Vancouverite Finally Free

Kevin Garratt hugging his wife Julia in Vancouver

We were relieved this morning to read the news that Vancouverite Kevin Garratt was released after spending two years in a Chinese jail on suspicion of spying.

The move comes soon after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Beijing earlier this month and raised the Garratt case with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and a week before Prime Minister Li Keqiang comes to Canada next week.

Earlier this week Garratt was formally sentenced and then released on bail. According to his family, he was deported from China yesterday and was back in Canada.

Garratt in front of the coffee shop at Dandong

In August 2014, Garratt and his wife Julia were detained in Dandong, a city near the Chinese border with North Korea where the couple had a cafe called Peter's Coffee Shop which they operated as part of a Christian aid mission.

Chinese officials later said they were being held on "suspicion of stealing and spying to obtain state secrets".

"Kevin Garratt and his wife... are suspected of collecting and stealing intelligence materials related to Chinese military targets and important Chinese national defence scientific research programs, and engaging in activities that endanger China's national security," the Foreign Ministry said in a short statement at the time.

Their son Simeon said in Vancouver at the time that the charges "sound ridiculous". "Military secrets? It sounds like something out of a movie or something. Those are the accusations, but I have no idea where they are coming from or how it even came about."

Justin Trudeau shakes hands with Xi Jinping earlier this month

There were also concerns that China's relationship with then Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasn't good, which made Garratt's situation harder to bring up and resolve.

Soon Julia Garratt was released on bail and allowed to leave China, but in January Chinese authorities announced Garratt would be tried on the charges. And now he's finally free.

He had originally said that God had told them to go to Dandong to spread Christianity into North Korea.

But after this two-year long wait and finally returning back to Canada, what's Garratt's next move?

Nevertheless, his release demonstrates Trudeau's ability to sway the Chinese, and scores the respect of Canadians for finally successfully dealing with this case which has been left idle for some time.

How Much did He Know?

Ling Wancheng (left) is the youngest brother of Ling Jihua (right)

There are conflicting reports on Ling Wancheng, younger brother of Ling Jihua, who was the former top aide to then Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Ling Jihua was expelled from the Communist Party of China last year and is expected to be tried for corruption and illegally obtaining state secrets. His career unraveled after his son was killed in a Ferrari crash in March 2012.

At the time it was strange that the crash was covered up almost immediately after it was initially reported because Ling Jihua reportedly mobilized staff from the Central Security Bureau to suppress reports of it and words like "Ferrari", "Little Ling" and "Prince Ling" were blocked.

Ling Jihua's son died in this fiery Ferrari crash in 2012

However eventually it was revealed that the 23-year-old man who died in the crash was Ling's son and questions arose as to how he was able to acquire such an expensive sports car. Even though Ling sough assistance from then powerful security czar Zhou Yongkang, both have lost politically, and the latter is now languishing in prison for the rest of his life.

Because Ling Jihua was so close to Hu, there were allegations that businessman Ling Wencheng defected to the United States and revealed state secrets to American intelligence officials. It is unclear how much information he would have known, but it is believed he profited handsomely from his family connections.

However, Ling Wancheng's lawyer has come out to deny revealing secrets like nuclear weapons codes and details about the Chinese leadership.

Ling Wancheng reportedly lives in this home in Sacramento

"My client frankly would like to be left alone so he can play more golf," said Washington lawyer Gregory Smith. "He is presently working on writing a book about golfing, and he hopes to share with others his golf secrets that literally can add 10-15 yards to anyone's drive off the tee."

Smith did not answer questions about whether Ling Wancheng was seeking asylum in the US.

There are also reports that top security official Meng Jianzhu had tried to negotiate Ling's return to China when he visited the US last September.

A book about golf, huh? We expect this upcoming tome to be a best seller...

Bagging the Big Tiger

Zhou Yongkang in court saying he will not appeal the verdict

Former security chief Zhou Yongkang's trial apparently came and went because a few hours ago it was announced he was handed a suspended life sentence -- ie life in prison.

The closed-door trial apparently began on May 22 at Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, and only now was it explained that the trial was not open to the public because "some evidence of his crimes involved state secrets".

It wasn't really surprising Zhou would be jailed for life, but seeing him with completely white hair was a shock. Depriving him and other arrested leaders of black hair dye really transforms them into remorseful looking creatures, unlike their power-trip days.

Zhou is the highest official to be arrested, put on trial and now in prison, and was convicted on many charges, including graft abuse of power, and intentionally leaking state secrets.

For abuse of power, he was given a seven-year sentence, and four for leaking state secrets.

When it came to taking bribes, the court revealed he and his family had taken 129.7 million yuan worth of bribes from Zhou's close allies.

There was the 731,100 yuan from Jiang Jiemin, former head of the state owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and former chairman of the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), where Zhou was the top official for a decade.

Then his son Zhou Bin and wife Jia Xiaoye also benefited handsomely, receiving 129 million yuan from other people, including a Sichuan businessman, a former mayor, and former party chief of a subsidiary of CNPC.

The court said Zhou had abused his power by asking Jiang and former Sichuan deputy party chief Li Chuncheng to funnel more than 2.13 billion yuan to his son and other businessmen. This was somehow calculated as a loss of 1.48 billion yuan to the Chinese economy.

Zhou also apparently had six classified documents, and gave five of them to a "qigong master", according to mainland media. Sounds like there will be more about this supposed master by the name of Cao Yongzheng.

The court spared Zhou the death penalty because it said he confessed to his crimes, pleaded guilty and apparently all the money taken has been accounted for and confiscated.

Really? Every single mao and fen were accounted for? Everyone must have squirreled it away and not spent it on anything, or perhaps they made so much money from that capital that it was easy to return the original amount...

Nevertheless, it's interesting how long Zhou has been in detention (since two years ago) and last July there was a formal announcement of an investigation into alleged abuse of power and corruption.

Now that the big tiger has been bagged, his associates are next. The chances of them being let go are very slim mainly because of their links with Zhou...

Free At Last

According to Dui Hua Foundation, Xue Feng has arrived home in Houston

Foreign media are reporting that Chinese-American geologist Xue Feng has been released and deported back to the United States, according to the Dui Hua Foundation.

If this is true, it will be a bitter sweet reunion for his family, who have been fighting for his release all this time. He was detained in China in November 2007, then formally detained in February 2008 and then tried in July 2009, then eventually sentenced in July 2010 for "illegally procuring state secrets", a vague charge.

The US government had lobbied hard for his release, and even when President Barack Obama visited Beijing and personally brought up the case, his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Xue's case was a difficult one, as China still insists on recognizing those who were born in China, but became naturalized citizens elsewhere as Chinese citizens. As a result, those returning to the mainland to do business are putting themselves at risk of being in trouble with the law -- even if they may not have done anything wrong, but China feels they have.

With regards to Xue's situation, he was working for an American consulting company and introduced the company to an oil industry database he thought was commercially available. The company bought the information and Xue was detained.

For weeks American embassy officials were not allowed to see him, and when they were finally able to, he told them of being mistreated and abused in prison, showing them cigarette burn marks on his arms.

Once one is charged with anything regarding state secrets, the defendant is pretty much doomed and then it's a matter of how severe the sentence will be. For Xue, he served all but 10 months of his eight-year sentence for good behaviour.

Dui Hua Foundation's executive director John Kamm said, "Dui Hua is delighted that Dr Xue has finally been reunited with his family in America after a terrible ordeal. The foundation wishes him every success as he rebuilds his life."

The family also released a statement asking for privacy so that "they can begin the process of recovery from this unimaginably horrible experience of torture, incarceration for a crime that was not committed, and the unconscionable trauma associated with their forced separation that he and his family have suffered for seven and a half years".

How does one begin to heal from an ordeal like that?

How does one get back that time lost from loved ones?

We hope Xue will heal with time and love from his family.

This is a terrible tale of caution where those who are lured back to the motherland must think twice about returning, with the Chinese government becoming more stringent on foreign competition, and having the freedom to deem anything as "state secrets".