President Biden pardoned two Chinese spies and the relative of a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party who was caught with tens of thousands of images of child pornography on his computer last month in a prisoner swap between the two countries that was made public Thursday when the three received clemencies.
Yanjun Xu and Ji Chaoqun, who were both convicted of espionage, were granted clemency last month, along with Shanlin Jin, who was convicted of possession of more than 47,000 images of child pornography while a doctoral student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 2021.
Their clemencies, signed by President Biden, are dated Nov. 22
Yanjun Xu was arrested in Belgium on espionage charges and extradited to the US where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to steal aerospace and satellite secrets. US District Courts Ji Chaoqun worked with China’s Ministry of State Security and Yanjun Xu to spy on tech companies in the US. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Ji Chaoqun/Facebook
Five days later, on November 27, the Chinese government released three Americans who were serving prison sentences in the Communist country: Mark Swidan, a businessman