Five days later, Ms. Meng was on a plane back to China, to a hero’s welcome. Two Canadians, essentially taken hostage on trumped-up charges, were on their way back to Canada, along with two young Americans who had been denied exit from China for three years because of a case involving their father, sought by Chinese authorities…

[W]as this a success for China’s “hostage diplomacy,” to use a phrase that appears in an accusatory letter sent on Tuesday by Representative Jim Banks of Indiana to Attorney General Merrick Garland?

“By letting her go without so much as a slap on the wrist,’’ Mr. Banks wrote about Ms. Meng, “the United States is broadcasting to any would-be criminals that we are not very serious about enforcing our sanctions laws. This is a dream come true for Iran, Hamas, Russia, North Korea and every other entity who have been slapped with our sanctions.”

White House officials, from the press secretary, Jen Psaki, to the policymakers who are designing a strategy to deal with the complexities of simultaneously competing with, containing and cooperating with China, deny that there was any kind of a deal — or a change in China policy. “There is no link,” Ms. Psaki said.