Evan—and fifteen others—are home.

Rejoice.

Mourn for those left behind.

Then assess successes and failures.

Now, anticipate lessons the Communist Party of China may learn, both right and wrong, and prepare for future hostage-taking episodes.

The Communist Party’s takeaway from these and other stories is that taking hostages works. The PRC detained Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor late in December 2018 to create leverage for releasing Meng Wanzhou, then Huawei’s CFO, from custody for behavior that violated US law.

Truthful narrative works, too. The Wall Street Journal’s persistent pushing of Evan Gershkovich’s story made his release a priority in all parties’ minds. The United States can use the power of narrative to strip the appearance of legitimacy away from the Communist Party and other totalitarian regimes. Just the first four letters of this commentary evidence narrative’s power: E-V-A-N.