Detained couple’s daughter wants trade talks halted

Amy Chang is determined to keep reminding the federal government that the China that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to woo into a free trade deal this week is the same dictatorship that has jailed her Canadian dad over a business dispute.

Chang’s parents, John Chang and Allison Lu, were charged with underpaying custom duties in March 2016 on a $1 million shipment of wine they were exporting to China from their Lulu Island Winery based in Richmond.

And she’s demanding the government cease trade talks with China until her parents are released.

“I would like them to delay the talks until my parents are back home,” she said, as Trudeau and a trade contingent, including Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, began preliminary negotiations on Monday with the aim of freer trade between the countries.

Trudeau is to meet with President Xi Jinping on Tuesday.

Chang said her parents’ case is evidence of the perils of doing business in China. Her parents were arrested and charged with smuggling and face 10 years to life imprisonment.

“It’s a trade issue and my parents have been illegally detained,” she said, adding her parents have been exporting wine to China since 2009 without a problem until last year.

Chang is hopeful Trudeau will secure her parents’ release during this four-day trip. Her father, who’s in poor health, is in a Shanghai jail, and her mother has been released but can’t leave China.

They had a trial in May but there has been no verdict announced. Chang speaks with her mother by phone but neither woman is allowed to speak with John in jail, where he’s losing weight and lacking in diet to control his liver problems.

Despite the lack of positive news, Chang remains optimistic.

“There’s still time during this trip” for Trudeau to secure their release, she said. “I hope they’ll be home for Christmas.”

Global Affairs Canada is closely following the case, spokeswoman Brittany Venhola-Fletcher said in a emailed statement.

“Canadian officials, including Minister Freeland, have raised the case with Chinese authorities at high levels,” she said. She said Canada is also providing consular assistance and could provide no further comment.

Chang said her father is visited by Canadian consular staff once every three months and her mother, who’s renting an apartment in Shanghai, is in more regular contact with them.

Farida Deif, Canada director of Human Rights Watch, which is fighting for the release of a number of human rights activists in China, said this case is “emblematic of doing business with a country without due process and arbitrary arrests.”

If freer trade is opened up with China without promises of human rights improvements, “These types of disputes will likely continue to happen,” she said.