Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the release of detained citizens

Three American citizens detained in China have been released after several years.

U.S Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking the prisoner swap comes after 'many months' of negotiations from the Biden administration to bring the prisoners home to their families.

One prisoner, Mark Swidan, spent 12 years detained on drug related charges and was sentenced to death.

Swidan, alongside a fellow prisoner, was declared wrongfully declared.

In exchange three detained Chinese nationals will return to China.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stateside. Richard Arnland morning, It's kipig Daga morning, Mikel and
you too. The prisoners. What that seems to have been
coming for a while now, like years.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Uh. Yeah, they've been engaged in this secretly for many,
many months. So it's especially happy day for the families
of three Americans who've been set free in this hostage
swap today between the US and China. This is the result,
as I say, of these link negotiations, with the President
himself taking up directly with China's president she during the
recent summered in Peru. So what a moment it was

(00:30):
today when this trio John, Leon ky Lee and Mark
Swedan landed back here after years in custody. They arrived
in Texas and in return for these Americans, three Chinese
citizens were returned to their home country as well. One
was a Chinese intelligence officer, Shu Yuan Juan, who has
been serving a twenty year prison term after what was

(00:52):
a pretty dramatic FBI sting operation six years back. The
Chinese spy was arrested in Brussels by the FBI team
then extra dided by to the United States. On the
American side, Mark Swedan was held in a Chinese jail
on drug related charges for more than twelve years, and
at one point was sentenced by authorities there sentenced to death.
So quite a turnaround in his life. While both Lee

(01:14):
and Leon were charged with espionage, and Lee had been
held for eight years, during which time his son Harris
spoke at a congressional hearing in Washington just weeks ago.
Every day I wake up, I shudder at the thoughts
of him crammed and attaining cell with anywhere from seven
to eleven other people. Yeah. President Biden has made a

(01:34):
brief appearance today speaking of his concerns for the Middle East,
including the US hostages held by Hamas. I think, with
the grace of God, you grew and magills a lot
for them to get some more progress in the momies. Well,
hope is eternal, isn't it meantime? Yeah? It is parade
day in New York, Philadelphia and Detroit and many other cities.

(01:56):
This was the start of the ninety eighth Macy's Thanksgiving
Day Parade, where it's been raining a little, but millions
of people turned out. One four year old kid said,
I like wet, but then this boy's name is River
River Hawley. There was a brief pro Palestidian protests where
some twenty one people were arrested for briefly blocking the

(02:16):
parade floats, but no one superglued they closed the road
as something last year. I think that many in this country, though,
feel the need for a break after this tumultuous season,
especially politically. This is a time for supposedly marking the
change of seasons. The approach at Christmas dates back to
the Pilgrims in sixteen twenty one. Three big football games
are being played today. It's also a day for family reunions,

(02:38):
with record numbers of flights people going to family gatherings,
which in this political season might not always be so easy,
right given the recent political clamors, So Leslie Jones of
The Daily Show Comedy show gave this advice in part
for clamping down on political chit chat at the family
dinner table.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thanksgiving, Leslie Jones will come to your house and po
lately than rejected when the conversation becomes political. I'm just
thankful that will V. Wade was finally overturned.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's the conversation you want to start right now at
this table. While everybody's happy during Thanksgiving? Why are we
trying to be happy? You know what has them dry
ass turky? The way I see it is your generation
are all a bunch of lazy socialists.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
What did you call them? Lazy? You can't even bring
proper pie to Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And stop kissing the kids in the mouth.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'll just say these transgender people.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, ah, no politics, folks.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Happy Thanksgiving, mate, We'll see you next week. Appreciate it.
Richard Arnold I state side the games he mentioned by
the way, Lions bees this morning. That won't be much
of a game because the beers aren't up to much.
Cowboys Giants That won't be much of a game because
the giants aren't up too much, and neither, as it
turns out, of the Cowboys. Although what uh is he playing?
So Cooper Rush? I was hoping for Trey Lance. The
Trey Lance story is an interesting story. For a while there,

(04:00):
who is the third string quarterback for the Cowboys was
going to be San Francisco's next great hope couple of
years ago. Don't have time to tell you the story,
but anyway, it all went pear shaped and he turned
out to be the third scring quarterback has never played
a game since. He almost could have played a game
today because not only is Dak Prescott injured, but Cooper
Russia is semi injured, which meant that Trey Lance might
have played anyway. The later game is the Pakis Dolphins,

(04:21):
that might be worth watching Uber. The FEDS in America
are after them. This is the app. If you've got
the app and you sign on to Uber one, there's
more than twenty five million subscribers all over the world. Thereafter,
this is this whole app. Once you're in, how do
you get out? Thing? Uber goes you get out in
twenty seconds or less. Don't make a big deal of this,
but the FTC says, well, and we'll see this so

(04:42):
in investigations underway.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
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