Australian cooperation in nabbing Chinese fugitives shows exhilarating breakthrough

Nowhere to hide [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

China's anti-corruption blitz has achieved a global breakthrough.

According to an earlier report, ("Australia helps catch China's most wanted," Shanghai Daily, October 22), Chinese police have reached an agreement with their Australian counterparts on extradition of corrupt Chinese officials who take residence in Australia, and also on seizure of their assets.

This is an exhilarating development, almost with milestone significance, for it suggests that China's anti-graft campaign is finally being assisted by at least a few Western countries.

In the past, Western governments were reluctant to hand over so-called Chinese economic fugitives to China, mainly on allegations that they might be sentenced to death or tortured back home.

For instance, Lai Changxing, China's most wanted fugitive who was involved in a smuggling racket and fled to Canada in 1999, was handed over for Chinese prosecution in 2011 and sentenced to life in prison the following year, after China promised the Canadians that he would be spared capital punishment.

Partly because of such pledges and dwindling numbers of executions in China, foreign governments have increasingly indicated their approval and support of China's global manhunt for corrupt officials by signing extradition treaties with the country.

A result is a spike in cases where Chinese police succeeded in having fugitives repatriated to China.

Within less than three months of the initiation of "Fox Hunt 2014," a crackdown on fugitives fleeing overseas that began on July 22, 128 of them have been arrested pending extradition to China, which is more than 80 percent of the total number of corrupt cadres caught from abroad last year.