WILL YOUR GOVERNMENT HELP YOU OUT OVERSEAS?

 WILL YOUR GOVERNMENT HELP YOU OUT OVERSEAS?

“A Chinese court has sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, more than two years after he was first detained. Spavor, a Beijing-based businessman who regularly traveled to North Korea, was sentenced after being found guilty of spying and illegally providing state secrets to foreign countries, the Dandong Intermediate People's Court said in a statement Wednesday.”

This two-year-old saga is very troubling to me. I don’t know Michael, but I did know his mother and father, and so have a stronger feeling about the situation than if he were a total stranger. It is a very convoluted political story that highlights the lack of protection an individual possesses in a foreign country and the lack of power of any government to deal with these kinds of international incidents. 

I have innocently been on the fringe of a couple of scary overseas scenarios in the past. Once in Turkey, we were travelling on a bus, when it was stopped and police entered and forced a family of four off the bus and into a police van. Had they for any reason tossed me into their legal system I can’t imagine what the outcome would have been. In Uganda, I was a passenger in a van with other teachers and Ugandan officials which was stopped at make shift roadside check-stops many times manned by fully armed soldiers and child soldiers. Their primary purpose was to extort money but what if they had wanted to make a more powerful political statement? I might have been the Michael Spavor story instead!

The lack of individual safety in a foreign country is further compounded by the inept responses of Canadian government officials in dealing with these unsettling incidents. Governments must appear to be doing their best to right an international wrong but their effectiveness is non-existent. Their official statements are insults to the intelligence of the reader and simply are political requirements to appear they are fighting for the individual. 

For example, Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton said his government condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the sentence handed down to Spavor. They have been doing this for over two years already and what has changed by their condemnation? Nothing!

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced Spavor's sentencing Wednesday as "absolutely unacceptable and unjust," saying in a statement Canada's top priority is securing the release of the two men. I would comment that this action is far from their “top priority”  and probably somewhere near the bottom of a hundred other top priorities. Such as getting prepared for another election! Trudeau also said. "We will not rest until they are safely brought home.” It appears to me that Trudeau and company have been resting quite comfortably with regard to this issue for over two years, so now you can expect to see a formidable government intervention in the very near future. Don’t hold your breath!

But our government is not the only one that speaks out of both sides of its mouth. Both the administrations of former US President Donald Trump, and now US President Joe Biden have pledged to do all they can to assist the two Canadians. And apparently the effects of “doing all that they can” is a reflection that they really can do nothing but sabre-rattle. And I’m not sure that there is really any action that anyone can take at this point in a political power struggle involving two helpless Canadian victims.

Finally, in a statement Wednesday, the United States Embassy in China strongly condemned the verdict, describing it as a "blatant attempt" to use people as "bargaining leverage.” Boy, this kind of powerful rhetoric will probably bring the Beijing government to their knees by nightfall. 

Well, that pretty much ends my rant for the day. But it does highlight two significant truths. Don’t take your safety for granted either at home or abroad. Be vigilant and cautious whether you are visiting the Sistine Chapel in Rome or resting on a beach in Mazatlan. As a foreigner, you are really on your own. Secondly, government assistance for a traveller in distress is pretty much zero. Be careful out there, my friends!