A plea deal involving a senior Chinese telecommunications executive that coincided with China’s release of Western hostages exposes a fundamental flaw in President Joe Biden’s approach to Beijing and raises the risk that authoritarian states seize more Americans.

“They took hostages,” Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “They defeated our criminal law by taking hostages. They took Canadian hostages. They took American hostages. And they were successful.”