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When President Trump went to China in 2017, he gave Xi Jinping a list of names he wanted released. My parents were there.
That moment was important. As the Chinese training campaign in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region began, my parents were in danger because I had spoken out in the United States about the abuses of the Chinese Communist Party. Their names, placed directly in front of Xi by the President of the United States, sent a signal that they were invisible.
But the name on the list only matters if the president keeps pushing. My mother remained imprisoned in Beijing for almost two decades – against my advocacy of human rights, a hostage to the thought that I would finally be silent. Cabinet secretaries presented his case. Politicians have repeatedly suppressed it. No one moved Beijing. He came home on Thanksgiving Eve 2024 only after President Biden took his issue directly with Xi.
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My father did not make it. He died in April 2022 at the age of eighty-three, after years of isolation. Because Beijing had personally sanctioned me for my advocacy, I could not attend his funeral. He never met his American grandchildren. That is the cost of doing nothing – not in one spectacular moment, but over the years it has been quietly removed.
Now President Trump is preparing to meet with Xi again, in Beijing on May 14 and 15. He has to manage another list.
This is not a side issue of trade, tariffs, precious minerals, or sanctions. US citizens, legal permanent residents, and relatives of US citizens are arrested, detained, or detained under an exit ban by the CCP to enforce peace, issue permits, and inspect people inside the United States. This is kidnapping. It is an unacceptable tool of state coercion directed at the United States – and a direct challenge to American sovereignty. When a foreign government forces Americans onto American soil, it goes beyond a human rights problem. It is a test of the American will.
Cases like these are not resolved through normal diplomatic channels. In China’s political system, they reach only one level: Xi Jinping. Prosecutors, security agencies, ministers, and provincial officials all await approval from above. Lawyers working on detention cases involving foreign powers told me directly: permission to release a hostage can only come from Xi. Ambassadors can suggest names. Cabinet officials can pressure their colleagues. Politicians can knock on doors. Only the president can open them.
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President Trump has made the return of wrongfully imprisoned Americans a top foreign policy defining issue. His message to Xi should be clear: American families are not bargaining chips, and the United States will not accept hostage-taking or immigration as a normal feature of bilateral relations. He should seek extradition, transfer of humanitarian aid, lifting of exit restrictions, and regular access for US officials and families.
He should also direct his administration to maintain a standing, secret list of Americans, legal permanent residents, and relatives with US ties who are imprisoned or detained in China — to be brought up in all future dealings with Chinese officials. That job should be given to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rubio understands the realities of China better than most. As a congressman, he helped create the legal structures that now empower this administration: the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which President Trump signed in 2020; the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed by President Biden in 2021. In every state, leaders of both parties created the framework – Speaker Nancy Pelosi helped move important protections through the House; Secretary Mike Pompeo has determined that China is committing genocide against the Uyghur people, said acting Secretary Antony Blinken. Beijing realized what that meant before Washington fully acted. In retaliation, it allowed Rubio — and it allowed me. The foreign government does not allow its critics to work. He approved it because it was effective.
Many who admired Rubio’s Senate record were not truly comfortable in his first months as secretary of state — calm where they expected statements, accommodation where they expected pressure. I understand why. I have had my moments there. But I am not willing to conclude that the person who created this framework has left it. He is there – with more institutional power than ever before, and the enemy has learned it for a long time.
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Rubio’s opposition to the Chinese Communist Party is based on something deeper than the principle of calculation – just as I am. His family fled Cuba. My mother gave birth to me in a re-education camp in Kashgar. We came to this war in different ways but reached the same conclusion: authoritarian governments use families as instruments of coercion. The answer is no accommodation. It’s stressful.
The list that President Trump is carrying to Beijing should include Gulshan Abbas, who was arrested in retaliation for his sister’s representation in the United States; artist Gao Shen, an American citizen imprisoned without due process; Reverend Ezra Jin, arrested on unclear charges; and relatives of Uyghur-American journalists at Radio Free Asia – Kurban Mamut, Abdukadir and Ahamatjan Juma, and Hasanjan Niyaz – were arrested as victims of anti-American journalists working for a US-funded media organization. In these families, freedom often begins with a word spoken in the right room.
And under Xi Jinping, there is only one room that matters.
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The mother’s journey to America began when President Trump delivered the list to China in 2017. He waited years for his name to reach the right room. My father died before independence.
Tonight, some families are still waiting.
