By Jerome A. Cohen
Richard O’Halloran and his wife Tara.
Image: SaveRichardNow/Twitter
Here is another example of outrageous and self-damaging conduct on the part of the PRC. Richard O’Halloran is an Irish businessman who has been prevented from leaving China for two years. O’Halloran’s continuing forced confinement is pure Cultural Revolution stuff reminiscent of the infamous Banque Belge case and many others. This is transferring to the international scene the type of hostage negotiations that often take place within China where corporate officials are locked up by local police at the behest of some powerful figures supporting the other side of a business dispute. Such tactics have often been used against foreign companies and their Chinese or even foreign representatives, but with little publicity.
Sometimes the abuse of foreigners, either through criminal detention or exit denial as in this case, is the result of powerful local influencers being given deference by central officials. Sometimes a powerful central leader sends down a command that cannot be opposed by local authorities, certainly not by the Chinese courts, which simply wait to be instructed by whoever has the most political influence in the circumstances.
International publicity that generates serious action by foreign governments and the international business community is the only defense in most of these foreign-related cases. Why any multinational corporation would allow its employees to travel to China to settle a dispute is beyond me. Some used to believe that sending them to China’s periphery for negotiations concerning disputes in the interior used to be safe, but I have known of cases where police from the interior have gone to Shenzhen or Shanghai to detain the foreign representatives and force them to continue the “negotiations” while in captivity in the interior.
Until recently Hong Kong would surely have been regarded as a safe place for uncoerced negotiations. It would be much riskier to rely on it now.