After being told for decades that Australia’s growing economic enmeshment with China would naturally bring our countries together, Australians are discovering, almost daily, just how different the People’s Republic remains.
Many more surprises await. The story of actor and would-be entrepreneur Karm Gilespie’s arrest as he checked in at Guangzhou’s huge Baiyun Airport with an alleged 7.5kg of ice in his luggage on New Year’s Eve 6½ years ago came as quite a shock.
Usually, such charges, which often in Asian countries including China trigger the death sentence, become headline news immediately. But because Gilespie appears to have told few if any friends about his visit to China, because the Chinese legal system is so opaque and because, presumably, his immediate family was persuaded that staying quiet gave him the best chance of an optimum outcome, no one else has known about the case until now.
He pleaded not guilty. His conviction and sentence, announced in a statement comprising just a few characters, have come — probably by no coincidence — as Beijing’s formal relationship with Canberra has spiralled down to a frosty minimum.
It is possible — though will never be provable — that the extraordinary delay in sentencing Gilespie, after his case was heard 5½ years ago, has been politically driven, that he has been “warehoused” for an eventuality such as today’s diplomatic stand-off.
China’s courts are seldom open to the public. They are administered through the Communist Party’s legal and political affairs committees.
Zhou Qiang, the PRC’s Chief Justice, said three years ago that courts “must firmly resist the Western idea of constitutional democracy, separation of powers and judicial independence. These are erroneous Western notions that threaten the leadership of the ruling Communist Party and defame the Chinese socialist path on the rule of law. We have to raise our flag and show our sword to struggle against such thoughts.”
There are 62 Australians in Chinese jails, including writer Yang Hengjun, detained 18 months ago and denied access to a lawyer or family. When I checked with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2017, I was surprised to discover among 79 Australians imprisoned there, four had received the death sentence — but it had been suspended.
After a period of good behaviour, such suspended sentences are usually commuted to life.
Peter Gardner, an Australian/New Zealand citizen arrested at Guangzhou airport almost a year after Gilespie for having ice in his luggage, still awaits a verdict.
Amnesty International believes more people are executed annually in China than in the rest of the world put together — half for drugs offences. In 2009, China executed by injection the first person since 1951 with citizenship of a European country, Briton Akmal Shaikh, charged with trafficking 4kg of heroin.
In Gilespie’s case, his Guangzhou-based lawyer, Zou Jianhong, will appeal the verdict and sentence. If that is lost, the Supreme People’s Court will review the case before deciding whether to confirm the lower court decision.
Trials are rare in China. Those charged end up pleading guilty in the overwhelming majority of cases. Only the bravest lawyers are willing to run the professional, and sometimes personal, risk of challenging the authorities in court.
People who get into trouble in China, and their frightened families, are often advised to stay silent since publicity only makes matters worse and prevents quiet diplomacy weaving its magic.
This is an alluring thought, but in practice almost never works.
John Kamm, founder of an international organisation focused on helping Chinese detainees, has told me that speaking out on a case frequently and forcefully most likely won’t lead to quick release before the ritual of trial and sentencing, but can help ensure better treatment in detention, and in some cases help limit a sentence to the lower end of the range.
And, of course, our ministers and DFAT are right to stress that all death sentences, anywhere, are simply wrong.
Rowan Callick, twice China correspondent for The Australian, is an industry fellow with Griffith University’s Asia Institute
Trump and Zelensky both face setbacks after Oval Office blowup
The display of disunity in the White House meeting risks emboldening Russia’s Vladimir Putin in negotiations to end the war. The Ukrainian leader later arrived in London for a European summit.
Ten takeaways from the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office spat
Great television but poor diplomacy. Here’s a top ten list after the remarkable televised meeting in the Oval Office, and a prediction for JD Vance’s future.