Monthly Archives: March 2019

The government of Hong Kong has out of the blue proposed the enactment of an extradition law. This proposed law will give China powers to extradite any person it wishes from  Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Before delving into the details of the law one should ask why such a law and why now. Is it because Meng Wanzhou (CFO of Huawei) was arrested in Canada whilst en route to Mexico? And China wishes to extradite a few people it doesn’t like from Hong Kong or Macau as a tit for tat with Canada? Or did China just realise what a useful law it could have in its back pocket?

A number of countries that believe in and practice the rule of law have extradition laws; with Canada Meng Wanzhou was still entitled to a lawyer, she was allowed to stay in the comfort of her own home whilst awaiting trial provided she met the bail conditions, she has been able to sue the Canadian government for unlawful arrest and she was and still is innocent until proven guilty. Whereas in China, the practice is somewhat different. For example, the bookseller Lee Bo who was abducted on Hong Kong soil, brought to China illegally (nobody knows how) because he didn’t have any of his travel documents with him when he was abducted, was not given a lawyer, held in captivity at secret location for months and to this day we still do not know what crime he had committed. When he finally returned to Hong Kong he was visibly traumatised and has completely disappeared off into darkness. His cohort Gui Minghai endured an even more harrowing fate where he was obviously tortured or coerced to give a video confession (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxY73pY6QE). The party officials did such a shoddy video editing job that half way through the interview the colour of his vest changes colours from Grey to Black even though it was supposed to be the same interview.

So, is the extradition law a way for China to legalise abduction? Would it not backfire? Imagine if the bookseller was actually told what crime he had committed and the communist party had to apply to the courts in Hong Kong with evidence to support their case. Imagine if China had to allow Lee Bo a legal representative and be sued if the arrest process did not follow official protocol. I don’t think the communist party would be open to these ideas…  Or were they thinking of continuing with the abduction program and use the extradition law as a back-up plan?