in China, but 

what about the rights of Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned? Who speaks for 

them? 

Who ensures that the human rights of our citizens are not overlooked or forgotten 

while we champion those of others? The U.S. Government must remember that its 

first duty is to its own people, to defend their rights and bring them home. Do you 

realize that every time we issue reports condemning human rights in China, that 

is used against Americans and others who help or love our country? I support defending human rights, but we must focus on our people first. The Chinese may get 

upset about your reports, but they ignore these reports, but not when they talk 

about abuse of our people, such as Mark. Why is that? 

While I am distraught with China for what they have done, I am even more upset 

with my own government. How many more Presidents must take office before action 

is taken? President Obama, President Trump, President Biden—none has brought 

Mark home. Why is that? Why do the well connected seem to have their cases resolved more quickly while families like mine are forgotten? 

Mark is innocent. Even the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD) has issued a report declaring his detention arbitrary and in violation of international law. The UN WGAD found no evidence to justify the charges 

against him and called for his immediate release. 

Despite this, Mark remains imprisoned, his rights trampled upon daily, subjected 

to what this Commission knows is ‘‘white torture’’ and his innocence disregarded. 

How long must we wait while the world acknowledges what we already know: that 

Mark should be free and back home with his family? His case is a clear injustice, 

yet it continues to be ignored by those with the power to act. We need our leaders 

with moral and political courage to do right and use our power to bring Mark home. 

I am here today not only as a grieving mother but as a voice for every American 

family with loved ones wrongfully detained abroad. I plead for your help. I urge the 

Biden-Harris administration to reconsider its stance and to engage earnestly with 

the Chinese government’s proposals. Our loved ones are not bargaining chips or political pawns; they are human beings whose rights and freedoms must be upheld 

and protected. 

As leaders of this great nation, I implore you not to let diplomatic complexities 

stand in the way of human decency and justice. I am pleading for my son’s life, his 

freedom, and the chance to bring him home. Let us show the world that the United 

States of America does not abandon its citizens and that we will fight for their 

rights and their return, no matter the challenges. 

A few months ago, Bishop Strickland from Texas visited me. We talked and 

prayed for Mark, a devout Catholic who, even in captivity, has stood up for fellow 

prisoners when they were abused by Chinese guards. Mark’s Bible has been con-
56 

fiscated and his rosary destroyed, but as I shared with Bishop Strickland, he has 

not lost his faith in God, family, or country. 

I also want to thank Mel Gibson, who did a video for Mark and a Mass, and many 

Members of Congress from Texas, such as Representative Cloud and Senator Ted 

Cruz, for not forgetting Mark and his plight. Of course I thank the Commission, 

Chairman Chris Smith, and Senator Jeff Merkley and the staff for helping raise 

awareness about Mark’s plight and that of other Americans. 

In closing, I ask for your immediate action and commitment to engage in meaningful dialogue and negotiations for Mark’s release. Our family is counting on you, 

as is Mark. Please help bring my son home. 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH

We open today’s hearing knowing that Pastor David Lin is back in the United 

States after nearly two decades unjustly detained. Pastor Lin’s crime was that he 

worked to strengthen the Protestant Chinese ‘‘house church’’ movement. For this, 

he received a life sentence. 

We are overjoyed for the Lin family. This Commission has pressed the past two 

administrations to prioritize David Lin’s case. We acknowledge the efforts of the 

Biden Administration to gain Pastor Lin’s release and are hopeful that his release 

creates space for more releases, like of the family members of our witnesses today. 

Despite the release of David Lin, there are more Americans detained in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) than anywhere else in the world. Wrongfully detained 

U.S. nationals are serving long prison sentences—an average of 8 years. The families of Mark Swidan, Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt know these 

hard facts all too well. They have all languished far too long in Chinese prisons. 

The Foley Foundation identifies 11 wrongfully detained Americans in China, including those subject to ‘‘exit bans.’’ John Kamm, the preeminent expert on political 

prisoners in China, estimates that there are 200 or more American citizens ‘‘coercively detained,’’ with 30 Americans being held in China under exit bans—where 

U.S. citizens are stopped from leaving China to settle economic disputes or to coerce 

their relatives to return to China to face alleged crimes. 

This is unacceptable. If the Chinese government wants to improve relations with 

the United States, they should release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned 

without condition and unilaterally end the use of exit bans, a form of de facto hostage-taking that violates article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty that the People’s Republic of China has signed—though not yet 

ratified. 

But I’ll go further than that. The release of American citizens should be the first 

thing President Biden says to Communist Party leader Xi Jinping whenever they 

talk. Their names should be said so often that Xi Jinping memorizes them. Their 

cases should be agenda item #1 at every meeting the Secretary of State has with 

Chinese officials. 

And every U.S. official traveling to China should be repeatedly saying the names 

of Kai Li, Mark Swidan, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Michelle Hunt. Every channel 

of the U.S. Government must be focused on the release of wrongfully detained 

Americans. It’s that simple. 

All Americans detained in China deserve robust diplomatic assistance to gain 

their transfer out of prison or at the very least, to have more frequent U.S. consular 

officials visit, more frequent and longer visits with their families, and better access 

to legal representation and health care. Given the legal system in China, and the 

poor prison conditions—more Americans should be considered to be unjustly detained by the State Department. 

How many Americans currently in Chinese prisons received a transparent trial, 

with a genuine legal defense, in an impartial Chinese court? In China’s rule-by-law 

system, where the Party can dictate sentences of guilt or innocence—none. 

How many detained Americans face serious health challenges because of the poor 

conditions in PRC prisons— 

• where Chinese and foreigners alike are forced to work long hours? 

• where they are often tortured or mistreated by guards and other prisoners? 

• where they suffer from insufficient medical care and nutrition? 

Your testimony about what you and your families endured while jailed should be 

submitted as evidence of torture to the Committee Against Torture for the upcoming 

review of China. I will instruct our staff to work with you to submit your testimonies to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. 

Mission in Geneva. 
57 

But that is just a start. Given the number of Americans detained and the Chinese 

Communist Party’s willingness to engage in hostage diplomacy, there should be 

more creative diplomatic approaches to counter the threat. To that end, I will introduce a bill with Rep. Tom Suozzi that will, among other measures, 

• Direct the State Department to create a strategy for gaining the release of your 

family members; • Gain insight into the diplomatic tools the State Department is using for your 

family members, including the use of designations and sanctions authorized in 

Executive Order 14078 ‘‘Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully 

Detained United States Nationals Home.’’ • Seek more transparent information from the State Department about the cases 

of your loved ones, including gaining access to the resources Congress allocated 

to assist families with the financial burden of advocacy. 

I know this is a tough and emotional day for our witnesses. No amount of words 

or sympathy from us can replace your missing loved ones. I hope you know that our 

purpose here today is to listen to your stories and to learn about your loved ones 

and their ordeal. 

You must all know that we are here today because we are committed to bringing 

your loved ones home. As a Commission, we will continue to press the U.S. Government to do more for your loved ones. For my part, I promise to remain a tenacious 

advocate for their release. They have suffered too long. They will not be forgotten. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY

Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, for convening this hearing, and much appreciation to each of you for coming to share your stories. 

For more than two decades, Members of Congress and executive branch officials 

on this Commission have sought to shine a light on the prisoners of conscience who 

have been unjustly jailed by Chinese authorities for seeking to exercise their basic 

human rights. 

Our Commission maintains a Political Prisoner Database that currently has 2,764 

nationals of the People’s Republic of China known or believed to be detained, and 

as the Chairman pointed out, the Foley Foundation has a list of about a dozen 

American individuals wrongfully detained in China. But human rights organizations’ estimates go up to about 200. We don’t know the exact number. What we 

know is this: Even one American detained as a political prisoner in China is one 

too many. 

If an American breaks the law in China, that individual can be prosecuted just 

as a Chinese national would be here in the United States. But here is the problem. 

Many laws of the PRC are not consistent with human rights standards. Due process 

is routinely denied. And the rule of law is undermined by political considerations. 

Our U.S. Government has been developing some tools to counter this. 

In 2015, President Obama issued directives to implement an interagency response 

to overseas hostage-taking, including creation of a Special Presidential Envoy for 

Hostage Affairs at the State Department. In 2020, President Trump signed into law 

the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. In 

2022, President Biden issued an Executive Order to authorize sanctions against foreign government officials and others who are complicit in hostage-taking. 

With these tools and under President Biden’s leadership we have seen a 42 percent decrease in the number of detained Americans overseas since a peak in 2002, 

according to the Foley Foundation. Among these was the recent high-profile return 

from Russia of Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and others. 

But not every American in detention overseas gets a spotlight. Today, we are putting a spotlight on three individuals: We will hear from the family members of three 

Americans—Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt—who have been unjustly detained in China for eight or more years. 

We want to hear their story from their family members today. Because in hearing 

your story we’re then able to tell the story. We can tell the story to the Administration and to the media. Most important, we can carry that message to, and work toward their release with, the government of the People’s Republic of China. 

Our Americans in detention suffer from illness and mental anguish. We want to 

make sure they get proper care and counsel. But most of all, we want them united 

with their families. 

We are joyful that David Lin has been released and is now reunited with his family. What a celebration that is. But we want a celebration for each of your families. 

Reportedly, China wrongly holds more Americans than any other country. We want 

to know why the Chinese government refuses to allow them to come home. 
58 

Our U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, has met with three Americans 

wrongfully detained. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised their cases directly 

with President Xi. But despite these efforts, despite the tools we have and the representations made, the Chinese government continues to turn a blind eye to the suffering and the heartbreak. 

So today we not only hear your stories. Your stories represent the stories of so 

many American families of those detained, and they help shed light on the details 

of the circumstances and help us ponder what more we can do, as Chairman Smith 

has suggested. 

We look forward to hearing from you. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. MCGOVERN

My thanks to Chairman Smith and Co-Chairman Merkley for convening today’s 

hearing on the People’s Republic of China’s detention of American nationals. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend in person, and so I submit my remarks for the 

record. 

According to the Foley Foundation, there are 11 U.S. nationals wrongfully detained in China. Others believe there could be as many as 200. Wrongful detention 

is a human rights violation. Even one wrongful detention is too many. 

The Biden Administration has demonstrated a clear commitment to obtaining the 

release of wrongfully detained Americans around the world, with some notable successes. In March 2023, the Administration brought Paul Rusesabagina home from 

Rwanda. In April 2023, Russia released Brittney Griner. In September 2023, five 

Americans jailed for years by Iran were finally freed. In December 2023, 10 Americans held by Venezuela came home. 

And just a few weeks ago, the Administration achieved the release of 16 individuals, including 3 U.S. citizens and 1 green-card holder, who were unjustly detained 

in Russia. It was wonderful to welcome home Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu 

Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and Paul Whelan, and to see them reunited with 

their families. This is what we want for every wrongfully detained American. 

The Administration is making good use of available tools, including those authorized in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability 

Act, and President Biden’s 2022 Executive Order intended to bolster efforts to bring 

wrongfully detained nationals home. Roger Carstens, Special Presidential Envoy for 

Hostage Affairs, has led the delicate diplomacy, often with staunch adversaries of 

the United States, that has made releases possible. But there are still many U.S. 

nationals wrongfully detained around the world, held on dubious charges, and denied due process—like the cases the Commission will hear about today. My heart 

goes out to the families of Kai Li, Nelson Wells, Jr., and Dawn Hunt, all unjustly 

detained in China for eight or more years. 

Today is the opportunity to hear their stories, and their ideas for what more the 

U.S. Government should be doing to free their loved ones. I understand that U.S. 

officials have raised the cases with the Chinese authorities. We also know that, so 

far, the Chinese government has failed to respond. 

I hope this hearing serves to identify additional approaches that could help bring 

these Americans home. Thank you. 
59 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

SUBMISSION OF JASON IAN POBLETE, 

PRESIDENT, GLOBAL LIBERTY ALLIANCE

Chairman and Members of the Commission, I want to thank you again for the 

opportunity to address this critical issue, not just as a lawyer and advocate but as 

someone who has witnessed firsthand the devastation that these unjust detentions 

bring to American families. 

Today, my brief remarks are focused primarily on discussing the case of Mr. Mark 

Swidan, a U.S. citizen who has been unjustly detained in China for close to 12 

years. Mark’s case is an alarming example of a broader and more disturbing pattern 

of American citizens being caught in the web of China’s deeply flawed and inhumane legal system. 

You heard from Mark’s mother, Ms. Katherine Swidan, through a prepared video 

statement recorded at her home in Luling, Texas. Her health challenges, sadly compounded by the strain of her son’s prolonged detention, prevent her from being here 

in person. She carries her physical burdens and the emotional weight of this injustice that has continued for many years. For the Swidan family, every day Mark remains in detention is another day of unimaginable anguish. 

I became involved with Mark’s case just two years ago, and frankly, I was 

shocked—not only by the details of Mark’s unjust detention—recognized by the U.N. 

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention—but by how little had been done for him 

up until that point. 

Even though Mark is an American citizen who is held under conditions that violate basic international human rights standards, his case has received little attention. There was minimal public awareness, and the focus was scattered and inadequate within government circles. 

What I quickly realized, though, was that Mark’s case is not isolated. It is just 

the tip of the iceberg. As I dug deeper into Mark’s situation, I was stunned to learn 

that many other Americans are suffering similar fates in China—imprisoned under 

dubious circumstances, subjected to an unfair legal process, and cut off from the 

protection they should be entitled to as American citizens. This problem extends far 

beyond what is typically covered in human rights reports prepared by the State Department. 

Mark and Katherine are grateful that Congress has passed two resolutions on this 

matter, one in the House and another in the Senate, and of course, this hearing. 

They appreciate the work done by many in the executive branch and civil society 

to help in this case. Yet Mark’s case and others like it should never last a decade 

or more. It is unconscionable that Americans are locked up in Communist China for 

this long. That is a national failure, and we can and must do better. 

For years, I have read countless human rights reports funded by U.S. taxpayers 

and U.S. assistance to NGOs that do essential work on human rights issues in 

China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and many other nations. The Global Liberty Alliance has also done that work and continues to do so. However, these reports 

overwhelmingly focus on the human rights abuse of foreign nationals in faraway 

lands, not the plight of Americans and other U.S. nationals unjustly detained in 

these nations. 

While advocating for human rights in China is essential, our first responsibility 

must be protecting our citizens. If we fail to prioritize the safety and freedom of 

Americans and U.S. legal permanent residents, it becomes much harder to secure 

their release and undermines our credibility as a global advocate for human rights. 

We cannot effectively tell others how to address their injustices when we neglect to 

care for our people. 

Chinese diplomats see this perceived lack of focus on our nationals as a weakness, 

and they exploit it, knowing we are distracted by broader issues. Protecting our people first strengthens our position to hold others accountable for their actions and 

influence fundamental and individual rights globally. 

American citizens like Mr. Swidan should be at the forefront of our human rights 

and foreign policy agenda. Too often, we see the rights of U.S. citizens sidelined in 

discussions about broader geopolitical or humanitarian issues. This must change. 

The U.S. Government, including the State Department, needs to refocus its priorities to ensure that Americans wrongfully detained abroad, especially by hostile regimes like China, receive the highest level of attention and advocacy. 

China’s legal system is not comparable to our own. It lacks transparency, due 

process, and the rule of law. These are basic principles that the United States upholds, and we must hold China accountable for its failure to do the same. When 
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American citizens are detained in China, they are subjected to a system that we, 

by our own assessments, have deemed abusive and unjust. 

Therefore, every American detained in China, regardless of the alleged crimes, 

must be treated as unjustly detained under U.S. law. We cannot afford to accept 

Chinese court rulings at face value, especially when we know their legal process is 

fundamentally broken. 

One of the most troubling aspects of this issue is the tendency to equate the plight 

of Chinese nationals imprisoned in the U.S. with Americans detained in China. Let 

me be clear—these are not the same. The U.S. legal system, while not perfect, is 

governed by the rule of law, fairness, and transparency. China’s system is arbitrary, 

politically motivated, and often used as a tool of state control. We must stop treating 

these two situations as morally or legally equivalent. Americans detained in China 

deserve better, and we must advocate for them with that understanding firmly in 

mind. 

Additionally, it is time for a more aggressive approach to holding Chinese officials 

accountable for these unjust detentions. We must impose real consequences on those 

responsible, including sanctions and visa bans for Chinese diplomats and officials 

involved in these cases. But sanctions and visa bans are tools, not a policy. We must 

redouble efforts to make clear what it means to ‘‘bring Americans and other U.S. 

nationals home.’’ It must be more than slogans, or a routine oversight and reporting 

issue. 

We must also reconsider the privileges regime officials and their families enjoy 

in the United States. Far too often, we see the family members of these same officials vacationing in the U.S., conducting business here, or even accessing our 

healthcare system. This is unacceptable. 

Access to the United States should be considered a privilege, not a right, and 

those who are complicit in the unjust detentions of Americans should not be allowed 

to enjoy the benefits of our country while denying fundamental rights to our citizens. Reciprocity is earned, not freely given. 

The U.S. Government must protect its people, both at home and abroad. This 

means enforcing and perhaps improving current law, and not throwing more money 

at the challenge. Some political and moral courage can do wonders. 

While we continue to champion human rights in China and elsewhere, we must 

maintain sight of the fact that our citizens are suffering under regimes that do not 

respect the rule of law. The time for half-measures and cautious diplomacy is over. 

We must take decisive action to bring Mark Swidan and other Americans home. 

In conclusion, Mark’s case exemplifies a much larger problem and, perhaps, a crisis. I say probably since we do not have complete information about the scope of 

the problem. Yet there is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. Government must commit itself fully to protecting its citizens abroad. This has yet to happen in Mark’s 

case and many other cases like it in China, Venezuela, Cuba, and other nations. 

We need more transparency about how many Americans are currently detained 

in China, and we must ensure that all of them are treated as unjustly detained 

under U.S. law because there is no rule of law in Communist China. This demands 

a shift in priorities at the State Department and across the government, placing the 

safety and freedom of American citizens above all else. Our ambassadors and diplomats are on the front lines as America’s strongest advocates in these cases. Are 

they receiving the training and resources they need? What can we improve to support their efforts better? 

While the SPEHA office or process is a topic for another hearing, the success or 

failure of these cases ultimately hinges on political will and moral courage from the 

highest levels of leadership—the President and Congress. Their commitment is what 

truly makes a difference, as does listening to people who have worked on these cases 

a long time, including experts in the private sector. Simply growing the government 

or throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. Solutions come from effective leadership, not expanding bureaucracy. If the President prioritizes it, good 

things will happen sooner rather than a decade or more later. 

We also need real accountability for the Chinese government, which means imposing sanctions, visa bans, and other measures on those responsible for these injustices. Until we stand firm and demand justice for Americans detained in China, we 

will continue to see our people used as pawns in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical game. 

Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. I look forward to working 

with the Committee to bring about meaningful change. 
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SUBMISSION OF BENEDICT ROGERS, 

CO-FOUNDER AND TRUSTEE, HONG KONG WATCH

Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley, 

I am a writer and human rights activist specializing in Asia, particularly China 

and Hong Kong as well as Burma/Myanmar and North Korea. I am a co-founder 

and trustee of Hong Kong Watch, an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on 

China (IPAC) and the Stop Uyghur Genocide Campaign, co-founder and Deputy 

Chair of the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and author of many 

articles and reports on the human rights situation in China, and of a book, ‘‘The 

China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny,’’ published in 2022. 

I warmly welcome the hearing you are holding on unjustly detained Americans 

in China and thank you for doing so. In June 2023, the UK Conservative Party 

Human Rights Commission held a hearing which I helped to organize in the British 

Parliament, chaired by Tim Loughton MP, Chair of the Commission at the time, focused on foreign prisoners detained in China and the abuse, forced labor and denial 

of human rights which they face. The hearing drew on testimony from Mr. Peter 

Humphrey, a British citizen detained in prison in the People’s Republic of China 

(PRC) from 2013–2015, and Mr. Marius Balo, a Romanian citizen imprisoned in the 

PRC from 2014–2022. 

Rather than repeat or quote from the report published by the Conservative Party 

Human Rights Commission in July 2023, following the Commission’s hearing, I 

would prefer to attach the report in full—available also on our website here: 

https://conservativepartyhumanrightscommission.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ 

CPHRC-Foreign-Prisoners-in-China-briefingFINAL.pdf. 

The report details the complete lack of justice in the PRC’s legal, judicial, and 

prison system, the complete absence of judicial independence or fair trial, the lack 

of fair or proper police investigations into alleged crimes, and the widespread use 

of prison labor, including by foreign prisoners, in the production lines of major international corporations. I hope that the Congressional-Executive Commission on 

China (CECC) will study this report carefully as part of the hearing and inquiry 

being held, and that the full report by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission may be entered into the Congressional Record. 

In conclusion, I respectively urge the U.S. Congress and the CECC to call on the 

government of the United States of America to do more to seek the release of prisoners incarcerated in China who have not undergone fair and transparent trials, 

and especially to intervene more robustly to protect the human rights of U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals detained in the PRC. In particular, I highlight the 

cases of three American citizens, David Lin, Kai Li and Mark Swidan serving long 

sentences in China. 

The PRC’s use of arbitrary detention is widespread and systematic, and much 

more needs to be done to call it out. I wholeheartedly support calls for the use of 

Magnitsky sanctions against those involved in arbitrarily detaining prisoners, including foreign nationals, and against those within the PRC system involved in torture, mistreatment or other cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners and in the 

use of forced labor. 

I thank you, Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley, for your focus on this 

urgent and critical topic. 
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SUBMISSION OF CEDRIC WITEK

Dear Mr. Chairman, dear members of this Commission, 

I make this statement at the suggestion of Peter Humphrey, a friend and former 

colleague also testifying to this Commission. I am a French national and a corporate-crime investigator of 25 years’ standing with a long experience of Asia and 

especially China, where I lived and worked for many years investigating all manner 

of wrongdoing including fraud, corruption and human-rights abuses both on behalf 

of private clients and pro bono. I am fluent in the Chinese language. 

I write this in my capacity of having helped Peter advocate for David McMahon, 

an American citizen imprisoned in China. Peter first contacted me about this in the 

fall of 2016, when he first told me of McMahon and his conviction in Shanghai three 

years previously for the alleged sexual abuse of children at the French School of 

Shanghai. 

At the time, Peter asked me as a personal favor to review materials relating to 

McMahon’s conviction in Shanghai and provide analysis and input on any potential 

actions that might help raise awareness of what Peter believed was McMahon’s 

wrongful imprisonment. Repulsed by the routine Chinese-regime practice of imprisoning the innocent, I agreed to do this. 

In doing so I came to believe—as Peter himself did—that McMahon was innocent 

of the charges levied against him, which seemed to me poorly supported by questionable allegations and evidence gathered in a sloppy and partial manner. My belief in McMahon’s innocence has only been strengthened by his behavior ever since: 

despite spending over a decade in the hell of the Chinese prison system, he has always refused to make a confession even though it is the surest way to leniency and 

even release. 

But I also became convinced that McMahon was denied due process at every 

stage, and perhaps even deliberately framed by parents who were utterly convinced 

of his guilt, acting in collaboration with French government authorities. The materials I reviewed suggested deliberate collusion between the families accusing McMahon of sexual abuse in making sure he was convicted, for example, to the extent 

of arranging a so-called ‘‘secret meeting’’ to plot a legal offensive against McMahon 

and even contacting the FBI. 

What also struck me was the sheer amount of effort that seemed to have been 

put in by the French consular authorities in Shanghai to help convict David McMahon. Not only did the French Consul-General in Shanghai get involved, but so did 

the Ambassador as well as the Agency for French Schooling Abroad (‘‘AEFE’’), a 

French government organ under supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I understood from the materials given to me that French consular officials 

went as far as to threaten staff at the French School of Shanghai, including its principal, into withdrawing their support for McMahon and withholding statements that 

might have exonerated him. 

This seemed to me unusual as well as highly improper. The consular authorities 

of a third country have of course no business actively prejudging the merits of a 

criminal case on Chinese soil, much less threatening witnesses or otherwise tampering with the investigation and influencing the outcome of the case. 

What I believe really happened based on the materials at my disposal at the time 

is that the parents of the allegedly abused children, already deeply traumatized by 

their children’s prior abuse at the hands of convicted sex offender Hector Orjuela 

at the same school the previous year and acting under the mistaken belief that 

McMahon was a friend of his, overreacted to their children’s routine manifestations 

of affection to McMahon, a common reaction in parents of victims of sexual abuse. 

The parents then likely raised the matter with the school in terms brooking no opposition, and probably even threatened to go public. 

The French School of Shanghai, like most French international schools, was affiliated to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received partial funding from the 

French government. The reputation of French schools abroad is generally seen to 

be tied to that of the French state itself. It is clear that a second child abuse scandal 

at the school in less than a year would not have served French interests as the Consulate understood them. 

So I believe the French Consulate may have set out deliberately to build a case 

against McMahon and then delivered an entirely prejudged and prejudiced case to 

the Chinese government, which would have been only too eager to take receipt of 

a pre-packaged foreign scapegoat and be seen as a resolute enforcer of justice. 

Needless to say, the Chinese regime’s actual record in enforcing justice is wholly 

laughable. The overriding objective of the prosecution process in China is to vindicate its judiciary, which is controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party and 

operates entirely at the discretion of the executive. Nearly a hundred percent of the 
73 

cases end in conviction and criminal lawyers are largely there for window-dressing, 

deliberately denied access to the materials necessary to mount a proper defense. No 

conviction in China is sound. 

I believe that McMahon’s accusers, some animated by a sincere belief in his guilt 

and others by a simple urge to head off a looming scandal, took full advantage of 

this fact. If that is indeed what happened, then I am deeply ashamed that the authorities of my country colluded in this dishonorable outcome. France was birthed 

in the struggle against despotism and then gave the world the first declaration of 

human rights. True French values—my values—prize the life of an innocent man 

above the reputation of an institution, let alone some warped conception of national 

prestige that would involve sandbagging the powerless in cahoots with a heinous 

dictatorship which still today harvests the organs of political prisoners and sells 

them to the highest bidder. 

In conclusion, I am making this statement so that it might help a man, and others like him, who was denied the most basic due process and then left to rot in a 

prison manned by one of the world’s worst autocracies. Yet it is only fair to recognize that for many years now and despite the always praiseworthy efforts of certain 

virtuous individuals, the record of Western governments as a whole in standing up 

for the rights of their citizens wrongfully imprisoned by dictatorial regimes has been 

poor. Beset by what the retired Australian general Mick Ryan recently called ‘‘strategic timidity,’’ a polite term for cowardice, Western governments in the past generation have preferred to avoid awkwardness in their relations with outright tyrannies. 

In rolling over for those despotic regimes in the past and taking their spurious 

convictions of our citizens at face value by default, I believe we in the democratic 

West have weakened ourselves and emulated the dictatorships. The most essential 

role of the state is to protect its citizens, and the most fundamental mark of a democracy is that it honors the inherent dignity of the individual. Unlike the tyrants 

of Russia and China who see their own people as nothing more than faceless kindling to be heaped on the bonfire of their twisted ambitions, democracies recognize 

that the individual is endowed with unique and unquantifiable worth. We recognize 

that the rights of the individual, even and indeed especially when naked against the 

lofty designs of the mighty and the hulking machinery of the state, are paramount. 

Yet as things stand, unless a Western victim of the Chinese regime happens to 

be famous or connected, they stand little chance of their government rallying forcefully behind them. They too become faceless kindling. And it then befalls their distraught friends and relatives—ordinary people with ordinary lives and means, some 

of them ill, elderly or barely adults—to fight long, grim and lonely campaigns only 

to face the cold, slippery marble of their own government, at times so remote and 

Olympian that it can feel little different from the heartless mandarinate of Communist China. Meanwhile the months and years pass. And the victims and their 

loved ones can hardly be blamed for emerging from the ordeal as embittered about 

their own country as they are about the thuggish regime that mauled them in the 

first place. Being wantonly attacked is bad enough. Being left to bleed by the roadside is a moral injury. 

I write this in humble hope for change. Many thanks to all of you for reading my 

statement and for choosing to work for this change. 
74 

1Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-governmental assessment of 

U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. 

James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostagereport/. 2 Hostage diplomacy is defined as the use of a country’s criminal justice system to hold foreigners hostage. Gilbert, D. (2023, September 22). Biden’s hostage diplomacy, explained. Center 

for Strategic & International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/bidens-hostagediplomacy-explained. 3Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-governmental assessment of 

U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. 

James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostagereport/. 4 Based on a database maintained by the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. 

5Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-governmental assessment of 

U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. 

James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostagereport/. 6The Foley Foundation includes three individuals placed on exit bans in our count. 

7State Department. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory. https://travel.state.gov/content/ 

travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html. 8Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-governmental assessment of 

U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. 

James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostagereport/. 

SUBMISSION OF THE FOLEY FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

China is currently holding the most wrongfully detained Americans of any other 

country.1 A substantial portion of this number is driven by China’s use of exit bans. 

The length of detention is concerning, as the Americans wrongfully detained in 

China today have been held for, on average, more than 8 years. Other western countries have also struggled in recent years to address China’s use of hostage diplomacy.2 The United States has traditionally relied on diplomatic engagement to secure the release of Americans from China.3 Given the number of Americans detained in China, the length of prison sentences, and China’s apparent willingness 

to engage in hostage diplomacy, more creative and coordinated international approaches are needed to better counter this threat. 

THE NUMBER OF WRONGFULLY DETAINED AMERICANS

The number of known Americans wrongfully detained in China has climbed over 

the last 10 years. In 2014, six Americans were wrongfully detained by China.4 That 

number grew to eight Americans in 2016, reaching a peak in 2019, with 20 Americans assessed as wrongfully detained by the Foley Foundation. Since 2022, we have 

not seen new cases of Americans being wrongfully detained by China; however, until 

this past weekend, releases have also stagnated.5

The U.S. Department of State classifies Americans as wrongfully detained in 

China: Mark Swidan (detained since November 2012) and Kai Li (detained since 

September 2016). Pastor David Lin, held 18 years, was recently released on Sept. 

15 of this year. The Foley Foundation assesses that an additional nine Americans 

meet the wrongful detention criteria as specified in the Robert Levinson Hostage 

Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act based on the publicly available information.6 This number still likely underestimates the extent of Americans wrongfully detained in China, as the Foley Foundation monitors several other cases that 

might, with additional evidence, meet the criteria for wrongful detention. Further 

complicating the problem is China’s refusal to recognize dual-national citizens. The 

State Department warns that dual nationals may have their access to consular services denied by China, limiting the assistance the U.S. Government is able to provide.7 The problem of accurately reporting the number of Americans detained in 

China is exacerbated by underreporting, pressure on families to not come forward 

because of retaliation concerns, and China’s use of exit bans.8
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9Department of State. (2024, April 12). China travel advisory. https://travel.state.gov/content/ 

travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html. 10Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). ‘No remedy, no rights’: China blocks foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679. 11Smith, A., & Austin, H. (2023, July 27). China’s use of exit bans leaves Americans at the 

risk of being arbitrarily detained. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-exitbans-detentions-travelers-businesses-xi-jinping-covid-rcna95264. 12Kinetz, E. (2020, May 5). ‘No remedy, no rights’: China blocks foreigners from leaving. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/shanghai-suburbs-international-law-only-on-ap-china5d59ce2a8442d6511cb9e7d8a3494679. 13 Needham, K. and Tian Y. K. (2023, October 11). Australian journalist Cheng Lei back home 

after China release. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/australian-journalist-detained-bychina-arrives-home-2023-10-11/. 14McGuirk, R. (2024, February 21). China-born Australian democracy blogger won’t appeal 

suspended Chinese death sentence. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/yang-hengjunchina-australia-espionage-d8ebca29783d0eae30a99b55f11c5b61. 15Slisco, A, (2021, Septmeber 24). Canadian diplomats detained in China since 2018 finally 

returning home, Trudeau says. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/canadian-diplomatsdetained-china-since-2018-finally-returning-home-trudeau-says-1632670. 16 Cecco, L. and Davidson, H. (2021, September 29). Meng and the Michaels: Why China’s embrace of hostage diplomacy is a warning to other nations. The Guardian. https:// 

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/29/meng-wanzhou-michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-chinaanalysis. 17Klass, A. (2020, July 9). Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor, and China’s history of hostage 

diplomacy. The China Project. https://thechinaproject.com/2020/07/09/michael-kovrig-michaelspavor-and-chinas-history-of-hostage-diplomacy/. 18Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan: Eight years in Jiangman 

detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-injiangmen-detention-center/. 19Dui Hua. (2020, November 30). American citizen Mark Swidan: Eight years in Jiangman 

detention center. Dui Hua. https://duihua.org/american-citizen-mark-swidan-eight-years-injiangmen-detention-center/. 

CHINA’S USE OF EXIT BANS

China leverages exit bans to coerce cooperation with government investigations, 

pressure family members to return from abroad, settle civil disputes, and exert political leverage on foreign governments.9 In its investigation of China’s use of exit 

bans, the Associated Press noted that individuals do not receive an official notification that they have been placed under a ban.10 Additionally, exit bans do not have 

clearly defined time periods, nor a method for remediation. Because China does not 

provide an official count of the exit bans in use, it is difficult to ascertain an exact 

number. China President Xi Jinping has expanded the authorities of and use of exit 

bans.11 A perception that China is increasing its use of exit bans is shared by diplomats from multiple countries.12

AN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM

The United States is not unique in its struggle to secure the release of its citizens 

from China. In recent years, Australia and Canada have also seen their own citizens 

used as political pawns to secure concessions favored by the Chinese Communist 

Party (e.g., the release of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou).13 14 15

National security and foreign policy experts warn of China’s willingness to flout 

international norms and engage in hostage diplomacy to achieve its aims.16 17 Given 

this international threat, more creative thinking and tools are needed to counter it. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

The United States needs a robust strategy, using multiple tools, to secure the release of Americans held in China. This strategy should include cooperation with 

countries, as other nations are also working to secure the release of their own citizens from China. Additionally, after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Dui Hua, 

a nonprofit focused on political prisoners in China, noted that ‘‘the Chinese government often makes gestures when a new American president is elected.’’ 18 Dui Hua 

encouraged then President-elect Joe Biden to use his election to request the release 

of Mark Swidan.19 The 2024 Presidential election represents another possible opportunity for the president-elect to request the release of Americans wrongfully detained in China as an act of goodwill. 

Diplomatic engagement is still needed, and the State Department should use the 

full range of its tools, including facilitating humanitarian releases and prisoner exchanges, as appropriate. Finally, the United States should evaluate how it can better leverage the authorities and capabilities of Executive Order 14078, Bolstering 
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20Loertscher, C. (2024). Bringing Americans Home 2024: A non-governmental assessment of 

U.S. hostage policy, family engagement, and the hostage and wrongful detainee landscape. 

James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/hostage-advocacy/hostagereport/. 

Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals Home 

(e.g., use of designations, and sanctions against foreign government officials directly 

or indirectly involved with wrongful detentions) against China.20
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SUBMISSION OF CYNTHIA SUN

Thank you to Chairman Smith, Co-Chairman Merkley, and distinguished members of the Commission, for holding this hearing. Today, I am bringing before you 

the cases of four U.S. citizens whose families are jailed or under house arrest in 

China. 

In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a violent campaign 

to persecute Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. The ancient spiritual practice 

in the Buddhist tradition combines meditation and gentle exercises (similar to yoga 

or tai chi) with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. 

A quarter century later, Falun Gong practitioners remain a large proportion of 

prisoners of conscience in China. Included among them are multiple relatives of U.S. 

citizens and residents. These individuals have been unjustly imprisoned in China 

or barred from leaving the country, simply for practicing Falun Gong, sharing information about it, or exposing the rights abuses faced by others. 

Given the tight censorship and brutality with which Chinese security agents treat 

Falun Gong practitioners, their loved ones in the United States are often unable to 

receive timely updates on their condition and are fearful they are being tortured— 

or even killed—at any moment. Indeed, since 2019, at least two Falun Gong practitioners jailed in China with family living in the United States have died in police 

custody with signs of abuse (Ms. Meng Hong from Heilongjiang whose daughter 

lives in California and Ms. Ji Yunzhi from Inner Mongolia whose son resides in New 

York). 

The following four U.S. citizens reside in the United States but suffer from the 

trauma of the CCP’s persecution by being separated from loved ones and fearing for 

their jailed relatives’ well-being. 

New York: Lydia and Steven Wang, a brother and sister who are both U.S. citizens, live with their families in New York, where Steven has worked for Shen Yun 

Performing Arts as a principal dancer since 2008. Their mother, Ms. Liu Aihua, was 

sentenced in Hunan Province to 4 years in prison on March 10, 2023. She was last 

seen at the No. 4 Detention Center of Changsha City. Ms. Liu was likely sentenced 

for distributing informational pamphlets to raise awareness about the persecution, 

according to family. It is unknown whether she is facing torture in prison. She has 

yet to meet her grandchildren in New York. Lydia and Steven’s father Wang 

Guanghui passed away in September 2009 after a lengthy detention in China for 

practicing Falun Gong. 

In a 2021 interview, Steven recalled visiting his parents in prison during a prior 

detention before he left China for the United States. ‘‘Every time we went to visit 

them, they looked like they’d been starved,’’ he said. ‘‘They never told me what it 

was like in there. They only told me they were doing fine. But you can probably 

imagine—you could tell from their withered faces that they’d been tortured.’’ 

Lydia Wang previously testified before a congressional briefing in 2023. Ms. Liu 

Aihua’s case is included in the USCIRF prisoner database. For more details, see a 

page dedicated to her case on the Falun Dafa Information Center website. 

Texas: Grace Chen, a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic and naturalized citizen. Her 

parents, Mr. Yang Chen and Ms. Zhimin Cao, were sentenced in Hunan Province 

in 2020 for an unknown length of time. According to Grace, the extended family has 

been unable to reach the couple in detention since their arrest. Lawyers hired by 

the family were pressured by their law firms or provincial justice bureaus to withdraw from the case and were stonewalled by the Liuyang Police Department and 

the Liuyang Procuratorate from helping the couple. Mr. Chen is currently imprisoned at Wangling Prison; Mrs. Cao is at Hunan Province Women’s Prison. 

Grace Chen previously spoke on a panel at the International Religious Freedom 

Summit. Her parents’ case was also covered by the Jubilee Campaign. For more details, see a page dedicated to their case on the Falun Dafa Information Center 

website. 

Texas/New York: Danielle Wang, a civil engineer from Texas and New York and 

a U.S. citizen. Her father, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, was sentenced on December 27, 1999 

to 16 years in a show trial broadcasted live through an international CNN newscast. 

Prior to the CCP’s launch of the persecution, Mr. Wang had been a volunteer coordinator in Beijing, organizing meditation practice sites for teaching Falun Gong’s exercises. After his release in 2016, Danielle and her husband traveled to China to 

escort her father to the United States. But CCP agents surrounded the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and followed them, taking photos and even monitoring their 

movement inside their hotel. Before the trio could board a ferry from Guangdong 
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to Hong Kong, Chinese customs officers cut up his passport and rendered it useless. 

Wang remains under house arrest today. 

Danielle Wang previously testified before a congressional hearing in 2013 and a 

CECC hearing in 2016. Her father’s case was also covered by the USCIRF, Lantos 

Commission, ChinaAid, and the Houston Chronicle. For more details, visit her interview with Friends of Falun Gong or a short documentary about her story on 

Faluninfo TV. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is vital that the U.S. Government do more to free these prisoners of conscience. 

Doing so would reunite families of U.S. citizens across multiple generations and 

demonstrate to the CCP that the U.S. takes these cases seriously, potentially deterring future prosecutions of Falun Gong practitioners with American relatives. Once 

released, these individuals would be able to offer first-hand information on detention 

conditions in China, including potentially forced labor linked to exports to the 

United States. Moreover, their release could inspire hope for millions of Falun Gong 

practitioners and other religious prisoners in China, even those without U.S. ties 

who would benefit from the increased scrutiny and advocacy for their plight. Specifically: 

1. The U.S. Government should urgently ask Chinese officials for information about the whereabouts and expected release dates for Mr. Yang Chen and Ms. 

Zhimin Cao, permission for relatives or lawyers of Ms. Liu Aihua to visit her; and 

for Mr. Wang Zhiwen to receive a passport. The U.S. should call for the immediate 

release of Ms. Liu Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, Mrs. Zhimin Cao, Mr. Wang Zhiwen, and 

for all four of these individuals to be permitted to leave China and come to the 

United States to reunite with their family. The U.S. should further bar entry to Chinese official Zeng Qinghong, who was reportedly involved in the decision to block 

Danielle Wang’s father from leaving the country. 

2. Senators should schedule a vote and pass S. 4914, the Falun Gong Protection Act, which would increase transparency, accountability, and deterrence surrounding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners specifically, and lethal organ 

transplant abuses in China more broadly. 

3. Members of Congress should write to the U.S. State Department asking 

the Ambassador to China and top officials to raise these three cases in meetings 

with Chinese counterparts, including at the highest levels of diplomacy. 

4. The CECC should add Ms. Liu Aihua, Mr. Yang Chen, and Ms. Zhimin Cao 

to the Political Prisoner Database. 

5. Ambassadors, government officials, and NGO experts on China should 

meet with these U.S. citizens to better understand conditions in China and identify ways to support their families’ quest for freedom. Include them in private hearings, events, or roundtables regarding religious persecution, freedom of expression, 

or political prisoners in China. 

‘‘I don’t know if I will ever see my mother again,’’ recalls Lydia Wang. ‘‘As long 

as the persecution of Falun Gong continues, my mother remains at risk of further 

harm if she stays in China. I request the United States Government’s assistance 

in securing her release. We would like to bring her safely home to New York.’’ 

For more information on these and other family rescue cases in the United States, 

please visit the Falun Dafa Information Center website. 

SUBMISSION OF BILL BROWDER, GLOBAL MAGNITSKY JUSTICE CAMPAIGN

Dear Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Merkley, 

My name is Bill Browder, and I am the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice 

Campaign and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. 

Until 2005, I was the largest foreign investor in Russia. My firm worked to expose 

corruption within Russian companies to improve corporate governance. In retaliation for my efforts to shed light on illicit activities in Russia through my shareholder 

activism, the Russian authorities declared me a threat to national security and 

banned my entry to Russia. The situation escalated with the wrongful arrest, torture, and murder of my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in 2009. Since then, I have been 

deeply involved in advocating for human rights and justice. This led to the establishment of the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation that imposes visa bans and 

asset freezes on human rights violators globally. I am honored to provide testimony 

for this critical hearing on Unjustly Detained Americans in China. 
79 

First, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Chairman Smith for his unwavering support and leadership in sponsoring the Global Magnitsky Act. Your longstanding commitment to human rights and justice has been instrumental in our 

shared efforts to hold human rights abusers accountable worldwide. I commend the 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China for organizing this bipartisan hearing on unjustly detained Americans in China. It is a vital initiative that highlights 

the plight of Americans arbitrarily imprisoned in China, and I fully support your 

efforts to bring new light to this pressing issue. 

This hearing highly resonates with my own experiences since Sergei Magnitsky’s 

unjust detention, as I have fought against wrongful imprisonment and judicial 

abuse through the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. The campaign successfully 

brought widespread global attention to human rights violations, and led to significant legislative outcomes, including the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act in the U.S. 

Since then, I have successfully advocated for the adoption of Magnitsky Acts in 35 

countries. Through asset freezes and visa bans, Magnitsky Acts seek to hold accountable those who commit human rights abuses and corruption worldwide. 

The issue of arbitrarily detained individuals is not complicated, and democratic 

governments’ response to this ongoing issue highlights the difference between right 

and wrong. It is more important now than ever for legislators across the aisles to 

defend the rights of citizens wrongfully detained abroad in authoritarian regimes 

such as China and Russia. At the core of the values of a rule-of-law democracy is 

the fundamental belief in justice and due process, including the right to a fair trial 

in an impartial court. Uniting to protect these principles is not just a matter of policy, but a reaffirmation of what a democracy like the U.S. stands for. 

Congress must exert sustained and significant pressure on the U.S. Government 

to ensure the protection of Americans detained in China, who have long been overlooked at the political level. While consular support, such as welfare visits, is beneficial, it falls short of what is truly needed. There must be a firm commitment and 

active intervention to confront and challenge the unjust judicial system in China. 

Just as in Russia, which I have experienced firsthand on numerous occasions, in 

China there is no such thing as a free and transparent trial in front of an impartial 

judge in an independent court. This is because there is no separation of powers 

within the judicial system. The Chinese Communist Party controls the entire judicial system, including the police, prosecution, judiciary, and penal system and even 

the legal profession, making fair and transparent trials impossible. Verdicts are decided by party committees, not independent judges, leaving no opportunity for a 

proper legal defense. Chinese judgments would not withstand scrutiny under the 

rule of law, and most Chinese prosecutions would fail if retried in a Western court. 

I urge the U.S. Government to set aside diplomatic niceties and take decisive action by intervening in the judicial cases of all Americans detained in China. Research by former prisoner Peter Humphrey indicates that up to 300 Americans are 

currently detained in China under various conditions, often on dubious charges. 

Some American prisoners have already been held in China for over 10 years on 

opaque and unjust convictions. 

The arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the potential for exit bans without 

clear legal processes pose significant risks to American citizens. It is therefore crucial for the U.S. Government to move beyond standard diplomatic protocols and actively engage in protecting its citizens, challenging the unjust system, and advocating for fair treatment and due process for all detained Americans. 

Governments committed to the rule of law have a moral and legal obligation to 

defend their citizens, especially those considered by the State Department to be arbitrarily detained, affording them the diplomatic attention of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA). Many of these people are detained for 

the sole reason that they are Americans, effectively handing China a vast supply 

of prisoners to use as diplomatic leverage whenever they please. 

All citizens deserve unwavering support from their home government. The large 

number of Americans arrested on allegations of minor offenses merit the same level 

of advocacy as the select few who have been placed on the SPEHA list of arbitrarily 

detained persons. In China, American prisoners often receive disproportionately 

long sentences for their alleged crimes and endure cruel and inhumane conditions, 

including inadequate nutrition, lack of medical care, and restricted access to fresh 

air and sunlight. Their communication with loved ones is obstructed or censored entirely. 

For many years, American administrations from both parties have shied away 

from intervening directly in the unfair and biased Chinese judicial system on behalf 

of U.S. citizens caught in legal ordeals. The U.S. Government seems to overlook— 

or deliberately ignore—a crucial fact: the 2018 Chinese International Criminal Judicial Assistance Law provides a clear mechanism for transferring ‘‘convicted’’ pris-
80 

oners from China to their home countries, even without a bilateral prisoner transfer 

agreement. This law offers a potential pathway for action that has been largely unexplored. It is time for a change in approach—the U.S. Government must leverage 

this legal framework to more actively support and potentially repatriate American 

citizens unjustly held in Chinese prisons. 

The Chinese government is not stopping their practice of arbitrary detention anytime soon and has no intention of complying with international legal standards. I 

urge the U.S. Government to take seriously the cases of all Americans imprisoned 

in China, in addition to the three Americans, David Lin, Kai Li, and Mark Swidan, 

on the SPEHA list, and to consider Magnitsky sanctions against those responsible 

for these injustices. The U.S., as a global leader, must set an example in upholding 

human rights and the principles of justice globally. 

Thank you for your attention to this critical issue. 
81 

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Witness Biographies 

Nelson Wells, Sr., father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells, Jr. 

Nelson Wells, Sr. is the father of Nelson Wells, Jr., and a native of New Orleans, 

Louisiana. He and his wife Cynthia now live in Haughton, Louisiana. Mr. Wells is 

a 20-year U.S. Army veteran, stationed all over the country and globally, including 

a stint in the Middle East during the Gulf War. His wife Cynthia worked as an 

Army recruiter for the Department of Defense for 28 years. Both are retired and 

are now advocating full-time for their son’s release. 

Harrison Li, son of detained American citizen Kai Li 

Harrison Li is a doctoral student studying statistics who has begrudgingly had to 

become a political advocate for his father, Kai Li. He is originally from Long Island, 

New York and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He serves on the steering committee of the Bring Our Families Home Campaign, an advocacy group of 

families of Americans wrongfully detained around the world working together to try 

to cut through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting assistance and information for 

the families of wrongfully detained Americans. His greatest wish is for his father 

to be home and in good health to see him graduate next spring, after missing his 

college graduation in 2018. 

Tim Hunt, brother of detained American citizen Dawn Michelle Hunt 

Tim Hunt is the brother of Dawn Michelle Hunt and a native Chicagoan. He attended Whitney Young Magnet School and DePaul University and served as a Chicago police officer for 28 years, working on the beat, and in plainclothes, bicycle, 

mounted, and forensic unit roles. Serving and protecting the public is a family business, as his mother, father and three uncles were all Chicago police officers as well. 

Tim retired in 2017 and has been advocating tirelessly for his sister’s release from 

prison. 

Peter Humphrey, journalist, due diligence specialist, Sinologist, and 

former prisoner of China 

Peter Humphrey is a British sinologist who has spent half a century working and 

studying China and who has lived there for 25 years, as a student, teacher, journalist, philanthropist, corporate due diligence detective—and prisoner. In 2013 Peter 

and his American wife Yingzeng Yu were wrongfully imprisoned on false charges 

of illegal information gathering—their only ‘‘crime’’ was to have offended someone 

with connections in the Chinese Communist Party. 

Upon his release in 2015, Peter created a support network for the families of foreign prisoners to lobby for their welfare and release. Through his work he has become a specialist on justice and imprisonment in China and is undoubtedly the leading authority on foreign prisoners in China. 

In addition to his work with families of the wrongfully detained, he is also an external research affiliate of Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, an occasional columnist and documentary adviser, and has been a guest speaker 

at universities and think tanks on China’s judicial and penal system. 

Æ