Ending China’s hostage diplomacy

Just over a year ago, Chinese state security operatives pulled Michael Kovrig off a street in Beijing. A Canadian researcher and diplomat working for the International Crisis Group in China, Kovrig has been detained ever since.

For months on end, Kovrig, and fellow Canadian detainee Michael Spavor, have endured 6 to 8 hours of daily interrogation, constant surveillance, and lived under 24-hour artificial lighting. After such mental torture and sleep deprivation, both men now face dubious espionage charges and potentially years in prison.

At first glance, it may appear there is little Canada and other democracies can do in face of Beijing’s pressure. Academics, activists, publishers, and business people from Sweden, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and a host of others, are held in China under questionable charges. And with President Donald Trump actively undermining American commitments to multilateralism and the interests of its closest allies, it seems an impossible task to take on China’s economic heft and headstrong diplomacy.

Yet the world’s democracies are far from helpless in pushing back against China’s unwanted interference. DIIS senior researcher Luke Patey argues in Canada’s leading newspaper, The Globe and Mail, that Canada can rally together democracies facing similar mistreatment from China, such as Sweden and Australia, to end Beijing’s hostage diplomacy.