China Puts Pressure On Australia To Extradite Foxes

As part of its widening anti-corruption crusade called “Operation Fox Hunt,” China has stepped up pressure on Australia for the extradition of its corrupt officials. These are 10 of China’s most wanted and at least five of these have links to some Australian companies located in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. They are from the list of top 100 officials whose names were revealed by China in a list of the most wanted ones who fled abroad.

As China warned countries not to give refuge to corrupt people, nations like Australia have been in a fix. This is owing to the fact that some crimes like these invite the death sentence in China. Also, the legal system of that country is controlled by its staunchly defended Communist Party.

Confiscation of the assets hidden abroad and repatriation of its shady officers have been the foreign policy objectives of Chinese President Xi Jinping. A whopping US$1.08 trillion ($1.39 trillion) went out of China illegally. This happened between the years 2002 and 2011.

Among the names of those responsible for the same and whose names figure in the Interpol list are that of a former Shanghai-based executive at Minmetals Yao Geng, policewoman Guo Jiefang, IT executive Zhang Dawei, an ex-deputy general manager of a state-owned mining company and former bank branch manager Lai Mingmin. Of these, Yao Geng is believed to have misappropriated over $4.2 million and is in hiding supposedly in Australia or Thailand. Mingmin is believed to have participated in a scheme that robbed the Bank of China off hundreds of millions of dollars.

Operation Fox Hunt was started in the year 2014 to root out corruption caused by these guilty officials who had fled abroad. These were termed as foxes. This year, the campaign was widened further to Operation Sky Net that is using the central bank and Ministry of Public Security to target money laundering and underground movement of funds.

China is using pressure tactics on Australia to add momentum to its extradition policy. But when asked recently whether or not the Australian government had been given the list of people to be held in custody, it said that particular extradition requests were not commented on in public. Nonetheless, the pictures of the suspects were published in China Daily newspaper along with their details that included embezzlement charges.

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