Shortly before Xi Jinping and Joe Biden's video summit this week, China lifted an immigration ban on an American citizen, while America returned seven convicted Chinese to their homes.

As the Reuters news agency reported on Friday, the American Daniel Hsu was allowed to leave China a few hours before the virtual presidential meeting.

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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He had been detained for four years without being convicted of any crime.

Hsu told the AP news agency last year that the Chinese authorities were trying to persuade his father to return to China in this way.

The authorities accuse him of having embezzled money.

This form of clan liability is also known from other cases.

It was only in September that China lifted an exit ban on an American siblings.

Cynthia and Victor Liu had been detained without charge for three years in an attempt to persuade their father to return, who is wanted for fraud.

The US Department of Justice dropped an extradition request

The Liu siblings left the country at the same time as the return of the Chinese Huawei manager Meng Wanzhou, made possible by the fact that the American Justice Department had dropped an extradition request against them.

Washington denied at the time that it was a barter deal.

In the same way, an American government official told Reuters on Friday with regard to the seven deported Chinese.

Among them is a former bank of China manager who fled to America twenty years ago and was convicted of fraud there.

The Chinese judiciary had long sought his return in order to also bring him to justice.

The Communist Party's Disciplinary Commission described the man's repatriation as "significant progress."

According to the responsible American immigration authorities, there were also two women among the seven people who had tried illegally to gain access to then-President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club.

Two other women were convicted of unauthorized photography at a military base.

Reuters quoted an unnamed source as saying the deportations were a sign of goodwill ahead of the two presidents' video summit.

In addition, both sides had agreed on visa simplifications for journalists before the summit.