Don’t underestimate the importance of this request from China: Beijing fears that high-ranking corrupt officials in the United States might defect, and leak sensitive information about infighting at the top of the party.
China’s Communist Party really, really wants everyone to know how much foreigners in China love President Xi Jinping. “That’s precisely why Beijing should worry about US business souring on China”.
The video itself is a list of compliments from doe-eyed foreign students who appear to be studying in Beijing. The list included photos and identification numbers of former local government officials, police officers, accountants and more.
A Chinese woman convicted and jailed in the United States for her part in a scheme to steal almost $500 million from a state-run Chinese bank was sent back to China on Thursday, September 24, officials said. Sixty-six of them are believed to be hiding in the USA and Canada.
The woman, who fled to the USA in 2001, is suspected of taking part in corruption and bribery.
In May, Zhao Shilan, the ex-wife of former Chinese government official Qiao Jianjun, pleaded not guilty to USA charges of money laundering and immigration fraud in Los Angeles. They are accused of fraudulently obtaining EB-5 immigrant-investor visas to enter the U.S. and of laundering money from China. Qiao remains at large and is being sought by U.S. authorities.
“We must be satisfied that an individual extradited from the United States to another country would receive a fair trial and not be subject to torture or other forms of mistreatment in that country”, a department spokeswoman said in March.
In Who is Xi Dada? a lumberjack-beshirted Chicagoan describes how Mr Xi had been referred to as Winnie-the-Pooh, a reference to a cartoon showing the Chinese president walking alongside President Obama during a previous visit, which had been likened to a similar image of the rotund honey-loving bear and his pal Tigger. Washington and China have almost $600 billion per year in trade, tens of billions of dollars in investment, and “a stake in the other’s success”, Evan Feigenbaum, the vice chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, which promotes economic ties between the two countries, said by email. Chinese state media reported in June that 680 fugitives suspected of economic crimes were repatriated in 2014.