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Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Hey, it's Nancy. I want to take a minute to introduce you to a new podcast that you might enjoy called China Rising.
The Chinese government is accused of aggressively targeting Western democracies with disinformation and hostage diplomacy. Join Global News senior correspondent and video journalist Jeff Semple for this 10-episode podcast series as he separates fact from fiction.
You'll hear from accused spies, whistleblowers, and others caught in the political crossfire as the pandemic rages across the world and incidents of anti-Asian racism rise. Take a listen.
It was a particularly hot and humid evening back in August 2014 when Julia and Kevin Garrett were invited out to dinner. The Canadian couple had lived in China for three decades. For seven years they'd been based in the northern Chinese city of Dandong, just across the Yalu River from North Korea.
Bandung is where the two countries are connected by the iconic Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. That bridge is one of the few ways to access North Korea and sees a steady stream of transport trucks. Tourists often visit the city, especially the coastline, but Kevin and Julia Garrett say on that night, the boardwalk was especially busy.
Crowds looking to escape the heat gathered along the river. Street musicians performed. Families rode their bikes. Tourists peered through binoculars across the river, hoping for a fleeting glimpse of life in North Korea, the so-called Hermit Kingdom.
The Gerrits ran a popular coffee shop in town overlooking the river, and they were well-known in the community. A Chinese acquaintance of theirs, the Shen family, had asked them out to dinner. The Shens planned to send their daughter to the University of Toronto. The Gerrits, Julia and Kevin, had both graduated from UFT back in the 80s, and so they were happy to answer any questions about the school and the city.
Mr. Shen and his wife greeted the Gerrits at the door of the fancy seafood restaurant, escorted them through the empty lobby, into an elevator, and up to their private dining room. And almost immediately, Kevin felt something was off. First, Shen's daughter, the future U of T student, wasn't there. Her parents explained she was at home with a toothache.
During dinner, Shen seemed distracted, constantly glancing at his cell phone under the table. Even their questions about Toronto and the university seemed strange. Then, with their plates still half full, Shen suddenly stood up to signal the meal was over. They all shook hands, and Shen escorted a slightly confused Julia and Kevin back to the elevator, but he didn't follow them in.
When the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, the Canadian couple emerged to find the once empty lobby was full.
There was now a crowd of people, some pointing cameras in their direction. And so it was a normal event. The next thing you know, we disappear. We're stuffed in two black cars, taken off in the middle of the darkness. You know, your heart's beating 100 miles an hour. Your mind's spinning. So I'm just like, what is going on? And the next thing you know, I'm in a cell and I'm interrogated and I'm told that I'm a spy.
I'm Jeff Semple, Senior Correspondent for Global News, and this is China Rising. Episode 1, Hostage Diplomacy.
During my career as a journalist, I've spent a lot of time covering the world. I've reported from more than 30 countries, war zones, disaster zones, the Olympic Games. I spent nearly six years based in London, England. And during my time in Europe, I did a lot of reporting on Russia, a hugely important country, of course, that's constantly accused of behaving badly. Now, that reporting led to the first season of the Rising series called Russia Rising.
And I remember just as we were finishing Russia Rising, one of my colleagues at Global News suggested we produce another podcast on China. We talked a bit about what topics we could explore as part of that series. And there was some discussion at that time, back in 2018, that the Chinese government didn't often make the news in Canada for the wrong reasons, like Russia did. Well, what a difference a couple of years can make.
We begin this hour with breaking news out of China about two Canadian men detained without official charges. China is home to the world's largest population, biggest military, and it's on pace to become the most dominant economy, with the power to shape the future of the world as we know it. For decades, many in the West hoped that China would grow into a trusted ally, perhaps even a democracy.
Instead, an emboldened Beijing is now accused of doubling down on authoritarianism and cracking down on human rights. There's been widespread international condemnation of China following a parliamentary vote to impose new national security laws on Hong Kong. Reporting on China, even compared to Russia, isn't for the faint of heart. The Chinese government is trying with increasing ferocity
to use its economic and diplomatic clout to silence critical voices abroad. The Chinese government is also accused of silencing critics at home, including those who first warned about a deadly new virus in Wuhan. Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Jiang has been sentenced to four years in prison for reporting on Wuhan's COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 has devastated countries around the world.
and sparked a wave of anti-Asian racism in Canada and the United States. To be clear, the threat does not come from the Chinese people.
but rather from the government of China. The director of CSIS, Canada's security intelligence service, David Vignon, recently warned the Chinese government is launching Kremlin-style disinformation campaigns designed to undermine Canadians' trust in Western-made vaccines and public health measures. We are increasingly seeing social media being leveraged to spread disinformation or run influence campaigns designed to confuse or divide public opinion.
But when it came to producing this podcast, we faced another problem. Due to the pandemic, Beijing banned all travellers from Canada. So how do you produce a podcast on a country you can't even visit? With a little help from our friends. Great to connect with you. Thank you for this. Really, really appreciate you taking some time. Thank you, Jeff. We've teamed up with a small, brave group of journalists on the ground in China, as
as well as contacts in the Chinese community here in Canada and the United States to try and answer a simple yet profoundly complicated and important question. For Canadians, Americans, and our allies, is today's China friend or foe?
China has changed and China is no longer the country that we once fell in love with. China can be both different and not an enemy. Our prosperity, in some sense, it does depend on having some relationship with the growing prosperity of China.
The debate over China has been raging in the West for decades. But for Canadian couple Julia and Kevin Garrett, there was no question in their minds. The moment they first laid eyes on China, they fell head over heels in love.
We kind of traveled all over China and we lived all over China, so we were well aware and we had tremendous friends and we worked with anybody who wanted to work with us, really. We met the Garretts in New Westminster, British Columbia, at their local church. They're Christians who've devoted much of their lives to aid work in developing countries, China in particular.
I grew up attending church in a small town just outside of Ottawa, and the Garretts seem like the kind of couple who would greet you at the church entrance on Sunday mornings. "Nice to meet you." They're now in their 50s. Kevin seems quiet but confident, his kind eyes peering through dark, thick-rimmed glasses. Julia, with shoulder-length red hair, is full of energy with a bright, natural smile.
Upon our first meeting, you would never guess that they've endured years of trauma. We asked the couple to bring along any souvenirs, old photographs or documents from their time overseas, and they didn't disappoint. Like all these wonderful memories. They arrived with a folder stuffed with documents, organized and neatly labeled with colorful post-it notes, along with a collection of family photographs.
Seated next to each other at a long table in the church hall, they flipped through old pictures of a bright-eyed, newlywed couple. Back in 1984, they were in their early 20s when they picked up their lives in Toronto and moved to China to teach English.
And for a long time, they never looked back. Here, look at this one instead. I love that picture. Over 30 years, they lived in seven different cities across China. In the 1980s and 90s, when most of the population still lived in poverty, the Garretts worked with local charities, churches, and orphanages.
They started a family of their own, raising four children. And they opened a coffee shop in Dandong that became almost like a community center. They would host English language classes for locals and would organize tours and aid trips to North Korea. Our footprint has always been in people and community and not in projects and buildings and things like that. And so we did that. And that's why we were most shocked.
I think probably more shocked than anyone else because we felt that it was a really strong, positive footprint in that community. And suddenly we're the ones chosen to be abducted. The night of August 4th, 2014, following that strange dinner with the Shens, Julia and Kevin remember stepping out of the elevator and into the restaurant lobby where a crowd had gathered.
There were cameras and bright lights, and at first Julia assumed they'd inadvertently interrupted a wedding until two men grabbed her from behind. She and Kevin were dragged from the restaurant lobby, forced into two separate vehicles, and driven away into the night. Julia stared stunned out the backseat window, the streetlights flashing by, then disappearing into the dark as she was driven out of the city.
Now Julia assumed they'd been kidnapped, perhaps by human traffickers from North Korea. She was hit by a wave of panic and adrenaline. She sobbed and trembled uncontrollably. But then one of her captors, seated next to her in the back seat, identified themselves as a police officer. And after about 10 minutes, the vehicle arrived at a police station.
Julia and Kevin were thrown into separate cells and told they were under arrest for spying. So they thought we were these criminals. Julia says she actually felt some relief believing the whole thing was a simple mistake. But the Canadian couple had no idea they had just been cast as pawns in a geopolitical chess match. Their fates were being determined by events unfolding 8,000 kilometers away.
In the weeks leading up to the Garretts' arrest in the summer of 2014, political tensions between Beijing and Washington were beginning to bubble. We have seen a steady ramping up of cybersecurity threats. Some are state-sponsored.
US President Barack Obama and his intelligence officials were openly accusing China of launching a litany of cyberattacks, espionage, and intellectual property theft, targeting US companies, even the military. Canada too claimed it had been targeted by a Chinese state-sponsored cyberattack, targeting the National Research Council, the government's scientific research agency.
China denied the allegations and challenged its accusers to provide evidence. So the Americans did just that. On May 19, 2014, the FBI's John Carlin appeared before the cameras, flanked by the U.S. Attorney General, to announce charges against five hackers from China with links to the Chinese military. For the first time, we are exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards in Shanghai used to steal
from American businesses. They even produced a cheesy wanted poster for their five suspects. But that only underscored the futility of their efforts. All five men lived in China. No one expected the Chinese government would ever actually hand them over to the US to face charges. The Americans wanted to make an example, someone they could actually arrest.
and they found their man living just a short drive north of the border in British Columbia. The Chinese businessman arrested in British Columbia last month is now wanted by U.S. authorities for hacking defense contractors' computers. Su Bin, a Chinese businessman and permanent resident of Canada, lived in Richmond, B.C. with his wife and two children and ran an aviation technology firm.
Soo Bin was arrested by the RCMP in June 2014 at the request of the US Department of Justice. The Americans accused him of spying, hacking into the computer systems of US companies with large defense contracts, such as Boeing, to steal data on military projects, including fighter jets.
But as a Canadian court considered whether to extradite Su Bin to the U.S., China quickly responded by sending a not-so-subtle message to make America's northern neighbor think twice. China is investigating a Canadian couple who ran a coffee shop near China's border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. One month after Su Bin's arrest in B.C., Chinese state television broadcast news of criminal charges against the Garretts,
which were practically a carbon copy of the U.S. allegations against Su Bin. China's foreign ministry says they are suspected of stealing intelligence related to the military targets and engaging in activities that endanger national security. It became clear that
They had been arrested in retaliation for the arrest of Su Bin. That's Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada's ambassador to Beijing at the time. Chinese officials publicly denied the two cases were connected, that the Garretts' arrest was in response to the charges against Su Bin. But in private, Saint-Jacques says the Chinese were unequivocal. Finally, I had a meeting and it was clear. They said,
"You return Mr. Soubin and good things will happen to the Garretts." And I said, "There's absolutely no link between those cases. Mr. Soubin is charged with very serious spying accusation. Our two Canadians were involved in humanitarian work. It makes no sense for you to detain." But they kept saying,
You know our position. The Canadian government refused to discuss a prisoner exchange, and so the Garretts remained in a Chinese prison. They were separated and held in solitary confinement, alone in a cramped cell under 24-hour guard, interrogated for six grueling hours every day. I remember during those first couple months, two or three months of interrogation, they threatened execution many times. You sit on a chair.
facing three officers in a small room with cameras everywhere. And then they just dig, dig, dig, dig, dig until you almost feel like you are a criminal. They're all speaking Chinese. So your mind is...
There's a lot of vocabulary that is related to the legal system and to spying that we didn't know wasn't part of our courses. So you're translating. You're trying to think about what words to choose in Chinese to answer that may not be misinterpreted. And then they're writing it all down. And so it means that you're on this sort of intense emotional roller coaster the whole time.
Back at the church hall, the couple shows us some of the notes and diaries they kept while in prison. Here's one. These are interesting. Written on the back of yogurt containers or whatever scraps they could get their hands on. So I really like this. John 15. Kevin wrote Bible verses that gave him hope.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. Julia turns to a page full of little drawings. She would scribble pictures of things she was grateful for. I heard a bird outside. I heard like some chirping of a bird, so I drew like a few birds. Then she would close her eyes and imagine she was somewhere else. Imagine the whole world was in this box.
And so now I'm going to go visit Brazil. I've never been there. And I'd just stand there and I'd recall to mind absolutely everything I knew about Brazil, even Brazilian food, whatever. Then I'd say, okay, tomorrow I'm going to go to, you know, this Venezuela. Then I'm going to go, you know, so I'm going to travel around South America. So the fact that even in that space, I could find ways to innovate. I could find ways to create things out of that space. Because the other alternative is you get lost in space.
bitterness, anger, rage. And I knew that wasn't a good choice. It didn't mean I didn't go there and it didn't mean I didn't like have to peel myself off the floor some days, but I knew that wasn't the solution to survival in this situation. And I think that was a mindset that I constantly had to keep every single day.
At first, they had no contact with the outside world or with each other. As the months dragged on, time seemed to slow down. Hours felt like days. Their thoughts and their notes grew darker. And if you notice, it moves to hopelessness, longing for heaven. Like you get into this more deep, deep despair. After a while, Julia feared Kevin was dead. Every day I asked them,
Is Kevin alive? And every day they said, we know nothing about him. And the truth was he was right downstairs in the same compound. We were the only two prisoners, 50 or 60 guards, but they would never give me the satisfaction of saying he was alive.
Eventually, the Canadian embassy managed to negotiate a 30-minute meeting, a chance for Canadian officials to see the Garretts and to check on their condition. That morning, Julia was escorted downstairs for breakfast, the first time she'd been allowed to leave her cell.
And as she entered the room, she heard footsteps and turned to look. And then Kevin walked around the corner and then I fainted. I literally, it was like too much emotion. And then I, they said, I don't know what happened. Somebody caught me and then they chastised me. They said, this is your treat.
Why did you faint? As if I had a choice. And then they said, you have 10 minutes facing Kevin and you can talk about anything to do with what you eat and what you do every day, but you can't talk about the case. So we literally didn't have much to talk about. But Kevin just said to me, Julia, whatever you're going through, whatever you're feeling, I'm feeling it too.
And I took back that as a treasure to my room because all of a sudden I wasn't alone. He was alive and whatever I was going through, he was going through. And we would get through this together and later we would share each other's experiences. After their meeting, Julia and Kevin were returned to their separate cells. But at different times during the day, they would be allowed to go outside to take a short walk in the courtyard, along with their prison guard, of course.
Well, one day, Kevin found a stick and tried writing messages to Julia in the dirt. And knowing Julia might see it. And they just brushed it out. They wouldn't let me do anything like that. But when it snowed, and after a while, they started letting us put little messages in the snow. And it's really funny, really amazing, actually, because that year it snowed more than ever. And so we had lots of fresh snow. It was snowing.
I really negotiated because they wanted to shovel that big pile of snow off our little walking court. So we had 15 minutes outdoor time walking around with four guards, right? And I was like, I love snow. I just want you to give me that pile of snow. I acted like a kid and they were like, she's already weird. So I'm going to give her this pile of snow. And then I could carve like me and Kevin sitting on a couch in 15 minutes.
I thought I carved him a Christmas dinner at Christmastime. I couldn't eat it, but anyway. And so we were actually really thankful for the snow. And then Kevin would just do these little hearts with his boot prints, like two boots planted in the snow. And so I'd come out and I just, yeah, that was our kind of way of connection because thankfully that was the one time we shared the same space, even though it was never at the same time, was 15 minutes outdoor walking behind the building in a courtyard.
And after a while, their prison guards even started playing along. And, you know, just to show you really how the guards became friendlier after some months was, you know, when we'd go outside, they would be looking for a clean piece of snow I could put something in. And they would tell, Kevin, there's a good place. Like, so there were really nice guards and they became really friendly that way and really helpful.
But those moments of hope were fleeting. The couple endured six months of daily intense interrogations. Finally, Julia was released on bail and eventually allowed to return to Canada, but not Kevin. He was charged with espionage and transferred to a different prison to await his day in court, in a country with a conviction rate of 99%.
Kevin's trial finally came in April 2016, nearly two years after his arrest. I was incredibly nervous because, well, one, I had faith, yes, that it would be okay. But also, the things they put on TV oftentimes in prison are trials, right?
And, you know, the TV news and everyone's guilty and they're going to be executed or sent to prison for a long time. That's what you see. As Kevin was led into the courthouse in the pouring rain, Julia was standing outside the court gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of her husband. And then she saw him. And I see this thin, frail man with leg irons and handcuffs who can barely walk into the building shuffling. I was like, oh.
"Oh no, he's gonna die in the trial." Like it was the most, one of the most emotional days of my life watching him go in and then not being able to do anything, not being able to be inside. - Kevin sat alone in the middle of the courtroom in front of three judges, struggling to understand what the lawyers were saying in Chinese. - The trial actually was horrible. It was an all day trial. I hardly had a chance to speak. I think like, can I talk now? Can I say something? Can I talk to my lawyer? And it was no, no, no.
At one point in the middle of the trial, Kevin's lawyer suddenly got up and left. He came out and we said, oh, can you tell us? He said, oh, it's not over, but I have to get my train back to Beijing. I'm like,
The evidence against Kevin largely centered on some photographs he'd taken. The couple's former coffee shop in Dandong overlooked the Yalu River, which separates China from North Korea. Kevin had taken photos of the river and the Friendship Bridge connecting the two countries.
Once, without thinking, he'd even snapped a picture of a Chinese military exercise on the banks of the river. And in fact, it was very minor what they were saying that he had done. Former Canadian ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques says neither he nor his staff were permitted to attend the trial. And so it was very frustrating from dealing with this big Chinese justice system
that was opaque. And in China, you know that once you are formally charged and once your trial starts, you're toast because according to figures of the Chinese Supreme Court, you are found guilty 99.7% of the time. So it was
And he was right. Five months after the trial began, Kevin was found guilty, sentenced to eight years in prison. But just when it seemed his fate was sealed, the Canadian caught a break.
Su Bin, that Chinese hacker who was arrested in B.C., suddenly agreed to plead guilty and be extradited to the United States to serve four years in prison. The Chinese were
taken by surprise. Meanwhile, China's relationship with Canada was also looking up. A recently elected Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was promoting a possible free trade agreement with the Chinese, China's first with a G7 country. The Prime Minister wanted to come to China. We knew also that Premier Li Keqiang was planning to pay a return visit to Canada.
And so we said, we have to use this as a lever to bring closure to this case. And in fact, there were a number of visits by Canadian ministers to tell China just that. We won't be able to move forward with the relationship as long as this case is not resolved and as long as Kevin Garrett is not back in Canada.
Prime Minister Trudeau arrived in China on August 30, 2016, and the following day he met with the Chinese premier, the country's second most powerful man. Thank you very much, Premier Li, for your wonderful hospitality. Premier Li was scheduled to visit Canada the next month, and Ambassador Saint-Jacques says they were promised news about the Garrets before then.
Well, sure enough, two weeks later, Saint-Jacques got the call. After 775 days in detention, Kevin was free. And I said, yes. We were so relieved and we informed Ottawa right away.
And I know that the prime minister then phoned Julia to say Kevin is on his way. On September 15, 2016, Kevin was reunited with Julia and their family at Vancouver International Airport. The Garretts publicly thanked the governments of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau for working to secure their release. But they were also critical of the Canadian government. When we got back here, it was basically like welcome home, goodbye.
There was no psychological examination or assessment, no training, no help for us. We had to find it all on our own through our own resources and community. And that was a huge shock to us.
So you have to remember that your mind is completely different when you come out. Your nerves have all been rewired, your brain has been rewired, and you're coming into a world that you don't even recognize anymore. The Garretts are now working to fill that gap themselves, supporting other political prisoners and their families. And they've got their work cut out for them. More than 100 Canadians are currently detained in China, according to figures released last year by the federal government.
four of whom face execution. Their alleged crimes range from drug and fraud charges to espionage. Facing what can feel like an insurmountable challenge, they still have at least one lifeline they can call. - Hello, John. - Well, hello. - How are you? - I'm all right.
John Kamm might seem an unlikely champion for China's political prisoners. Three decades ago, the American businessman and former chemical salesman had a twist of fate.
Cam was then the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. And back in May of 1990, he was preparing to go to Washington to testify before Congress to argue that China should receive top trading status, regardless of its human rights record. Now, before his trip, Cam was invited by a senior Chinese official to be their guest of honor at a banquet.
During the dinner, a Chinese government minister gave a toast to Cam to thank him for his support.
But when it was his turn to speak, Cam suddenly decided to challenge his Chinese hosts. "Yeah, absolutely spur of the moment." A couple of hours earlier, while driving to that dinner, Cam had heard a news report on the radio. "A woman came on the radio and she was weeping because her son she had heard was in a Shanghai detention center being abused."
That woman's son was a student from Hong Kong who had recently been arrested during protests at Tiananmen Square. So Cam suddenly decided to raise the case. Addressing a banquet hall full of Chinese officials and business leaders, Cam asked for his release. It came into my mind to interrupt the minister and ask for this prisoner's release. He was not happy.
But anyway, I went to testify when I came out. When I came back to Hong Kong, the young man was released. So that was the beginning. And Cam never looked back. Now into his 70s, Cam has spent the last 31 years fighting for China's political prisoners. Speaking over Zoom from his home in San Francisco, he shows me some examples of his work.
His bookshelves are crammed with binders full of case notes and letters both to and from Chinese officials. This is a file of correspondence with the Chinese government from the early 1990s.
In 1999, he launched a non-profit, the Dui Hua Foundation, which means dialogue. He maintains the world's largest database of past and present political prisoners in China, which contains more than 45,000 names. Cam patiently works within the confines of China's opaque judicial system, using China's official registries and formally submitting prisoner lists for consideration.
He regularly receives written responses, which is almost unheard of from China. The Chinese are very patient. You have to be even more patient. And more important than patience is persistence. You have to keep pushing. Pushing, but never pushing. The tone of his letters is always respectful, even complimentary. You know, obviously, I am careful what I say.
They're very sensitive these days, so I'm careful. And his approach has proved effective. Over the years, Cam has helped to secure some form of clemency for hundreds of political prisoners in China. Governments around the world, including Canada, have sought Cam's advice on how to deal with the Chinese judicial system.
Last March, he was even invited to present a webinar to China's Supreme Court on the treatment of women prisoners. Part of what you want to do is you want to ground your inquiries in the moment, in what's going on right now. Always ask yourself this.
What does China want? Among the victories, the names that Cam has scratched off his prisoners lists are Julia and Kevin Garrett. Cam says the Garrett's release in 2016 felt like a breakthrough, a turning point that he hoped would signal the beginning of a more lenient China, one more willing to release political prisoners. But instead, he says it's been just the opposite. I think that, uh,
The Chinese government is not as concerned as it once was with its image around the world, which at the moment is quite bad, but they're not as concerned about it. In his 31 years, Cam says his work has never been so difficult. When the relationship between the U.S. and China and
China and Canada and other countries are good, then my work is easier. When the relationships are not good, then my work is more difficult.
And these days, he's working on a particularly difficult case. One that bears many similarities to the Garretts, but where the political stakes have rarely been higher. In just a few hours, Michael Kovrig will face a judge in Beijing charged with espionage. And like the trial for Michael Spavor, no Canadian officials will be allowed in court to watch the proceedings.
The arrest of the two Canadians is widely seen as retribution for the detention of Meng Wanzhou in British Columbia at the request of the U.S. That's next time on China Rising. China Rising is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.