Peter MacKay, who served as a cabinet minister under prime minister Stephen Harper, is a lawyer and advocate for the anti-corruption non-profit Integrity Initiatives International.
It seems like open season on Canadian citizens in China these days. Yet another Canadian citizen has been specifically targeted by the Chinese communist government. Five years ago, Xiao Jianhua (James Xiao) was kidnapped from Hong Kong. In July, he was tried in secret on bogus charges in a one-day sham trial. Last Friday, the Chinese communist government convicted him for a number of alleged financial crimes, and sentenced him to 13 years in Chinese prison. All Canadians should join in the condemnation of China for this miscarriage of justice and continued outrageous attacks on our fellow citizens.
Mr. Xiao is a victim of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attempted diversions for the political turmoil on his home turf. Mr. Xi’s response to his government’s economic failures and political miscalculations is to target and attack others. In this case Mr. Xiao, a highly successful businessman, is being used as a political pawn. Mr. Xiao and his family have been Canadian citizens since 2009, although China refuses to recognize Mr. Xiao’s Canadian citizenship, which gives it a pretext to refuse him support from the Canadian government. Mr. Xiao deserves greater public support than he has received to date.
The details of Mr. Xiao’s situation should chill any Canadian travelling in or around China. This innocent Canadian businessman was abducted from a Hong Kong hotel room by suspected Chinese Communist Party agents on Jan. 27, 2017. Jerome Cohen, an emeritus professor of law at New York University’s School of Law and an expert on China’s legal system, called the operation a “brazen kidnapping” and said it was a “warning to all that Hong Kong is no longer a safe haven from the reach of Beijing’s secret police.”
The announcement of Mr. Xiao’s unfair conviction and sentence comes on the heels of recent news of a Canadian journalist-activist of Chinese origin also under threat from the Chinese government. One week after Victor Ho announced an organization to elect a Hong Kong “parliament in exile” to oppose Beijing, Hong Kong’s security bureau announced that “police shall spare no efforts in pursuing the cases in … order to bring the offenders to justice.” The pattern is clear. Comply or suffer the consequences.
The attacks on Mr. Ho and Mr. Xiao follow the same playbook as the two Michaels. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were more blatantly, but equally, detained as political pawns in retaliation for the arrest of businesswoman Meng Wanzhou. Mr. Xiao has already been in Chinese captivity for more than 2,000 days – twice as long as the two Michaels.
The two Michaels were used to gain leverage for the CFO of Huawei, who was detained in Canada and was accused of skirting U.S. sanctions and accessing the Iranian market. Mr. Ho is a target because he is standing up for Hong Kong. And Mr. Xiao is being made an example by Mr. Xi to crack down and seize the assets of private business owners. In efforts to protect himself, Mr. Xi is willing to reach around the globe in his reckless attacks.
Mr. Xi is facing many challenges as he heads into China’s 20th Party Congress, and he will use any tactic to distract from his failures and human-rights violations. He continues to struggle with his takeover of Hong Kong and the continuing tensions surrounding Taiwan. But his biggest headaches are economic. Inflation continues to run hot, the Chinese housing market is seeing signs of collapse, and joblessness is rising, with youth unemployment now at 19.3 per cent, according to the Chinese government.
Mr. Xiao was a young prodigy who graduated university years ahead of schedule and proceeded to establish himself as a finance and investment whiz. He and his family built a thriving business. This success made him a convenient target as Mr. Xi goes after more and more successful Chinese businesspeople, taking everything from them in an effort to appear to be doing something, anything, to blame others for the country’s economic troubles.
Like others suffering under the Chinese regime – Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and other ethnic and religious minorities – human-rights protections are but a dream for Mr. Xiao and Mr. Ho. They deserve the same support as the two Michaels, and the full efforts of our government, despite not being born in Canada. A Canadian is a Canadian, our Prime Minister remarked. Let’s ensure those words have meaning.
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