China hands death penalty to Canadian in drug case
DIPLOMACY MAY BE ONLY HOPE FOR CANADIAN SCHELLENBERG
Not content with taking Canadians hostage, China is now threatening to kill them. It took nearly four years from his December 2014 arrest for the Chinese legal system to convict and sentence Robert Schellenberg for drug trafficking. Since the Dec. 1 arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, things have moved a little quicker.
It took just 20 minutes last month for a Chinese court, in response to Schellenberg’s appeal of his 15-year sentence, to instead order, at the insistence of prosecutors, that he be retried. The retrial itself took all of a day Monday, followed within an hour by both verdict and sentence: death.
The suspicion that something other than the finer points of Chinese law might be at work in the sudden escalation of a 15-year sentence into the death penalty — that this was in fact the latest step in China’s furious efforts to blackmail Canada into releasing Meng — is not restricted to excitable newspaper columnists. It is the opinion of virtually every human rights organization and independent expert on the Chinese legal system.
Schellenberg now has 10 days to appeal,
but it is apparent his fate will depend not on the mercies of the Chinese courts but on the ingenuity of Canadian diplomacy. China is the world’s most prolific practitioner of judicial killing, by far, and one of only a handful that executes people for drug trafficking.
More to the point, it is a dictatorship: the Communist party’s tentacles reach into every corner of society, including the courts. The idea of judicial independence is as foreign to the regime as due process. Whether or not Schellenberg is guilty of the crime of which he is accused, his death has been foreordained — just as the two other high-profile Canadians China has taken captive since Meng’s arrest, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, are probably doomed to remain in prison indefinitely, whatever the facts of their cases.
One problem facing the Canadian government, as it considers how to respond to this crisis, is puzzling out China’s motives.
Meng’s arrest, at the request of U.S. law enforcement — she is accused of hiding ties to a Huawei subsidiary alleged to have been evading U.S. sanctions on Iran — was doubtless a setback to Chinese espionage and security aims, but nothing like as much as the ferocious Chinese response has been.
Until now, Canada has been virtually alone among the countries in the Five Eyes alliance of intelligence agencies in refusing to ban Huawei, widely considered to be an instrument of Chinese surveillance, from supplying equipment for next generation 5G wireless networks. It is almost certain to do so now.
China’s hopes of signing a free trade deal with Canada, likewise, and by its example gaining similar access to other western economies, must be considered all but dashed, notwithstanding Canada’s ambitions to reduce its heavy dependence on trade with the United States. Even if the Trudeau government were disposed to continue with its former policy of cozying up to China — at one point there was even discussion of signing an extradition treaty — it cannot afford to be seen to do so now.
It has, in short, been a thoroughgoing foreign-policy debacle for China, one that has not only turned opinion in Canada solidly against it, but attracted the public condemnation of other countries (at Canada’s urging) in the bargain.
Supposedly an emerging world leader, China has looked more like a street-corner bully. (Its ambassador to Canada, in particular, has not done his country’s cause any favours, first seeming to threaten Canada in one published piece, in another accusing critics of being motivated by “white supremacy.”)
And for what? The Chinese cannot seriously believe the government of Canada could or would order a judge to release Meng, who is currently out on bail (under house arrest) while her extradition case is being considered.
The minister of justice, it is true, has the power to intervene before an extradition is actually carried out. But again: even if the new minister, David Lametti, were willing to do so in other circumstances, he cannot possibly now, in the face of such crude threats.
Quite apart from the harm it would do to relations with the U.S., our neighbour, democratic ally and largest trading partner, it would amount to rewarding China for its lawlessness. Those business voices who, to their shame, were calling for some sort of informal deal to be struck in the immediate aftermath after Meng’s arrest must surely fall silent now.
Did the Chinese miscalculate? Did the Trudeau government’s former complaisant approach lead them to believe it was a soft touch, whether out of weakness, naivete or desperation for Chinese business? If so, how does the government communicate a firmer line, without needlessly provoking the Chinese government?
Is it possible to combine a no-concessions policy on Meng with a face-saving way for China to come in off the limb it has put itself out on? On this now depends not only the integrity of Canadian foreign policy, but the life of a Canadian citizen.