By Jerome A. Cohen
Gui Minhai. Photo: Hong Kong Free Press, screenshot/CCTV.
The recent Chinese police re-detention of Mr. GUI Minhai, a Swedish citizen, when he was on the train with Swedish diplomats escorting him to Beijing, deserves more public attention than it has received. China’s action must be questioned and protested by the international community, as argued by last week’s Washington Post editorial, China’s violation of rights grows ever more brazen.
The People’s Republic of China leaves itself open to condemnation by failing to give a public explanation of its dramatic and unusual deprivation of Gui’s freedom. This is probably because there has been some disagreement or lack of coordination in the PRC government’s control of Gui. What may have happened is that the local security police in Ningbo may have approved Gui’s trip to Beijing for medical reasons, as apparently it had approved his Shanghai trips to the Swedish Consulate there. But the central authorities, when they learned of the plan, may have panicked at the possibility that Gui might seek embassy asylum, as the blind barefoot lawyer CHEN Guangcheng did in 2012, and decided to detain Gui again to prevent that possibility. There may also have been, and still might be, a struggle between the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security concerning jurisdiction over Gui.
I suspect we will soon see the following explanation from the PRC: Gui was living in Ningbo under “qubao houshen” (取保候审), a Chinese type of bail requiring the “released” suspect to remain in the city where he has been released and requiring him to obtain special permission for any outside trips. Although Gui has apparently completed his sentence for his earlier traffic offense, his bail must relate to the unfinished current charges for which he apparently has not yet been tried.
It is possible, of course, that the Swedish Embassy may have decided to follow the U.S. example in the Chen case and make positive efforts to spirit Gui to the embassy’s custody, but, given the Swedish Government’s quiet, conventional efforts to aid Gui to date, and to aid Peter Dahlin after his detention, that seems unlikely.
Yet, given the escort of two Swedish diplomats accorded Gui, one has to give Sweden credit at least for seeking to assure Gui better medical treatment in Beijing and for anticipating possible obstruction.
Reportedly the PRC and Sweden have differed on the degree of consular access to be permitted to Gui at various times, and these issues probably have a history going back to the original detention of Gui in Thailand, which was a brazen kidnapping. It should be noted that Sweden and China apparently do not have a bilateral consular agreement, which is odd, but both adhere to the multilateral Vienna Convention on consular relations.
These incidents involve so many as yet unanswered questions. The PRC should not remain silent even if its agencies have not yet coordinated. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as so often in these cases, was publicly embarrassed when its spokesperson implicitly admitted that it really did not know what was going on.
Certainly, the Swedish Government should reveal the full story behind its frustrations in this case and in others involving China, and Swedish public opinion should demand that the Government tell the truth now.