Gui Minhai is a Swedish citizen, who was a Hong Kong publisher and owner of a bookstore, Mighty Current, that sold political books that were banned by the Communist Party of China (CPC). On Oct 17, 2015 Mr Gui was abducted from his country home in Thailand. Cameras in the building he lived in show that he was taken away by two Chinese-speaking men, believed to be agents from the CPC's security service. The abduction was denied by Chinese authorities and ignored by Thailand.
In January 2016, Mr Gui appeared on Chinese state-controlled TV (CCTV) where he was forced to say that he had handed himself over to the Chinese for a traffic crime in Sweden he had committed over a decade ago.
For two years Mr Gui has been denied legal counsel. No trial has been conducted in China, and visits from family members have been denied. In October 2018, Mr Gui was "released", but was kept under strict surveillance in an apartment in his birth city of Ningbo, unable to leave China.
Three months after the "release", Mr Gui was abducted once again. About 10 plainclothes government agents kidnapped him in front of two senior Swedish diplomats who were accompanying him on a train journey to Beijing. Shortly thereafter, Mr Gui appeared in Chinese state media "confessing" to crimes for a second time since his initial abduction in 2015.
Like the hundreds of other Chinese prisoners who are forced to "confess" on television, he was reciting a state-produced manuscript. In the later confession, Mr Gui was forced to reject all efforts made by the government of Sweden to secure his release, telling both the Swedish government and his family to "respect his wish" to remain in China. Currently no one knows his whereabouts.
The rule of law is the best defence against human rights abuses. However, the rule of law is a contested concept and its meaning can vary between nations and different legal traditions. Generally, however, it can be understood as a legal-political system under which the law restrains the government by promoting certain liberties and creating order and predictability in how a country is being governed. In the most basic sense, and what most countries say that they want to achieve with the rule of law, is a system that attempts to protect the rights of citizens from arbitrary and abusive use of government power.
This is also what China says it wants to achieve with its rule of law and human rights. China has, in recent times, put much effort in explaining what the rule of law is for China and what implications it has for the rest of the world.
In 2014, the 4th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party adopted, for the first time, the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Advancing the Rule of Law, making a major strategic plan to comprehensively advance the rule of law as part of its efforts to modernise the state governance system and enhance its administrative capacity. The resolution emphasises the need to "provide stronger judicial protection of human rights" and to "strengthen awareness throughout the whole society about the need to respect and safeguard human rights".
In 2017, the CPC's 19th National Congress adopted Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding ideology of the CPC. In doing so, it was clearly provided that the Party should "strengthen legal protection for human rights to ensure that the people enjoy extensive rights and freedoms as prescribed by law". Xi Jinping's Thought raises new and higher development requirements for China's human rights in the new era and provides fundamental principles for Chinese people to follow the path and advance the cause of human rights with Chinese characteristics. These thoughts were also echoed in the State Councils' Information of the PRC's December 13, 2018 white paper entitled "Progress in Human Rights over 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up in China".
Although many of the goals found in both documents are abstract terms, these goals will be followed by a series of implementing rules, which is a process that has already begun in China and is being "drummed" into the people so that they can adhere to the system of socialist rule of law with "Chinese characteristics" a reference to residual Confucian values -- benevolence, virtue and filial piety.
China's perspective on the rule of law is different from most countries. And China's poor human rights track record reveals this difference. There are numerous cases in China that need to be told. The Gui case is one such case. But it shows how the long arm of Beijing extends beyond its borders to retrieve those who contravene the views of the CPC.
The Gui case has attracted worldwide attention. It has been condemned by the governments of Sweden, Germany, the United States and Switzerland, as well as by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini. But nothing appears to affect Beijing, apart from being annoyed and frustrated by the attention the affair receives.
A strong voice against the ruling of Beijing, is young Angela Gui, daughter of Gui Minhai. Angela, who is a Swedish citizen and studies in the UK, is being threatened, surveilled and harassed by one of the world's most powerful countries.
This article is written to strengthen Angela's voice with a clear message to President Xi, to release Gui Minhai.
Per Sevastik is Senior Programme Specialist, Department for International Organisations, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
