Sweden should pressure China to release the Swedish book publisher
This week marks the sixth year since Chinese authorities kidnapped Gui Minhai, a Swedish book publisher, from his home in Thailand in 2015. After enduring a forced confession on state media and a bluff trial, Gui was released briefly in 2017, before he became re-arrested. In 2020, a court announced one 10 years penalty on dubious charges, and the authorities have since not provided any information on his whereabouts and forcibly disappeared. He is feared to be in poor health.
Beijing’s latest release of two American citizens who had been arbitrarily banned from leaving China, and two Canadians held as diplomatic hostages in exchange for an accused Huawei boss, is both very welcome news and a cause for great concern. It confirms Beijing’s willingness to use people as peasants and reminds us of those who are still wrongfully detained, such as Gui Minhai.
Sweden’s efforts to liberate Gui seem lukewarm. It has not launched any major public efforts to secure his release, and if it has done so privately, these efforts are clearly not working. The country’s foreign ministry has instead interfered in other diplomatic issues with China, including over a Chinese one ambassador in Stockholm, and Sweden’s failed prosecution by her former ambassador to China for her mismanagement of Gui’s case.
In January, the Swedish Parliament called for a government-appointed commission examine cases of Swedes who are arbitrarily detained abroad and report at the end of March 2022. But the government has recently increased the secrecy surrounding the commission’s work, which could conveniently protect the government from further embarrassment.
Covid-19 may well have lost some diplomatic interactions. But during the whole pandemic, European Parliament and European Union consistently called for the release of Gui, placing human rights issues closer to the center of EU-China relations.
Standard diplomatic interventions to free citizens wrongly detained by the Chinese government have largely proved ineffective. The Swedish government should prioritize Gui Minhai’s release in its relations with China. Stockholm should also cooperate with its European allies, who have been increasingly willing to criticize Beijing, in order to push harder for his freedom.