NPR: American Geologist Is Jailed For 8 Years In China
… Later allowed visits by U.S. consular officers, Xue told them he wanted his case made public. However, his wife, who lives in Texas, disagreed, believing that quiet lobbying might be more effective and fearing that the publicity would trouble their two children and possibly jeopardize her relatives still living in China. Amid their disagreement, the U.S. State Department pursued back-channel diplomacy.
Meanwhile, the case was batted between the court and prosecutors. All told, he appeared three times in court before Monday's hearing, the first in July a year ago and the last in December. The court then repeatedly postponed sentencing. Legal experts said the delays in issuing a verdict exceeded legal time limits; Xue's lawyer said a decision should have come in March at the latest.
The lapses illustrate a growing willingness by the authoritarian government to ignore laws to suit political interests.
"There's an increasing number of cases where there's no legal fig leaf," Jerome Cohen, a venerable China law expert at New York University who has advised Xue's wife, said in an interview before the verdict. "These are increasingly apparent, visible signs of lawlessness."
Chinese officials have wide authority to define state secrets, and the latitude makes it difficult for foreigners and Chinese alike to know when they are crossing the line. …
A critical piece to effective market economies is for businesspeople to have the ability to assess the economic and legal ramifications of their decisions reliably. This is the part I find interesting to watch with China. Can you have a sustainable market economy with this kind of arbitrary and extreme treatment of people? How does China work this out?
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