Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The court said the Canadian was the leader of a drug production and trafficking ring (file pic)
A court in China has sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for producing and trafficking methamphetamine.
Fan Wei is the second Canadian to be sentenced to death this year. Ten others, including five foreigners, were also sentenced on Tuesday.
Relations between Canada and China have been tense since the December arrest of a Huawei executive in Vancouver.
Canada has accused Beijing of arbitrarily applying the death penalty, and have requested clemency for Mr Fan.
In January, another Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, had a 15-year jail term increased to a death sentence – prompting condemnation from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Beijing rejected his comments, saying that Canada was practising “double standards”.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told journalists that Canada is “very concerned” by this latest death sentence.
“Canada stands firmly opposed to the death penalty everywhere around the world,” she said.
“We think that this is a cruel and inhumane punishment, which we think should not be used in any country. We are obviously particularly concerned when it is applied to Canadians.”
Global Affairs Canada said in a statement that the country “has raised our firm opposition to the death penalty with China, and will continue to do so”.
The diplomatic agency said representatives attended the 30 April verdict and sentencing trial for Mr Fan, and have called on China to grant clemency to him.
The latest case is likely to further inflame the months-long diplomatic row which started when Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Vancouver on the request of US authorities.
Two other Canadian citizens, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, are also being held by China and face accusations of harming national security.
The Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in southern Guangdong province said that Fan Wei was the leader of the drugs ring. Another suspect, Wu Ziping, whose nationality was not made clear, was also given a death sentence.
Nine others, including an American and four Mexicans, were given jail terms.
All were detained in 2012 and the trial took place in 2013.
Drug-dealing is punishable by death in China, and at least a dozen foreigners have been executed for drug-related offences. Many more are on death row.
However, the execution of Westerners is less common. One of the most high-profile cases involved British man Akmal Shaikh, who was executed in 2009 despite claims he was mentally ill and an appeal for clemency from the UK prime minister.
Are increasing diplomatic tensions behind tighter inspections and cancelled orders?
Farmers switch to other crops in bid to beat barriers
Canadian exporters of pork, soybeans and peas say they are facing delays and increased inspections at Chinese ports. Photo: Reuters
A growing list of Canadian farm exports is facing obstacles at Chinese ports, raising concerns that a bitter diplomatic dispute between the two countries may be to blame.
Sellers of Canadian soybeans and peas say they are experiencing unusual obstacles and Ottawa also warned last week that China was holding up pork shipments over paperwork issues.
China has already blocked Canadian canola from Richardson International and Viterra, two of Canada’s biggest farm exporters, saying that shipments had pests. Other China-bound canola cargoes have been cancelled, forcing exporters to re-sell elsewhere at discount.
Canadian politicians have said the concerns are baseless, and noted that China detained two Canadians after Canada arrested an executive of Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in December at the United States’ request. China has used non-tariff barriers before during diplomatic tensions, most recently against Australian coal.
China has already blocked canola from two of Canada’s biggest farm exporters, while other China-bound canola cargoes have been cancelled. Photo: AP
Increasing tensions with China, a top buyer for most Canadian farm commodities, have forced farmers to plant other crops, such as wheat, that they hope will not face barriers.
China bought US$2.01 billion worth of Canada’s canola and $381 million worth of its pork last year.
The spread of African swine fever through China’s pig herd has reduced China’s need for canola and soybeans to process into feed ingredients but, since January, port soybean inspections that routinely take a few days now require three weeks, causing Chinese buyers to avoid Canadian products, according to Dwight Gerling, president of Canadian exporter DG Global.
“They’re basically sending out the signal, ‘You buy from Canada, we’re going to make your life difficult,’” Gerling said.
Earlier this year, a Chinese buyer told Gerling that a government inspector had found ants in 34 containers (roughly 680 tonnes) of the Canadian soybeans he shipped there.
Such a finding would be rare, since the soybeans were stored in concrete silos in Canada and shipped in sealed containers in late autumn, said Gerling, who concluded the buyer was trying to avoid the new hassles of buying from Canada.
“It’s just them playing games. (Beijing) is just going to keep putting the screws to us,” he said.
China’s General Administration of Customs did not reply to a request for comment. Government officials have said their canola ban is a regular inspection and quarantine measure to protect China’s farm production and ecological safety.
In a statement, the Canadian agriculture department said it could not confirm that China had imposed stricter measures against farm goods other than canola. Ottawa said this month it hoped to send a delegation to China to discuss the issue.
Gerling’s company has halted soybean sales to China and found other buyers in Southeast Asia.
An official at a state-owned crusher in southern China confirmed that port inspections had tightened on Canadian soybean cargoes.
“We don’t have Canadian cargoes coming in as we can’t blatantly commit such wrongdoing when the atmosphere is so intense,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Soybeans from Canada are facing delays when they reach Chinese ports, according to traders. Photo: Reuters
Another official in northern China said his crushing plant scrapped plans to buy Canadian soybeans when the trade dispute flared.
Canada shipped $1.2 billion worth of soybeans to China in 2018, up sharply year over year, according to the Soy Canada industry group, as China and the United States fought a trade war. But sales have now slowed to a trickle.
Canola has taken the brunt of China’s measures.
Chinese buyers have cancelled at least 10 cargoes of Canadian canola in the past few weeks, according to a Singapore-based trader at a company that runs crushing facilities in China. Some cargoes, around 60,000 tonnes each, have been resold to buyers in Pakistan and Bangladesh at deep discounts, the trader said.
“It is devastating for exporters,” the trader said.
Canada gets tough with China on canola ban, demands contamination proof
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) canola futures fell to a more than four-year low on Tuesday as supplies piled up. Growers intend to sow the smallest crop in three years.
On Monday last week, Ottawa said some Canadian pork exporters used an outdated form to certify shipments to China, causing delays. Such issues arise regularly in commodity trading, but rarely with damaging consequences, said Canadian Pork Council spokesman Gary Stordy.
Canadian pea exporters fear they could be next. China imported C$533 million worth of Canadian peas in 2018, according to industry group Pulse Canada, but the pace has slowed.
Chinese authorities have begun scrutinising import documents and product samples more closely, according to Taimy Cruz, director of logistics at Toronto-based BroadGrain Commodities.
China Inspection and Quarantine Authorities now tests samples of each pea shipment before authorising it for import. They also restrict in some cases the number of soybean shipments allowed under one licence, slowing the flow, she said.
Similarly, import authorities now require soybean shipments that change vessels in Singapore and Shanghai – a routine practice called trans-shipping – to reach their destination on a single ship, she said.
While BroadGrain has not seen its cargoes turned back, it has reduced sales to China to avoid risk, concentrating on the Indian subcontinent and South America, she said.
“We have to be extra careful,” Cruz said. “They are very strict now.”
In European countries outside the EU, investment also dropped in 2018.
What and where is China investing?
A large proportion of Chinese direct investment, both state and private, is concentrated in the major economies, such as the UK, France and Germany combined, according to the Rhodium Group and Mercator Institute.
Analysis by Bloomberg last year said that China now owned, or had a stake in, four airports, six maritime ports and 13 professional soccer teams in Europe.
It estimated there had been 45% more investment activity in 30 European countries from China than from the US, since 2008.
And it said this was underestimating the true extent of Chinese activity.
For example, China is financing the expansion of the port of Piraeus in Greece and is building roads and railways in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia.
This could prove attractive to poorer Balkan and southern European countries, especially as demands for transparency and good governance can make EU funding appear less attractive.
Globally, China’s outward direct investment has slowed over the last year or two, after more than a decade of expansion.
“This is mainly the result of stricter controls on capital outflows from China, but also of a changing political environment globally concerning Chinese investment,” says Agatha Kratz of the Rhodium Group.
China’s global investment slows
The Trump administration is taking a tougher line towards China’s economic activities.
Governments elsewhere are more cautious – particularly when it comes to investment in sensitive areas of the economy, such as telecommunications and defence.
But there’s little doubt China is now a significant player in Europe, whether through direct investments or via the new Silk Road project.
Foreign lifestyle experiences are becoming more popular as citizens seek to escape pollution, food and medicine safety worries and authoritarian government controls
Citizens encountering more barriers to their dreams of travelling abroad, with severe limits on moving money overseas and restrictions on visiting foreign countries
Thailand, including the likes of Chiang Mai, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand are popular destinations for Chinese families. Photo: Shutteratock
Xu Zhangle and her husband and their two children are a typical middle-class couple from Shenzhen, and along with 60 other Chinese families, they are going on an extended holiday to Thailand in July, where they hope to enjoy an immigrant-like life experience.
The family have paid a travel agent around 50,000 yuan (US$7,473) for the stay in Chiang Mai in the mountainous north of the country, including transport, a three-week summer camp for their daughters at a local international school, rent for a serviced apartment and daily expenses.
Zhangle loves Chiang Mai’s relaxed lifestyle and easy atmosphere and wants to live as a local for a month or even longer, instead of having to rush through a short-term holiday.
“It would not be just [tourist] travelling but rather a life away from the mainland.” she said.
Recently, upper middle-class citizens have increased their efforts to safeguard their wealth and achieve more freedom by spending more time abroad.
They have invested considerable amounts of money in overseas properties and applied for long-stay visas, although many of their attempts have ended in failure.
Chinese citizens are encountering more barriers to their dreams of travelling abroad, with severe limits on moving money overseas and restrictions on visiting foreign countries.
Still, growing anxieties about air pollution, food and medicine safety and an increasingly authoritarian political climate are pushing middle class families to look for new ways to circumvent the obstacles so they can live outside China.
Among the options, there is growing demand for sojourns abroad of a month or more, to enjoy a foreign lifestyle for a brief period to make up for the fact that their emigration dreams may have stalled.
“I think this is becoming a trend. Chinese middle-class families are facing increasing difficulties to emigrate and own homes overseas. On the other hand, they still yearn for more freedom, for a better quality of life than what is found in first-tier cities in China.
They are eager to seek alternatives to give themselves and their children a global lifestyle,” said Cai Mingdong, founder of Zhejiang Newway, an online tour and education operator in Ningbo, south of Shanghai.
“First, the availability of multiple-entry tourist visas and the sharp drop in air ticket prices have made it convenient and practical to stay abroad for from a few weeks to up to three months each year.”
Blacklist labels millions of Chinese citizens and businesses untrustworthy
Now, many well-to-do Chinese middle class families can get a tourist visa for five or even 10 years that allows them to stay in a number of countries — including the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other Asian countries — for up to six months at a time.
“In 2011, a round-trip air ticket from Shanghai to New Zealand cost 14,000 yuan (US$2,000), but now is about 4,000 (US$598),” added Cai.
This opens up the possibility for many middle-class families who are not eligible to emigrate, to live abroad for short periods of time.
Many wealthy Chinese middle class families can get a tourist visa for five or even 10 years that allows them to stay in several countries including the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other Asian countries, for up to six months at a time. Photo: AP
Chinese tourists made more than 140 million trips outside the country in 2018, a 13.5 per cent increase from the previous year, spending an estimated US$120 billion, according to the China Tourism Academy, an official research institute under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
“In [the Thai cities of] Bangkok and Chiang Mai, there are more and more Chinese who stay there to experience the local lifestyle, which is different from theirs in China. The life there is very different from that in China,” said Owen Zhu, who now lives in the Bangkok condo he bought last year.
“The freedom, culture and community are diversified. The quality of air, food and services are much higher than in first-tier cities in China, but the prices are more affordable.
“In Bangkok, in many international apartment complexes where foreigners live, the monthly rent for a one-bedroom [apartment] is about 2,000 (US$298) to 3,000 yuan.”
China’s richest regions are also home to the most blacklisted firms
A one-bedroom apartment in Shenzhen in southern China is twice as expensive, with rents continuing to rise rapidly.
There are global goods, and it is easy to socialise with different people from around the world,” Zhu added
“Many Chinese people around me, really, come to Thailand to live for a while and go back to China, but then come back again after a few months.”
Both Cai and Zhu said they discovered the new phenomenon among China’s middle class and decided it was a business opportunity.
Growing anxieties about air pollution, food and medicine safety and an increasingly authoritarian political climate are pushing middle class families to look for new ways to circumvent the obstacles so they can live outside China. Photo: AP
Zhu is in the process of registering a company in Bangkok and plans to build an online platform to service the needs of Chinese citizens living abroad who do not own property or have immigration status, especially members of the LGBT community.
Cai said dozens of Chinese families in the Yangtze River Delta had paid him to send their children to schools in New Zealand or Europe for around three or four weeks in the middle of the school year, while the parents rent villas in the area, with New Zealand and Toronto in Canada among the most popular destinations.
Last year, Zheng Feng, a single mother and freelance writer from Beijing, rented a small villa in Australia for a month for them, a friend and their children to escape Beijing’s pollution and experience life overseas.
“To be honest, I don’t have enough money to invest in a property or a green card in Australia. But it’s very affordable for me and my son to pay about 30,000 yuan (US$4,484) to live abroad for one or two months.” Zheng said.
China says 2018 growth was worth more than Australia’s whole GDP
Zheng will join the Xu family in Chiang Mai later this year and she is also planning a similar trip to England next year.
Zheng’s friend, Alice Yu, invested in an American EB-5 investor visa a few years ago, and plans to make one or two month-long trips abroad each year until her family is finally able to move to the United States.
Demand for the EB-5 investor visa in China seems to be waning given heightened uncertainty about the future of the programme and US immigration law in general under US President Donald Trump.
Approval for the visa can now take up to 10 years, resulting in a huge backlog that has further dampened interest and led to a significant dip in investment inflows into the US from foreign individuals.
A one-bedroom apartment in Bangkok can cost around bout 2,000 (US$298) to 3,000 yuan a month. Photo: AFP
“Maybe it will soon become standard for a real Chinese middle-class family to have the time and money to enjoy a long stay at a countryside villa overseas,” said Yu.
“Regardless of whether we can get a long-term visa for the United States, I want my children grow up in a global lifestyle and with more freedom than just growing up on the mainland. So do all wealthy and middle class Chinese families, I think.”
Karen Gao’s son started studying at an international school in Chiang Mai in June, at the cost of about 70,000 yuan (US$10,462) a year, after she quit her job as a public relations manager in Shenzhen and moved to Thailand on a tourist visa.
For better or worse? China’s complicated employment explained
“A few months each year for good air, good food and no censorship and internet control, but cheaper living costs compared to Beijing, it sounds like a really good deal to go,” said Gao, who has now been offered a guardian visa to accompany her son, who has already been given a student visa.
“In Shenzhen, I wasn’t able to get him into school because I had no [local] residence permit.
“It would be the best choice for us because we feel so uncertain and worried about investing and living in the mainland.”
Last year, Gao, like thousands of other private investors mostly middle class people living in first-tier cities, suffered significant losses when their investments in hotels and inns in Dali, Yunnan province, were demolished amid the local government’s campaign to curb pollution and improve the environment around Lake Erhai.
“We were robbed by the officials without proper compensation,” Gao said.
The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a shiny spaceship-like structure that glistens in the afternoon sun.
With its accompanying skyscraper, it stands out in the Ethiopian capital.
Greetings in Mandarin welcome visitors as they enter the lifts, and the plastic palm trees bear the logos of the China Development Bank.
African Union HQ, Addis Ababa
Everywhere, there are small indications that the building was made possible through Chinese financial aid.
In 2006, Beijing pledged $200m to build the headquarters. Completed in 2012, everything was custom-built by the Chinese – including a state-of-the-art computer system.
For several years, the building stood as a proud testament to ever-closer ties between China and Africa. Trade has rocketed over the past two decades, growing by about 20% a year, according to international consultancy McKinsey. China is Africa’s largest economic partner.
But in January 2018, French newspaper Le Monde Afrique dropped a bombshell.
It reported that the AU’s computer system had been compromised.
The newspaper, citing multiple sources, said that for five years, between the hours of midnight and 0200, data from the AU’s servers was transferred more than 8,000km away – to servers in Shanghai.
This had allegedly continued for 1,825 days in a row.
Le Monde Afrique reported that it had come to light in 2017, when a conscientious scientist working for the AU recorded an unusually high amount of computer activity on its servers during hours when the offices would have been deserted.
It was also reported that microphones and listening devices had been discovered in the walls and desks of the building, following a sweep for bugs.
The reaction was swift.
Both AU and Chinese officials publicly condemned the report as false and sensationalist – an attempt by the Western media to damage relations between a more assertive China and an increasingly independent Africa.
But Le Monde Afrique said that AU officials had privately expressed concerns about just how dependent they were on Chinese aid – and what the consequences of that could be.
In the midst of all of this, one fact remained largely unreported.
The main supplier of information and communication technology systems to the AU headquarters was China’s best-known telecoms equipment company – Huawei.
The company says it had “nothing” to do with any alleged breach.
Huawei “served as the key ICT provider inside the AU’s headquarters”, said Danielle Cave of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in a review of the alleged incident.
Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China
“This doesn’t mean the company was complicit in any theft of data. But… it’s hard to see how – given Huawei’s role in providing equipment and key ICT services to the AU building and specifically to the AU’s data centre – the company could have remained completely unaware of the apparent theft of large amounts of data, every day, for five years.”
There is no evidence to indicate that Huawei’s telecoms network equipment was ever used by the Chinese government – or anyone else – to gain access to the data of their customers.
Indeed, no-one has ever gone on record to confirm that the AU system was compromised in the first place.
But these reports played into years of suspicions about Huawei – that a large Chinese company might find itself unduly influenced by the Chinese government.
Ren and the rise of Huawei
“When I first started out 30 years ago… we didn’t really have any telephones. The only phones we had were those hand-cranked phones that you see in old World War II films. We were pretty undeveloped then.”
Huawei’s founder and chairman Ren Zhengfei is reminiscing to the BBC about the origins of the world’s second-biggest smartphone firm, while sitting in the Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen – a symbol of the success that he’s worked his whole lifetime for.
A long marbled staircase, covered in plush red carpet, greets you as you first walk in.
At the top of the stairs, a giant painting depicts a traditional Chinese New Year scene.
Inside Huawei’s Shenzhen HQ
A few kilometres away in Dongguan, Huawei’s latest campus is even more eye-catching.
The site – designed to accommodate the company’s 25,000 R&D staff – comprises 12 “villages”, each of which recreates the architecture of a different European city, among them Paris, Bologna and Granada.
It’s as if Silicon Valley had been re-imagined by Walt Disney. Long corridors of Roman pillars and picturesque French cafes adorn the campus, with a train connecting the different areas, running through manicured gardens and past an artificial lake.
It’s a world away from the environment that Mr Ren found himself in when he first started the company in 1987. “I founded Huawei when China began to implement its reform and opening up policy,” he says. “At that time, China was shifting from a planned economy to a market economy. Not only people like myself, but even the most senior government officials, did not have the vaguest idea of what a market economy was. It seemed it was hard to survive.”
Ren was born in 1944 in Southern China – a tumultuous, chaotic place, one of the poorest regions in an already destitute country.
For a long time, hardship was all he ever knew.
He was from a family of seven children. “They were very poor,” says David De Cremer, who has co-written a book on Ren and Huawei.
“I think hardship is something that you can see throughout his life, and which he keeps emphasising himself.”
To escape that life of poverty and drudgery, Ren did what many young Chinese men of that era did. He joined the army.
Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army, 1972
“I was a very low-ranking officer in the People’s Liberation Army,” he says. “I served in an ordinary construction project, not a field unit. At the time, I was a technician of a company in the military, and then I became an engineer.”
He left the military in 1983 when China began to downsize its forces, and went into the electronics business.
By his own admission, he wasn’t a great businessman at first.
“I was someone who had been in the military all my life at the time, used to doing what I was told,” he says. “Suddenly, I began to work in a market economy. I was at a total loss. So I too suffered losses, I too was deceived, and I was cheated.”
But he was quick to learn, and was a keen student of Western business practices and European history.
“I did research on what exactly a market economy was all about,” he says. “I read books on laws, including those about European and US laws. At that time, there were very few books on Chinese laws, and I had to read those on European and US laws.”
Five years later, he founded Huawei – the name can be translated as “splendid achievement” or “China is able” – to sell simple telecoms equipment to the rural Chinese market. Within a few years, Huawei was developing and producing the equipment itself.
Sometime in the early 90s, Huawei won a government contract to provide telecoms equipment for the People’s Liberation Army.
By 1995, the company was generating sales of around US$220,000, mainly from selling to the rural market.
The following year Huawei was given the status of a Chinese “national champion”. In practice, this meant the government closed the market to foreign competition.
At a time when China’s economy was growing by an average of 10% per year, this was no small advantage. But it was only when Huawei started to expand overseas in 2000, that it really saw its sales soar.
In 2002, Huawei made US$552m from its international market sales. By 2005 its international market contracts exceeded its domestic business for the first time.
Ren’s early days in business instilled in him a desire to protect his company from the whims and fancies of the stock market. Huawei is privately held and employee-owned. This gave Ren the power to plough more money back into research and development. Each year, Huawei spends US$20bn on R&D – one of the biggest such budgets in the world.
“Publicly listed companies have to pay a lot of attention to their balance sheets,” he says. “They can’t invest too much, otherwise profits will drop and so will their share prices. At Huawei, we fight for our ideals. We know that if we fertilise our ‘soil’ it will become more bountiful. That’s how we’ve managed to pull ahead and succeed.”
One story from the early days of the company tells how Ren was cooking for his staff (he loves to cook, or so the story goes). Suddenly he rushed out of the kitchen and announced to the room: “Huawei will be a top three player in the global communications market 20 years from now!”
And that’s exactly what happened. In fact, those ambitions were surpassed.
Today, Huawei is the world’s biggest seller of network telecommunications equipment.
From aspiring to be a company like Apple, it now sells more smartphones than Apple.
But shadows have continued to loom over Huawei’s international success.
Ren and Huawei’s links to the Chinese Communist Party have raised suspicions that the company owes its meteoric rise to its powerful political connections in China. The US has accused Huawei of being a tool of the Chinese government.
It’s an accusation which Ren denies. “Please don’t think that Huawei has become what it is today because we have special connections,” he says. “Even 100% state-owned companies have failed. Do good connections mean you will succeed then? Huawei’s success is still very much due to our hard work.”
The case against
It was 1 December 2018. US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping were dining on grilled sirloin followed by caramel rolled pancakes at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
They had a lot to discuss. The US and China were in the middle of a trade war – imposing tariffs on each other’s goods – and growth forecasts for both countries had recently been cut as a result. This was adding to the fear of a slowing global economy.
In the event, the two leaders agreed a truce in the trade war, with Donald Trump tweeting that “Relations with China have taken a BIG leap forward!”
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at dinner, December 2018
But thousands of kilometres north in Canada, an arrest was taking place that would throw doubt on this rapprochement.
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and Ren Zhengfei’s eldest daughter, had been detained by Canadian officials while transferring between flights at Vancouver airport.
The arrest had come at the request of the US, who accused her of breaking sanctions against Iran.
“When she was detained, as her father, my heart broke,” says Ren, visibly emotional. “How could I watch my child suffer like this? But what happened, has happened. We can only depend on the law to solve this problem.”
Meng Wanzhou being driven to court in Canada
Huawei’s problems were just beginning. Nearly two months later, the US Department of Justice filed two indictments against Huawei and Ms Meng.
Under the first indictment, Huawei and Ms Meng were charged with misleading banks and the US government about their business in Iran.
The second indictment – against Huawei – involved criminal charges including obstruction of justice and the attempted theft of trade secrets.
Both Huawei and Ms Meng deny the charges.
January 2019: Acting US attorney general Matthew Whittaker announces charges against Huawei and Meng Wanzhou
The charge of stealing trade secrets centres on a robotic tool – developed by T-Mobile – known as Tappy.
According to legal documents, Huawei had tried to buy Tappy, a device which mimicked human fingers by tapping mobile phone screens rapidly to test responsiveness.
T-Mobile was in partnership with Huawei at the time, but it rebuffed the Chinese firm’s offers, fearing it would use the technology to make phones for T-Mobile’s competitors.
It’s alleged that one of Huawei’s US employees then smuggled Tappy’s robotic arm into his satchel so that he could send its details to colleagues in China.
After the alleged theft was discovered, the Huawei employee claimed that the arm had mistakenly fallen into his bag.
Huawei claimed that the employee had been acting alone, and the case was settled out of court in 2014. But the latest case is built on email trails between managers in China and the company’s US employees, linking Huawei management to the alleged theft.
The indictment also details evidence of a bonus scheme from 2013, offering Huawei employees financial rewards for stealing confidential information from competitors.
Huawei has denied any such scheme exists.
Meng Wanzhou, photographed in 2014
This is not the first time that Huawei has been accused of stealing trade secrets. Over the years companies like Cisco, Nortel and Motorola have all pointed the finger at the Chinese firm.
But US fears about Huawei are about much more than industrial espionage. For more than a decade, the US government has seen the company as little more than an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
These concerns have been brought to the fore with the advent of “fifth generation” or 5G mobile internet, which promises download speeds 10 or 20 times faster than at present, and much greater connectivity between devices.
As the world’s biggest telecoms infrastructure provider, Huawei is one of the companies best placed to build new 5G networks. But the US has warned its intelligence partners that awarding contracts to Huawei would be tantamount to allowing the Chinese spy on them.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently cautioned against Huawei, saying, “If a country adopts this and puts it in some of their critical information systems, we won’t be able to share information with them.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
The UK, Germany and Canada are reviewing whether Huawei’s products pose a security threat.
Australia went a step further last year, and banned equipment suppliers “likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government”.
Huawei was not mentioned by name, but Danielle Cave of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says the company posed a national security risk because of its government links.
She cites an article in Chinese law that makes it impossible for any company to refuse to help the Chinese Communist Party in intelligence gathering.
“Admittedly, what is missing from this debate is the smoking gun,” she says.
“For the average person who has a Huawei smartphone it’s not a big deal. But if you’re a Western government that has key national security to protect – why would you allow this access to a company that is in the political system that China is in?”
For his part, Ren says that Huawei’s resources have never and would never be used to spy for the Chinese government.
“The Chinese government has clearly said that it won’t ask companies to install backdoors,” he says. A “backdoor” is a term used to describe a secret entry point in software or a computer system that gives access to the person or entity who installed it to the inner workings of the system.
“Huawei will not do it either,” he continues. “Our sales revenues are now hundreds of billions of dollars. We are not going to risk the disgust of our country and our customers all over the world because of something like that. We will lose all our business. I’m not going to take that risk.”
Xi’s China
Zhou Daiqi is Huawei’s chief ethics and compliance officer.
He’s been with the company for nearly 25 years, in a number of different positions – chief engineer, director of the hardware department, head of the research centre in Xi’an, according to his biography on the company’s website. He is also understood to combine his high-ranking executive duties with another role – party secretary of Huawei’s Communist Party committee.
All companies in China are required by law to have a Communist Party committee.
Zhou Daiqi’s profile on Huawei’s website
The official line is that they exist to ensure that employees uphold the country’s moral and social values. Representatives of the committee are also often tasked with helping workers with financial problems.
But critics of China’s one-party system argue that they allow the state to exert control on corporate China. And they say the level of this control has increased in recent years.
“[President] Xi Jinping is exerting greater control over the business community in China,” says Elliott Zaagman, who regularly advises Chinese companies on their PR strategy. “As these companies gain power and influence overseas, the party doesn’t want to lose control over them.”
Ren, however, argues that the role of Huawei’s Communist Party committee is far less important than many in the West believe.
“[It] serves only to educate its employees,” he says. “It is not involved in any business decisions.”
In China, most chief executives are Communist Party members.
Every year, they dutifully turn up to the National People’s Congress along with local and national party chiefs, officials and chief executives.
It’s where the big economic decisions are voted on – although no proposal is put forward which hasn’t already been agreed upon.
Still, big CEOs come to show their commitment to the party, and to contribute to working papers that are meant to help the government understand the concerns of the business community.
Being a member of the party is very much a networking opportunity – in the way one would join a business association.
Elliott Zaagman argues that this is a system that demands loyalty.
“There is no separation from the party and the state,” he says.
“The system in China encourages the lack of transparency in companies like Huawei.”
The worry is that these close links mean that if the Communist Party asked a company to do something, they would have no choice but to comply.
And if that company is one that is involved in sensitive global telecoms infrastructure projects, it’s easy to see why Western observers would be worried.
There is no evidence to indicate that Huawei is in any way under the orders of the Chinese government, or that Beijing has any plans to dictate business plans and strategy at Huawei – particularly when it comes to spying.
But the way in which the Chinese Communist Party has robustly defended Huawei has raised questions about how independent the company is of its influence.
For example, Beijing stated that Ms Meng’s detention was a rights abuse .
And while her extradition case to the US was moving forward, China detained two Canadian citizens and accused them of stealing state secrets. Critics say the detentions are linked to Ms Meng’s arrest.
December 2018: Chinese police patrol outside Canada’s embassy in Beijing
While not commenting on the arrest of the Canadians, Ren says China’s defence of Huawei is understandable.
“It is the Chinese government’s duty to protect its people,” he says. “If the US attempts to gain competitive edge by undermining China’s most outstanding hi-tech talent, then it is understandable if the Chinese government, in turn, protects its hi-tech companies.”
Over the past few years, there have been signs of a bigger push by the government to get private companies, and in particular tech firms, to cooperate with party rules – even when they are firmly resistant.
A Didi Chuxing logo adorns a building in Hangzhou, China
China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing’s troubles are an example of the struggles Chinese firms face when they try to uphold their independence in the face of government pressure.
Chinese attitudes to data collection and data privacy are different to those in the West – many people don’t care if businesses have access to their data, arguing that it adds to the convenience of life and work.
Government access to data in China is not the free-for-all that many outside of China assume it to be
Samm Sacks, CSIS
So it wasn’t unusual when, after the murders of two of its passengers by Didi drivers, regulators used the scandal to force Didi to share more corporate data with the government. But Didi resisted – citing customer privacy. Under Chinese law, it had no choice but to comply.
When it did, it handed over “three boxes of data printed on paper, including 95 hard copies for authorities to review”.
According to Samm Sacks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the case demonstrates that “government access to data in China is not the free-for-all that many outside China assume it to be”.
She says this indicates that there appears to be “a kind of tug of war between the government and companies over data”.
How this plays out will determine how Chinese companies are viewed by foreign governments when they do business overseas.
Companies like Huawei have grown up in a system where to survive and thrive they needed strong links to the Chinese government – there was and is no other choice. But these links could harm their reputation abroad.
“It’s two different systems,” says Zaagman. “Think of it like an electrical outlet. China’s plug doesn’t fit in to the outlets we have in the West.”
What’s at stake
“Basically you want to connect to everything that can be connected.”
Zhu Peiying, head of Huawei’s 5G wireless labs, is showing off devices that can connect to the new technology. From a smart toothbrush that collects data about how well you brush your teeth, to a smart cup that reminds you when you should drink some water, this is a world where everything you can think of is being measured and analysed.
At its most sophisticated, everything in entire cities would be connected – driverless cars, the temperature of buildings, the speed of public transport – the list is endless.
Huawei is thought to be a year ahead of its competitors in terms of its technological expertise and what it can offer customers, according to industry sources.
It’s also thought that the company can offer prices that are about 10% cheaper than its competitors, although critics claim this is because of state support.
Ren dismisses this, saying that Huawei doesn’t receive government subsidies.
He says the real reason behind the US resistance to Huawei is its superior technology.
“There’s no way the US can crush us,” he says. “The world needs Huawei because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily we could just scale things down a bit.”
Many analysts say that Huawei’s exclusion from US networks could actually cause the US to fall behind in its 5G capabilities.
“It would mean we wouldn’t be able to participate in any blended network [using Huawei] in Europe or Asia,” says Samm Sacks of CSIS. “That would put us at a significant disadvantage.”
What this would mean in reality is a world of two internets – or what analysts are calling a “digital iron curtain” – dividing the world into parts that do business with Chinese companies like Huawei, and those that don’t.
Because of US pressure on its allies, Huawei has been on an aggressive public relations campaign to win over customers and government stakeholders.
In recent days, Vodafone’s boss Nick Read called on the US to share any evidence it has about Huawei, while Andrus Ansip, the European Commission’s vice president for the digital single market, said in a tweet that he had met with Huawei’s rotating CEO to discuss the importance of being open and transparent, as they explored ways of working together.
But suspicions about Huawei remain.
One security firm reports a sharp rise in inquiries by Asian government clients about Huawei.
“Some have asked us how much they should worry about whether Huawei is really a liability,” says an analyst who consults to Asian governments, on condition of anonymity.
Ren is sanguine about such concerns.
“For countries who believe in them [suspicions about Huawei] we will hold off,” he says. “For countries who feel Huawei is trustworthy, we may move a little faster. The world is so big. We can’t walk across every corner of it.”
But this is about more than just one company or one CEO and his family.
Increasingly, this is perceived as a battle between two world orders, and which one is the future.
In the early days of China opening up, US presidents like George HW Bush espoused the merits of engagement.
“No nation on Earth has discovered a way to import the world’s goods and services while stopping foreign ideas at the border,” he said in a 1991 speech. “Just as the democratic idea has transformed nations on every continent, so, too, change will inevitably come to China.”
1989: George HW Bush in Beijing – he encouraged economic engagement with China
Previous US administrations believed that economic engagement in China would lead to China following a freer, more “liberal” path.
There’s no denying China has made remarkable strides in the past 40 years. The economy grew by an annual average of 10% for three decades, helping to lift 800 million people out of poverty. It is now the second-largest economy in the world, only surpassed by the US.
Some estimates put China’s economy ahead of America’s by 2030.
It achieved this while maintaining one-party rule and the supremacy of the Communist Party.
But its success has raised concerns that it is only possible with a huge amount of government control over the country’s companies. The fear is that control could be used to achieve the Communist Party’s goals – which are at this point unclear.
“It’s a double-edged sword for China,” says Danielle Cave. “[Because of its laws] the Chinese Communist Party has made it virtually impossible for Chinese companies to expand without attracting understandable and legitimate suspicion.”
Added to this, China has become more authoritarian under Xi Jinping’s rule.
President Xi Jinping
“Xi is systematically undermining virtually every feature that made China so distinct and helped it work so well in the past,” writes Jonathan Tepperman, editor in chief of Foreign Policy.
“His efforts may boost his own power and prestige in the short term and reduce some forms of corruption. On balance, however, Xi’s campaign will have disastrous long-term consequences for his country and the world.”
But Ren dismisses this, insisting that China is more open than ever before.
“If this meeting took place 30 years ago,” he says of our interview, “it would have been very dangerous for me. Today, I can be straightforward when answering difficult questions. This shows that China has a more open political environment.”
Still, Ren is hopeful of the direction China will take in the future.
“China has more or less tried to close itself off from the outside world for 5,000 years,” he says. “Yet we had found ourselves poor, lagging behind other nations. It was only in the past 30 years since Deng Xiaoping opened China’s doors to the world that China has become more prosperous. Therefore, China must continue to move forward on the path of reform and opening-up.”
In one of Huawei’s vast campus sites across Shenzen, lies a man-made lake. Swimming in these serene waters are two black swans.
There is a story that Ren put the birds here to remind employees of “black swan” events – unpredictable and catastrophic financial eventualities that are impossible to prepare for. He dismisses this as an urban myth, but it’s hard not to read something into it.
For Huawei, and Ren, these are highly uncertain times with no way of telling what lies ahead.
China has attacked Ms Meng’s arrest and the extradition process as a “political incident”. She denies all the charges against her.
What does Ms Meng’s lawsuit say?
Ms Meng’s claim – filed in British Columbia’s Supreme Court on Friday – seeks damages against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the federal government for allegedly breaching her civil rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
She says CBSA officers held, searched and questioned her at the airport under false pretences before she was arrested by the RCMP.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage caption Ms Meng has a property in Vancouver and is currently out on bail
Her detention was “unlawful” and “arbitrary”, the suit says, and officers “intentionally failed to advise her of the true reasons for her detention, her right to counsel, and her right to silence”.
Where are we in the extradition process?
Ms Meng, 47, will next appear in court on Wednesday, when it will be confirmed that Canada has issued a legal writ over her extradition to the US. A date for an extradition hearing will be set.
But this is still the early stages. A judge must authorise her committal for extradition and the justice minister would then decide whether to surrender her to the US.
There will be chances for appeal and some cases have dragged on for years.
The Meng Wanzhou case – how did we get here?
1 December: Ms Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, is arrested while changing planes at Vancouver airport
7 December: Ms Meng first appears in court in Vancouver, where it is revealed she is accused of breaking US sanctions on Iran. China demands her release
10 December: Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are arrested in China
11 December: Ms Meng is released on bail
28 January: US formally charges Ms Meng with fraud and Huawei with circumventing US sanctions on Iran and stealing technology from T Mobile
2 March: Canada says Ms Meng’s extradition can move forward but the process is expected to be long
What is Huawei accused of?
The US alleges Huawei misled the US and a global bank about its relationship with two subsidiaries, Huawei Device USA and Skycom Tech, to conduct business with Iran.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has reinstated all sanctions on Iran removed under a 2015 nuclear deal and recently imposed even stricter measures, hitting oil exports, shipping and banks.
It also alleges Huawei stole technology from T Mobile used to test smartphone durability, as well as obstructing justice and committing wire fraud.
In all, the US has laid 23 charges against the company.
Some Western nations are reviewing business with the firm over spying concerns, although Huawei has always maintained it acts independently.
How has China reacted?
Media caption – Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei on the arrest of his daughter
The arrest has seriously strained relations between China, and the US and Canada.
Beijing says it is an “abuse of the bilateral extradition treaty” between Canada and the US, and has expressed its “resolute opposition” and “strong dissatisfaction” with the proceedings.
China also says the accusations against Huawei, the world’s second biggest smartphone maker by volume, are a “witch-hunt”.
Two Canadian citizens are thought to have been detained in China in retaliation for the arrest.
China and the US are also engaged in tough trade negotiations to end a major tariff dispute.
PM Modi said that he told him ‘let us fight against poverty and illiteracy’ and Khan gave his word saying he is a Pathan’s son, ‘but went back on it’.
SNS Web | New Delhi | February 25, 2019 10:53 am
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday asked his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to “give peace a chance” and assured him that he “stands by” his words and will “immediately act” if New Delhi provides Islamabad with “actionable intelligence” on the Pulwama attack.
Khan’s remarks came a day after PM Modi in a rally in Rajasthan, recalled his conversation with the Pakistan PM during a congratulatory call after he became the country’s premier.
PM Modi had told him “let us fight against poverty and illiteracy” and Khan gave his word saying he is a Pathan’s son “but went back on it”.
“There is consensus in the entire world against terrorism. We are moving ahead with strength to punish the perpetrators of terrorism…The scores will be settled this time, settled for good…This is a changed India, this pain will not be tolerated…We know how to crush terrorism,” PM Modi further said.
A statement released by the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Office said, “PM Imran Khan stand by his words that if India gives us actionable intelligence, we will immediately act.”
PM Modi should “give peace a chance”, Khan said in the statement.
In his first statement issued since the February 14 attack, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had on Tuesday accused India of blaming his country “without evidence” and warned of retaliation against any military action by India.
However, he assured India that he would act against the perpetrators of the deadly Pulwama terror attack, carried out by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror group and said that the issue between the two countries can be solved through dialogue.
India had called Khan’s offer to investigate the attack if provided proof as a “lame excuse”.
The already sour relations between India and Pakistan have worsened over the past few weeks as New Delhi accused Islamabad of the Pulwama attack.
India has accused Islamabad’s spy agency ISI of being involved in the attack and has maintained that the terror group JeM is a “child of the Pakistan Army”.
Following the attack, India immediately withdrew the ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status granted to Pakistan and initiated steps to isolate the neighbouring country from the international community.
Earlier, India had also announced its decision to stop the flow of its share of water from the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej to Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in many of his public speeches after the attack, said that the security forces have been given full freedom to decide the future course of action regarding the terrorist attack in Pulwama.
India’s neighbours, including Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan—and other countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Russia, Germany, Canada, UK, Australia and Canada came out in strong support of New Delhi following the terror attack.
Over 44 CRPF personnel were killed and many injured on February 14 in one of the deadliest terror strikes in Jammu-Kashmir when a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) suicide bomber blew up an explosive-laden vehicle near their bus in Pulwama district.
The bus was part of a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying around 2500 CRPF personnel from Jammu to Srinagar.
In a statement, the Canadian prime minister said: “Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallum’s resignation as Canada’s ambassador to China.”
The veteran diplomat, Mr Trudeau added, had served Canadians honourably and with distinction with many positions in cabinet.
He also thanked the diplomat and his family for their service.
What about the ambassador’s remarks?
Mr McCallum caused controversy on Tuesday when he publicly argued that the US extradition request for Ms Meng was seriously flawed.
The next day he issued a statement saying that he “misspoke” and regretted that his comments had created “confusion”.
But on Friday he was quoted as saying it would be “great for Canada” if the US dropped the request.
Mr McCallum was appointed Canada’s ambassador to China in 2017, stepping down as the immigration minister.
Canadian media say he was eager to take over the posting because of his strong personal connection to China.
Mr McCallum’s wife is ethnically Chinese, and he had a large Chinese-Canadian population in his former constituency in Ontario.
Mr McCallum also served as Canada’s defence minister in 2002-03.
What’s the latest on Meng Wanzhou’s case?
She was arrested on 1 December in Canada’s western city of Vancouver at the request of the US.
She was later granted a C$10m (£5.7m; $7.6m) bail by a local court. But she is under surveillance 24 hours a day and must wear an electronic ankle tag.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionMeng Wanzhou denies all the allegations against her
Earlier this month, US officials confirmed they planned to pursue the extradition of Ms Wanzhou.
Washington has 60 days to file a formal demand for extradition, a deadline that will be reached 30 January.
Following Schellenberg’s death sentence, Canada has updated its travel advice for China, urging citizens to “exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws”.
Schellenberg’s aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones said the death sentence was “a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation”.
“It is our worst case fear confirmed,” she added. “It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the ruling.
“It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty,” he said in a statement.
China’s foreign ministry said it was “strongly dissatisfied” with Mr Trudeau’s remarks, and said Canada should respect China’s sovereignty.
Schellenberg has 10 days to launch an appeal and his lawyer told Reuters news agency that he would probably do so.
What is Schellenberg’s case about?
The Canadian, who is believed to be 36, was arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November but, following an appeal, a high court in the north-eastern city of Dalian on Monday sentenced him to death.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe court in north-eastern China where Schellenberg’s case was reviewed
“I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist,” Schellenberg said just before the verdict was announced, the AFP news agency reports.
China is believed to execute more people annually than any other country, but is highly secretive about the number.
Human rights group Amnesty International puts the figure in the thousands – more than the rest of the world’s nations put together.
A number of foreigners have been executed for drug-related offenses in the past, including British man Akmal Shaikh, who was executed in 2009 despite claims he was mentally ill, and an appeal for clemency from the UK prime minister.
What’s the bigger picture?
Relations between China and Canada have deteriorated rapidly since the arrest of Ms Meng in Vancouver on 1 December.
She was granted bail by a Canadian court several days later but remains under constant surveillance and must wear an electronic ankle tag.
Ms Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, is accused in the US of using a subsidiary of the company called Skycom to evade sanctions on Iran between 2009 and 2014.
She denies any wrongdoing and says she will contest the allegations.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionMeng Wanzhou is the daughter of Huawei’s founder
In the weeks that followed her arrest China detained two other Canadian citizens.
Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor face accusations of harming national security.
China has denied the detention of the two men is tied to Ms Meng’s arrest, but many analysts believe it is a tit-for-tat action.
Donald Clarke, a specialist in Chinese law at George Washington University, said that Schellenberg’s death sentence appeared to be “an unprecedented step in China’s diplomacy”.
“I have seen cases I considered unjust before, but I cannot recall a previous case that looked so clearly unconnected to the defendant’s guilt or innocence,” Prof Clarke told the BBC’s Chinese service.
China began working hard to push Schellenberg’s case to international prominence, taking the highly unusual step of inviting foreign journalists into the court, the BBC’s John Sudworth in Beijing reports.
And despite the Canadian’s insistence that he is innocent, his retrial lasted just a day, with his death sentence being announced barely an hour after its conclusion, our correspondent says.
“The trial will also send the message that China won’t yield to outside pressure in implementing its law,” it said.
However, back in December, the editor of the Global Times warned that China would “definitely take retaliatory measures against Canada” if Ms Meng were not released.
Hu Xijin said in a video posted on the Global Times website: “If Canada extradites Meng to the US, China’s revenge will be far worse than detaining a Canadian.”
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top prosecutor said on Thursday that two Canadians detained after Canada arrested a Chinese technology company executive had “without a doubt” violated the law.
Authorities in Beijing had previously said the two men, Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, and businessman Michael Spavor, were suspected of endangering state security.
“Without a doubt, these two Canadian citizens in China violated our country’s laws and regulations, and are currently undergoing investigation according to procedure,” Zhang Jun, China’s prosecutor general, said.
Zhang said the investigation process had been handled “strictly” according to law when asked by Reuters at a briefing when the two men might be charged. He did not elaborate.
The two were detained after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1 in Vancouver, at the request of the United States.
U.S. prosecutors have accused her of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating sanctions.
The Chinese government has only given vague details about the detention of the two Canadians, and it has not drawn a direct link to Meng’s arrest. It has demanded that Canada free her and threatened unspecified consequences if it does not.
Canada has said several times it saw no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor.
But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they have no doubt the cases are linked.
Canada has said the detentions are unacceptable and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said China should free the men.
Under Chinese criminal procedure law, special forms of detention and interrogation can be used for state security suspects.
China touts the rule of law, but its judicial system is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party.
Rights groups say conditions in Chinese detention facilities are often basic and can be harsh, with lack of legal representation and due process compounding worries about treatment.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
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