HONG KONG — Before she went on holiday with her boyfriend, the young woman from Hong Kong told friends about his pledge to her. “He said I am his first and last girlfriend,” the woman, Poon Hiu-wing, 20, wrote on Facebook. It would be her last Facebook post.
After their trip to Taiwan in February 2018, the boyfriend, Chan Tong-kai, returned alone. Her family grew worried and called the police. One week later, investigators found her body in the bushes near a light rail station in northern Taiwan. An autopsy determined that she had been four to five months pregnant.
The police in Hong Kong arrested Mr. Chan, and last year he was charged over possession of his girlfriend’s cellphone, digital camera and $3,000 in cash.
But he was not charged with killing Ms. Poon.
Under Hong Kong law, Mr. Chan must face charges related to her death where it happened, in Taiwan. But Hong Kong does not have an extradition agreement with Taiwan, so Mr. Chan has remained in Hong Kong.
To break the logjam, Hong Kong has proposed easing renditions to and from Taiwan — and also to mainland China, touching off concerns that Hong Kong residents would be exposed to China’s harsh legal system while losing the singular legal protections they enjoy at home.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to China under a framework of “one country, two systems,” which allowed the territory to maintain its own political, legal and economic systems. Opposition lawmakers have accused the Hong Kong government of taking advantage of the desire for justice for Ms. Poon to push a broader agenda of promoting Hong Kong’s integration with the rest of China.
“I think the whole thing is a political maneuver more than anything else,” said Claudia Mo, a lawmaker who leads the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong’s legislature. “Ever since the handover, it’s been stipulated in the law that we do not hand over fugitives to mainland China. Now they are taking advantage of this particular Taiwan case and pretend it is for compassion and humanity.”
Hong Kong officials say the suspect may avoid more serious charges if the government does not act quickly. Ms. Poon’s mother publicly implored lawmakers to help bring her daughter’s accused killer to trial.
“We must do everything to help,” Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said last month. “But if we argue with each other, slowly consult the public or issue some consultation documents, I fear we will not be able to help in this particular case.”
The proposed changes to Hong Kong’s extradition law set up a mechanism for handling jurisdictions with which the territory does not have formal agreements. The most significant among those are Taiwan, mainland China and Macau, a former Portuguese territory that returned to Chinese rule in 1999. The proposal considers all three parts of the People’s Republic of China, although the Communist Party-run central government has never controlled Taiwan.
The obstacles to formal extradition agreements differ. With Taiwan, the issue has primarily been political, legal experts say. China considers self-ruled Taiwan to be part of its territory, and does not recognize its government.
In 2009, when Taiwan had a president who sought closer ties with China, the two sides reached an agreement on transferring criminal suspects. But Taiwan’s present administration is much more wary of Beijing. An official with Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice said it would not agree to any extradition deal that considered Taiwan as part of China.
“Although Taiwan has been seeking mutual judicial assistance with different jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, the government will not accept an extradition agreement that erodes Taiwan’s dignity and sovereignty,” the official, Liu Yi-chun, said last week, according to Taiwan’s state-owned Central News Agency.
In Hong Kong, the chief concern about an agreement with mainland China is doubts about the quality of justice in a place where defendants have little access to legal representation and courts are subordinate to the Communist Party.
“If we now extend this arrangement to allow in particular the mainland to make requests for rendition, then the simple point is we are accepting that currently mainland China’s criminal justice system meet basic requirements for fair trials,” said Eric Chueng, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong.
“If we are not satisfied with that,” he added, “why are we introducing an amendment of such far-reaching effect?”
In 2017, Australia backed out of a proposed extradition treaty with China after lawmakers expressed concerns about China’s legal system.
In recent years, several people from Hong Kong have been ensnared in the mainland legal system by questionable means. Five Hong Kong booksellers involved in the publication of gossipy books about China’s political leadership disappeared into mainland custody in late 2015. They were later shown on state-run television broadcasts giving confessions that one later said was coerced.
In 2017, Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese billionaire, was taken out of a Hong Kong luxury hotel in a wheelchair and transported back to the mainland without passing through border controls. His abduction has not been officially explained, but he is believed to be assisting investigations into the financial industry.
The opening of a new train station in Hong Kong last year has also caused worries about encroachment of the mainland’s legal system. The station, in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon district, is the terminus of a high-speed line to the neighboring mainland province of Guangdong, and was built to hold border-crossing facilities as well. So once travelers cross through immigration, they are under mainland jurisdiction.
A Hong Kong resident was detained in the mainland side of the terminal in October because he was wanted by a court in the neighboring mainland city of Shenzhen for owing money in a home sale, the mainland news outlet Nanfang Plus reported.
John Lee, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, said the proposed changes to the law would leave in place protections for human rights, including assurances that those extradited will not face the death penalty. But suspects could be extradited for political crimes or other matters that are not considered crimes in Hong Kong, he said.
The possible political intentions behind charges like corruption and tax evasion could be hard to sort out, Hong Kong legal experts say. And legislators representing pro-business parties in Hong Kong have expressed concern about executives becoming ensnared in mainland criminal cases over commercial disputes that would be civil matters in Hong Kong.
Pro-government lawmakers have the vote to push through the proposed changes, Ms. Mo acknowledged. But her side is still looking toward a more limited proposal that would exclude renditions to the mainland.
The legislature could also approve Mr. Chan’s extradition to Taiwan under the existing framework, undermining the need for new rules, Mr. Cheung said.
Mr. Lee has said that the Taiwan case exposed weaknesses in the current system, under which Hong Kong lacks long-term agreements with more than 100 countries.
“This is a loophole that we must address,” he said. “If I only deal with a single case now, this loophole will continue to exist. That would mean we will repeat the same problem.”
Source: New York Times, Austin Ramzy, March 4, 2019
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