The fate of convicted Australian drug courier Karm Gilespie, sentenced to death for smuggling methamphetamine in China, sends an ominous message to all Australians in China.
After being held in detention for a stunning seven years, six years beyond what is legal according to the letter of Chinese law (which is often ignored by the authorities as they see fit), it’s impossible to see Gilespie’s swift trial and sentencing as unrelated to the current tension between Canberra and Beijing.
This was underscored with the news that China’s Ministry for Foreign Affiars — rather than security and justice ministries — had taken change of all commentary around Gillespie’s case.
And tensions escalated further last week with Foreign Minister Marise Payne ramping up her crazy/brave campaign against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), accusing it (and Russia) of spreading disinformation, false facts and a climate of fear.
It’s worth noting that Australians in detention/jail in China tend to be Chinese born; the fact that Gilespie is not was clearly meant to drive home the message, since Australians with European backgrounds have generally garnered more media attention that foreign-born nationals.
It also underscored how opaque and capricious China’s legal system can be; there is no presumption of innocence, no concept of due process and –depending on the case — not necessarily any right to either legal counsel or consular visits.
China’s legal system also employs extrajudicial methods including kidnapping, detention in off-site “black” jails, torture including the withholding of critical medication, and the harassment of family members. It goes the extra authoritarian mile by jailing the dwindling rump of human rights lawyers who act as defence lawyers for any and all campaigns Beijing loathes.
It’s now also increasingly clear that China is happy to use foreign nationals as pawns in its diplomatic games, either locking them up or, like Gilespie, bringing them out of years of detention to sentence them to death.
In 2018 Beijing detained two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, in direct retribution for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the finance chief of Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies, by Canadian authorities owing to an extradition request by the United States. They have since been formally arrested, and last Friday , in a move sure to worry Australian business people in China, were charged with offences that attract sentences of up to 10 years.
After those arrests, a Chinese court sentenced another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, to death on a drug smuggling conviction, in a retrial that overturned a 15-year prison sentence.
Beijing has also shown it does not respect foreign passports, especially those of Chinese nationals who have, for one reason or another, fallen foul of the CCP. This trend has stretched back some decades, but burst into prominence in Australia more than a decade ago with the detention and ultimate imprisonment of four Rio Tinto employees including Chinese-Australian Stern Hu.
Since then there has been a steady parade of Australian business people thrown into Chinese jails, often on trumped-up charges, because they crossed local CCP officials.
“If you’re a former Chinese citizen, authorities may treat you as a citizen and refuse access to Australian consular services. Get legal advice if you’re not sure of your citizenship status under Chinese law,” the travel advisory on China from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) says.
According to information given to Crikey by DFAT, China presently holds 69 Australians in detention and at least 50 (at June 30, 2019 ) in jail. Most of these would be for alleged criminal offences, given that in 2018-19 there were 123 detentions for Australians, up 9% from the previous year. All but seven were criminal cases but only 15 were drug arrests, a figure down 20% from the year before.
Detaining/shooting human beings (firing squad is the form of capital punishment still used in China) is now standard issue in the Chinese diplomatic kitbag.
Responding to Payne’s accusations of disinformation, the Chinese embassy hit back: “In recent days, some Australian media and politicians made baseless accusations of China for spreading disinformation, which is completely rubbish.”
Australia can’t out-propagandise or outspend China, which means all Australians in China are now, whether they like it or not, at greater risk, and it’s time that DFAT updates its travel advisory to make this clear.
“…kidnapping, detention in off-site “black” jails, torture including the withholding of critical medication, and the harassment of family members” Reads like Guantanamo except for the family members and even that’s not clear cut.
China’s real weak spot internally and for its external relations is its explicit rejection of separation of powers and especially an independent judiciary. It’s obvious that the West should focus on this rather than the grab bag of gripes so evident in these tedious daily ASPI propaganda pieces.
Crikey is in the middle of a subscriptions drive. FWIW my auto renewal is switched off as you no longer provide the range of views and writers you once did. What happened to all those one off pieces by specialist writers ? Why do you insist on so many pieces like this when your readership keeps telling you they don’t like it ? Yes China is a totalitarian dictatorship and all that entails. How about some articles that investigate what Australia and the wider world could do to counteract that and persuade change ? A mention that no one is disputing Gillespies basic guilt in what is a serious criminal offense in every country would have helped here.
mark – If you want to read an intelligent and thoughtful analysis on China by an experienced international relations practitioner, you might find Gareth Evans piece in last Friday’s “johnmenaduedotcom” refreshing.
https://johnmenadue.com/sinophobia-concerns-by-gareth-evans/?mc_cid=8f424d181e&mc_eid=e5e2ea2f27
Yes it’s a particularly good and timely article I’ve alrady recommended to several people. I doubt it would cost much if anything for the rights but I suspect these ASPI ones have some unacknowledged commercial benefit to whoever is desperate enough to run them.
Better not mention the U.S.’s use of extrateritorial detentions and torture, and Australia’s complicity, if not involvement, in them. The detention in Canada of Meng Wanzhou is a political act to pressure China. If the U.S. was serious in its support of extradition it would hand over Anne Sacoolas to U.K. authorities to be tried for her involvement in a road accident causing death. Anne Sacoolas skipped the U.K. without notifying authorities on a U.S. Air Force plane a few days after the accident. I need not mention Julian Assange here.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/799143167/u-s-wont-hand-over-wife-of-american-diplomat-wanted-in-fatal-u-k-car-crash
Australia, and the West, is full of double standards and protestations of innocence, while accusing other countries of every sin imaginable.
So China is the bogey-man of the moment, but almost nothing is said about our best friends in the UK who have been busy ‘terrorising’ one of our citizens for the past several years. One Julian Assange!
Why is this putrid government not using every means possible to have Julian released and returned to Oz? Unlike the Oz citizens in China who appear to have committed actual crimes, he has not been found guilty of a crime in the UK or anywhere else…yet…but the yanks are eager to have a go!
Wouldn’t have anything to do with bending over backwards to accommodate our very best friends in the USA, and assist them in providing payback for Julian’s audacity in publishing the truth about some of their illegal exploits, would it??
Silly me…of course not. But this China=bad, UK/USA=good is doing my head in!!
A timely reminder.
UnFairFacts, a.k.a. Noin Entertainment, ran a piece of dross Friday before last, on the Limey Foreign Sec, Raab, demanding the UN open an investigation into a chap from Honkers’ claims he’d been tortured by the Chinamen, because he’d been ‘deprived of sleep for a bit over a fortnight’.
Raab demanded the UN ‘torture, cruel and inhumane treatment’ folks open an investigation, immediately.
I had a crack at the comments section, beginning with;
‘I DARE Raab to push forward with these demands……..cos I reckon a chap named Nils Melzer might stick his mitt in the air, and volunteer – being the ‘UN Special Rapporteur on Torture’, to conduct just such an investigation…………….having previously attempted to get Raab’s ‘people’, and the Ozzie government (and ‘big media’), to take note of his exhaustive investigation into the torture etc, etc of Julian Assange.
Which, of course, is precisely why Raab is already ceased making noise about the chap from Honkers being tortured by the Chinamen’.
Didn’t hit the boards, of course, that comment. So, ‘letter to the editor’. Didn’t hot the mark, either, but it did ‘move’ the letters’ editor to give me a call, and leave a return number.
Did intend to call him last Monday. But, out came the news of the 70 odd Age journos writing to management, about various ‘leanings’ demanded of them – from Sydney.
Then, I was going to call on Thursday, but learned they’d sacked The Age editor, Alex Lavelle.
At this rate, I might never get around to returning ‘Pete’s’ call!
Whether one chases the Dragon or tries to pet it, the relationship will always be fraught.
Any country is unsafe with our current government … any body remember the name Julian Assange?
It’s funny you should mention Julian Assange, TonyP. I read this “ It also underscored how opaque and capricious China’s legal system can be; there is no presumption of innocence, no concept of due process and –depending on the case — not necessarily any right to either legal counsel or consular visits.”
and this “ It’s now also increasingly clear that China is happy to use foreign nationals as pawns in its diplomatic games, either locking them up or, like Gilespie, bringing them out of years of detention to sentence them to death.“ and thought of him immediately, but it only counts when China, Russia or Iran behave this way, apparently.