China cooperates with other countries to pursue corrupt officials abroad

BEIJING, April 24 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislature on Thursday ratified extradition treaties with Australia and France, which provided a legal groundwork to bring back fugitive suspects to receive prosecution and sentences in their home countries.

The treaty, ratified at the second session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), will further strengthen judicial cooperation between China and the two countries, especially in pursuing fugitives, including corrupt officials who go abroad to seek asylum.

Since the late 1980s, some Chinese officials charged with economic crimes have chosen to flee the country. The suspects, most from the financial sector or state-owned enterprises (SOEs), used overseas connections to flee, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

North America, Australia, and southeast Asia were preferred destinations, it said.

Earlier police statistics show there were more than 500 suspects at large overseas wanted for economic crimes. They were accused of crimes involving more than 70 billion yuan (10 billion U.S. dollars).

With the assistance of bilateral judicial cooperation and Interpol, the world police body, only a fraction of Chinese fugitive suspects were repatriated. In light of this, China has taken the repatriation of corrupt officials as a priority of its international judicial cooperation plan.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China signed 99 bilateral judicial assistance protocols with more than 50 countries and regions. This included 58 treaties in civil and judicial assistance, 30 extradition treaties, five in criminals transfer and six in the crackdown on national separatist forces, religious extremists and international terrorist forces.

When China signs judicial cooperation treaties with other nations, especially with developed countries, capital punishment often becomes the focus of debate.

But relevant parties have removed the hurdles caused by different legal systems. This was evident in a 2006 extradition treaty signed between China and Spain, the first foreign country to sign such an agreement.

According to the new treaties with Australia and France, the two countries which have no capital punishment, could refuse to extradite a suspect if he or she faced the death sentence in China.

Such treaties have stirred debate among the Chinese public. Some feared it might weaken China's anti-graft efforts by exempting runaway criminals from capital punishment.

However, a majority of legal experts largely held the view that "it was not whether to sentence criminals to death, but first and foremost to bring them back to face justice in China's own courts".

They believed it's an "empty talk" to discuss capital punishment if fugitives could not be brought back.

Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said, "the disparity in legal systems between China and other countries should not be obstacles for international cooperation, nor penalty-escaping pretense for corrupt officials".