Is Vanuatu’s deportation of six Chinese nationals an erosion of its democratic rights at Beijing’s bidding?
- The Pacific nation’s government has defended the actions as routine law enforcement activity, but critics fear its rule of law is being undermined
- The case takes place against a backdrop of global misgivings about China’s legal system, including the Hong Kong protests and New Zealand’s blocking of an extradition
The Chinese police officers touched down at Vanuatu’s main gateway, Bauerfield International Airport in the capital Port Vila, on a Wednesday afternoon. A little over a week later, on July 6, the law enforcement officers, dressed in plain clothes and accompanied by Vanuatu police, marched a half-dozen Chinese nationals onto a chartered jet bound for China.
Their deportation has earned criticism from Vanuatu’s legal experts and human rights activists, who say it is an erosion of democratic rights done at China’s bidding.
Local media reported the six were held at a property owned by a Chinese state-owned construction company for a number of days, and four of them had recently acquired Vanuatu citizenship through participation in the nation’s controversial passport sale programme.
The programme does not require investment or residence, only an exchange of cash for a Vanuatuan passport, and was launched in part to target wealthy Chinese investors.
The citizenship of the four suspects was revoked by Port Vila before the six were deported.