US, China to join forces in hunt for officials fleeing to America with ‘stolen billions’
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 11 February, 2015, 2:26pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 12 February, 2015, 6:08am
Mandy Zuo [email protected]
An alleged 'economic fugitive' (wearing mask) arrives in China last week after 10 years on the run in Italy. Photo: Xinhua
Discussions between China and the United States on repatriating corrupt Chinese officials who have fled to America will continue in August in the Philippines, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed.
China will keep in touch with the US on anti-corruption cooperation and push other APEC members to extradite fugitives alleged to have ran away with billions of dollars of stolen government assets, spokeswoman Hua Chunying said yesterday.
The issue is a thorny one, as no extradition treaty exists between the US and China. That has made America, and other countries such as Australia and Canada, attractive destinations for fleeing officials and havens for stolen assets.
Officials from both countries met for two days in the Philippines last month, after Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum members agreed in November to adopt the Beijing Declaration on Fighting Corruption and set up a cross-border law enforcement network to strengthen anti-corruption cooperation.
David Luna, the US State Department's senior director for National Security and Diplomacy who led the US delegation for last month's meeting, said law enforcement and legal experts would be involved in the August discussions.
The countries will share intelligence on corrupt Chinese officials and stolen assets and will also discuss ways to send the fugitives back to China.
The Ministry of Public Security invited federal prosecutors from the US Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service agents to a seminar last month.
Li Chengyan, director of the Research Centre for Government Integrity Building at Peking University, doubted any concrete results could be achieved.
"I don't think there are technical problems now, but the difficulty lies in the different ideology and political systems of the two countries," he said.
"The experience is that it is hard to extradite officials who have fled to America, as almost all of them find a reason to seek political asylum, or even render meritorious service by, for example, providing state secrets to the Americans."
But Luna said there were "alternatives to extradition".
He said legal avenues being explored to circumvent the lack of an extradition treaty included using the United Nations Convention against Corruption, and its Convention on Transnational Organised Crime.
Last year Chinese officials said more than 150 "economic fugitives" were in the US. Neither country has publicly provided a figure for how much stolen money has been smuggled out of China and into the US.
Additional reporting by Reuters
