Front Burner - One year in Chinese detention: What life is like for 2 Canadians

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

It has now passed the one-year mark since two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were arrested and detained in China. Both were accused by Chinese authorities of charges related to spying and stealing national secrets. Both were picked up mere days after Meng Wangzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech company Huawei, was arrested at a Vancouver airport in 2018. The ‘Two Michaels’ are still being held in detention centres where conditions are a far cry from Meng’s house arrest. Today on Front Burner, Jayme Poisson talks to the Globe and Mail’s Asia correspondent Nathan VanderKlippe about visiting the prisons where Spavor and Kovrig are being held, and what happens next with their cases.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. We recently marked one year since two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were arrested and detained in China. Both were accused by Chinese authorities of charges related to spying and stealing national secrets. Both were picked up mere days after Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Chinese tech company Huawei, was arrested at a Vancouver

airport last year. And they're still being held in detention centers where conditions are a far cry from Meng's house arrest. Today, the Globe and Mail's Asia correspondent Nathan Vanderklip on his visits to the prisons where Spavor and Kovrig are being held. And what might happen next for them now that their cases have been sent to Chinese prosecutors. This is FrontBurner. Hi, Nathan. Hello. Thanks so much for joining us today and taking the time.

Thanks for having me. So I'm looking right now at a photo that you took at the Dandong Detention Center, which is the prison housing Michael Spavor, I believe. It's like there are these like dark gray walls around it. And then it sort of looks like a low rise office building. It's relatively new looking. Is that fair? Right. Particularly the exterior. So basically what happens is, is you go down quite a rural road. There's not much along the road. You pass a couple residential developments. And then without any warning, you come across this facility. And what

you see are these sort of very tall, gray colored walls. And then actually inside of that outer wall, there's an inner wall, and it's topped by a fence. And the fence itself is topped by razor wire. And in each corner of that inner wall, there's a guard tower. When you come to the detention center, what most people do is they come into a reception area. It kind of looks like a bank reception area in some ways. There's sort of a row of almost like teller slots behind glass. And there's a steady stream of people coming in and they're coming in with money and and that money is for uh people inside because really one of the features of this detention center and of many detention centers in china uh is that the food that's

provided and sort of the necessities that provided that are provided are the barest of bare necessities um and so if you want any sort of comforts you need to pay for them yourselves if you want a blanket you have to pay for it and how much would it cost for like a blanket or better food so dishes of food which is which is what i think a lot of the money ends up getting spent on because if you don't pay what you get is sort of like a thin corn gruel and and steamed buns but it can be up to 40 a dish wow and so uh most of what i know about this place comes from Kevin Garrett, who's another Canadian who was arrested in China a few years ago. He was held there because of another spat between China and Canada. Yeah, exactly. And that spat actually has a lot of parallels with what

we're seeing today because it involved an extradition case of someone that had been arrested in Canada who was wanted in the U.S. Because Canada arrested Su Bin, who turned out to be a spy for China, who was arrested at the request of the U.S. and then later extradited there, it was because of that, because of him, that we were arrested. But we were never told that by any authority.

And so Kevin Garrett was in this facility. He described this. He described the tunnel. He said you have to go through seven locked doors before you even get to the door to your cell. So it's quite a lockdown facility, as I guess one would expect. One of the duties he had was occasionally processing stringed beans and preparing them for cooking. That was like his job to do during the day? Occasionally, yeah.

So generally they didn't have work duty, but sometimes they would have to work on the stringed beans. And he said sometimes they would come in so rotten that they would be like, nope, we're not eating these when they come out. But to answer your question, the cost of being there, he estimated at between five and six hundred Canadian dollars a month just to sort of keep himself on the bare necessities. OK, and do we know if Michael Spavor is like able to pay for these upgrades right now? Do we know anything about what his days might be like? My presumption is that it would be a situation quite similar to what Kevin Garrett had. Consular authorities who visit Michael Spavor every month would be able to take money there and add money to his account.

So my assumption would be that, yes, he has access to funds. What other things would Michael Spavor probably be subjected to right now? Is he in a cell with many people? I'm told he's in a cell with about 20 other people. He is being kept not only in the same detention center as Kevin Garrett was, but also in the same wing. And that's a medical wing.

And it's a wing where patients who have medical needs are kept, but as well as other sort of detainees who are placed in somewhat better conditions than elsewhere. So, for example, on work, in other wings, the detainees have to do prison labor, which is quite a common feature in China. When Kevin Garrett was there, that work involved making those paper hygienic covers for toilet seats, as well as plastic flowers, fake plastic flowers. But in the medical wing, those work obligations don't exist in the same way. And so we assume that the situation remains roughly the same. So they don't have that, but the days are quite regimented.

In the facilities, there's a bell that rings at six o'clock to wake everyone up. Sleeping, by the way, can be difficult. The lights are kept on 24 hours, quite bright, bare fluorescent bulbs, and they actually maintain a watch. So two detainees take shifts throughout the night to keep an eye on everybody in the cell. take shifts throughout the night to keep an eye on everybody in the cell. Okay, because are they maybe worried about other detainees or are they worried about their safety? Presumably, the worries would be things like perhaps suicide or escape. So that's another feature that, you know, there's sort of constant surveillance,

human and otherwise, that's taking place. And when you say surveillance, like what about privacy? Are there cameras around or are you able to get a few minutes to yourself? No. I mean, even the bathroom, the bathroom's in a corner. It's glass walled. So you can go into the bathroom, you can close the door, but it's completely transparent. The shower itself, the water comes on about 30 minutes a day, Kevin said, hot water, that is. And because it's such a short period of time, what you end up having is for people to get a proper shower. You end up crowding with several people in the shower at the same time, each looking for a bit of hot water so they can rinse off and clean off before another group comes in. So not only are you showering in a shower facility with glass transparent walls, but you're in there crowded up against a few other people all showering at the same time. So no, there's no privacy.

The cell itself, there are different types of cells. On some, there is one large sleeping surface that everybody sleeps on. On others, including the one Kevin Garrett was in, there are individual, you can think of them kind of like cots, but not very comfortable cots. It's a steel frame with a hardwood surface, sleeping surface. And then sort of there would be breakfast, there would be lunch, there would be shower time and dinner. It's quite regimented. So, for example, the food would often arrive well in advance of the appointed eating hour. They wouldn't be allowed to eat it for sometimes an hour, hour

and a half, two hours. So, it would almost always be cold by the time they got into it. And then the days themselves would be made up of reading and rereading, chatting with other people. You know, how long do you think you're going to get for this? You know, not every case in China goes to trial, but when they do, the conviction rate is 99.9 something percent. So the question is not, you know, will you go to jail? It's how long will you go to jail? Another facet is the uncertainty. There's often very little knowledge of when something might go to trial. Often people get notification perhaps a day or two in advance. So there's no knowledge of what might happen and when, and then somebody might go to trial. Often people get notification perhaps a day or two in advance. So there's no knowledge of what might happen and when. And then somebody might go to trial and then the verdict might come in at some point in time. And he said typically those verdicts would

pass around as reading material, just as I suppose something to distract attention. Wow. Obviously, you weren't able to get into the facility any further than the entranceway, right? That's right. We asked. We were told to go to a different place, a police station inside the city of Dandong. Dandong is a city that's perched right on the border with North Korea. An officer from the propaganda unit of that police station came out, told us, you know, everyone in China is treated according to Chinese law. Yeah. In response to a question we had about the conditions for Michael and then promised to get back to us and did not. You know, you mentioned that this facility is on the border with North Korea. And I know that this is where Michael Spavor had been doing a lot of work before he was arrested for essentially spying. You know, he ran an organization that promoted tourism and

investment in North Korea. I know he facilitated the well-publicized friendship, essentially, between Kim Jong-un and basketball star Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman has developed an interesting relationship with the North Korean leader over the past few years. We laugh, we sing karaoke, we do a lot of cool things together. We ride horses, we hang out, we go skiing. In early 2013... And so is there any relation to him being in this facility and his ties to North Korea,

or is that just a coincidence? Well, he was in Dandong, which I think is why he's being kept there. But as for the reasons for his arrest, I mean, the Canadian government has been quite strong about calling it arbitrary. It's clear that he and Michael Kovrig were arrested on the same day, days after Meng Wanzhou was arrested. Even, you know, Chinese official rhetoric,

when asked about sort of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, they often answer in the same breath with a demand that Meng Wanzhou be released. Right. You know, other former diplomats and experts have gone so far as to call it retribution. Or hostage diplomacy. Speaking of Michael Kovrig, Michael Kovrig is a former Canadian diplomat, and he was working for International Crisis Group, which is a transnational nonprofit. You know, I understand, you know, some of the allegations against him are essentially that Michael Spavor was supplying him allegedly with information. What do we know about where Michael Kovrig is being held? Because he is not being

held in the same facility. No, he's so he was arrested in Beijing. He maintained an apartment in Beijing. And so he is currently in a detention center on the southern outskirts of Beijing. I went to the detention center. And if you go there, in fact, because it's a place where foreigners are held, the signs are actually bilingual. The signs are in Chinese and they're in English. There's a front desk there, but they are not particularly forthcoming with information. And have you heard anything generally about what it's like in there? You know, is it fair to assume, you know, Michael Kovrig is also having to sleep with the lights on, for example? That's fair to assume. Yeah. And we know that he's in a cell with one other person. So there's just the two of them. So far, there's been a two step detention process for both men,

two of them. So far, there's been a two-step detention process for both men, where they were both first seized by Ministry of State Security agents, and then initially placed in interrogation facilities. And that was for the first six months. And then after that, they were placed in the detention facilities where they are right now. The conditions for them in the detention facilities, in some ways, are looser in the sense that they now have access to books that are being sent in. They have been able to sort of do written correspondence with family and supporters. But they haven't been able to see their families. No. And in fact, I spoke with a Chinese lawyer who said they're unlikely to be able to see families until quite far along the process, perhaps not even until they get into jail.

Wow. If, in fact, they do get into jail. I don't think we should presume that. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. So you mentioned that there's some news that came out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that now their cases have moved to a prosecutor.

Right. Yes. In China, it's called the procuratorate, which is a complicated word, but it's effectively to the prosecutor's office. What China has said is that the investigation phase is over and now it's with the prosecutor. So what happens from here is the prosecutors have three options. One, they can proceed to a formal indictment, which would then set in motion the proceedings toward a trial. motion the proceedings toward a trial. Two, they can say further investigation is needed, and they can do that twice, which could either suggest that, in fact, further investigation is needed, or it could be a delay tactic. And the third is for the prosecutors to look at the case and say there is no case here and set them free. Okay. And like, do we have a sense of what might be the most likely outcome here? Well, the Chinese courts are deeply political. They are under the authority of the

Communist Party itself. So I think to really know some of those answers, one needs to know what's going to transpire with regard to sort of the broader political situation around this detention. Let's say this does go to trial. How is this likely to play out in court? Well, it's likely to be a one day trial. One day trial. Yeah, because let's not forget, I mean, we spent, there's been a tremendous amount of attention on Michael Spavor and Michael Covery. But there's also two other Canadians who through the course of the past year have been sentenced to death on drug charges. One of them is Robert Schellenberg. I attended one of his trials,

and that was a one-day trial. And I think it was 70 minutes later, just over an hour after it ended, the court came back with its verdict. And, you know, 70 minutes, I don't think would have been enough time to even type a verdict of that sort. So it would lead you to believe that some of this had been pre-written. His original sentence took four years to settle. All of that legal argument and the witnesses, the testimony, all the evidence, that took four years. This took a matter of a few hours. It's very clear that in this... Obviously, no evidence against either of these guys has been made public. I'm also guessing no evidence has been made available to them. They have no idea what the Chinese state says that they have on them. No, they may know what they're accused of doing because China has sort of made public accusations about sort of the very general nature of state secrets violations that they've accused the Michaels of.

Right. And in the Garrett case, you know, so he lived in Dandong and he was driving around as one does. And he came upon a construction site and there was a bridge that was being constructed on the side of the road. And so he took a picture of it. Well, it turns out it was a military group constructing this bridge. And so he was accused of possessing state secrets because he had taken a picture from a public road of a construction crew.

So that, I think, gives you an insight into the nature of what can be considered evidence by China in cases like this, which are incredibly serious, but which can be built upon things that I think most people would suggest are questionable. We should mention, Kevin Garrett was convicted by a Chinese court right, but then immediately deported back to Canada afterwards. A Canadian man who was locked up in a Chinese prison for two years on charges of spying has been released and is back on Canadian soil. Tonight, Kevin Garrett has been reunited with his family. That is also a possibility that could happen here. It is indeed. He was in the Dandong Detention Center for 19 months before that happened.

I can't help but think here, and I'm sure people listening are also thinking how different this all is and what's been playing out with Meng Wanzhou here. Right. I mean, the conditions, the legal protections, all of these things are dramatically different. I think when that propaganda official told me that these men are being taken care of according to the law in China. I think that's a true statement. But the legal system in China is radically different than it is elsewhere, particularly when it comes to something that involves state secrets allegations. Those provide all sorts of additional measures for Chinese authorities to act. And of course, in Canada, you have Meng Wanzhou, who's living in the second of her multi-million dollar houses in Vancouver. She's in quite a tony neighborhood on the west side of Vancouver in a $13 million house, which she had just renovated. She, you know,

has written publicly that she is spending her time reading and doing oil painting. It's, you know, she has restrictions on her life. I mean, she's restricted basically to the Vancouver area. She has to be home every night by 11 p.m. She has a curfew. But she is able to receive visitors

and her family, her mother, her husband, her children have come and visited her. Mung is currently on bail in Vancouver, free to travel throughout the city. Sunday, Mung released a poem to mark the one-year anniversary of her

detention. It was never my intention to be stuck here so long, but I suddenly find that a whole year has snuck by, and here I still am. The past year has witnessed moments of fear, pain, disappointment, helplessness, torment, and struggle. I know Judge just ordered a new batch of documents be handed over to her lawyer so that she could be fully prepared for when her extradition trial begins. Yes, indeed. You have the Canadian justice system, which is making additional demands of prosecutors, which is not something you're likely to see to any of the same degree in China. Okay. Nathan, thank you so much for this conversation. We really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Before we go today,

you might have seen the story about former Liberal, now independent MP, Jody Wilson-Raybould refusing to move out of a series of six offices given to her when she was cabinet minister. The Liberals had requested

use of the offices for a newly appointed cabinet minister. Last liberals had requested use of the offices for a newly appointed cabinet minister. Last week, Wilson-Raybould told the CBC that, quote, it made no sense for her to be removed from her office. She said that an Algonquin elder came to cleanse her office and that she was hopeful she would be allowed to stay. So I'm not trying to prevent somebody from having or being out in the cold without an office. I'm just trying to prevent somebody from having or being out in the cold without an office. I'm just trying to find a reasonable solution. I just want to stay in my office, which I had blessed by an elder and felt comfortable there.

Well, over the weekend, some developments. First, newly elected House of Commons Speaker Anthony Roda says he would evict her if it came down to it. Then Wilson-Raybould tweeted that she received a list of possible alternative offices and was in the process of reviewing that list when the news stories broke last week. Okay, that's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.