Full Transcript for Surviving China’s Jails: Michael Kovrig and Peter Dahlin

windows are covered, there's no daylight. 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:04.800 So three words in the name, right? 00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:07.519 Residential surveillance and a designated location. 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:09.360 Three words and all three are false. 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:15.360 It's not really surveillance, it's not residential, and it's in a location almost nobody can find. 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:24.800 It's the only form of detention in the Chinese system that combines total incommunicado confinement with no judicial oversight of any kind. 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:33.040 China's legislature is potentially going to revise the RSDL law in the way that works, are they not? 00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:33.680 Right. 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:36.000 So RSDL was created, right? 00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:46.240 Uh residential surveillance itself has existed since the 1979 criminal procedure law, but that was like an alternative to jail and actually served in your home. 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:47.920 It was closer to what it sounds like. 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:57.439 The designated location variant is the new one, and that was written into the criminal procedure law in a 2012 amendment that took effect in 2013. 00:05:57.519 --> 00:05:58.720 So it was a mechanism. 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:04.240 It was made by a statute and can be unmade by a decision with the National People's Congress. 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:05.759 And there's precedent for that, right? 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:10.160 Re-education for labor was abolished by the NPC Standing Committee. 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:14.079 Custody and repatriation was also abolished even earlier. 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:24.480 The difference is that both of those were administrative systems operating outside the criminal process, but RSDL sits inside the criminal procedure law itself. 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:27.759 And so the only way to change it is to amend that law. 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:29.759 And that's actually happening right now. 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:37.360 The draft amendment was published on November 6th, and it's open for public comment for a month now until December 5th. 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:45.680 And so Chinese scholars and defense lawyers have actually spent two years arguing publicly that the measure should be abolished or sharply curtailed. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:07:01.680 Yeah, I mean, um, not to go into the legal details too much, but it's also interesting what Michael mentioned here is there's been pressure within Chinese academia, within the legal community to reform or abolish the system for a number of years, especially the last three or four years. 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:06.079 There's been a number of high-profile deaths of torture within the RSDL system. 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:13.360 And there has, of course, been a discussion that a new revision to the CPL, the criminal procedure uh procedure law is needed. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:38.160 Unfortunately, the reason I think it's it's good to be quite skeptical that we're going to see anything positive here is that the prosecutor's office and the police preempted this by issuing a new regulation on RSDL summer of 2025 that was largely intended, I think, to offset these criticisms to ensure that the RSDL system is not abolished during this new uh revision discussion. 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:48.639 So, yeah, uh there is hope, of course, but obviously the the police have thought about this and made their own moves to make sure that this is not a tool that's going to be removed from their arsenal. 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:57.439 That's why I'm I'm rather skeptical that the CPL revision itself will be that positive when it comes to RSDL, but there is hope uh for sure. 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:01.920 What is the grounds for the pushback from the legal community? 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:09.120 Is it based on human rights or rule of law concerns from the Chinese side? 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:10.480 Yeah, I think that depends. 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:19.439 Within Chinese academia, it largely is that there is no external body that can regulate the police's behavior and how they apply the RSDL system. 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:33.039 Uh, within Chinese academia, most of them are former prosecutors, they're party members, but despite that, the output we see is quite aggressively critical of how the system is being implied, how time limitations are violated. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:35.919 So we see a lot of criticism from academia about that. 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:53.519 From lawyers and legal practitioners, is more that especially local police tend to apply these exceptions that you cannot access legal counsel if it's a national security crime, but they apply it on all forms of RSDL use, even for non-political crime, for non-national security crimes. 00:08:53.679 --> 00:09:08.879 And again, there is no external authority that can correct the behavior of the police when they do so, rendering lawyers more or less meaningless when it comes to being placed into the RSDL system, which was not, at least in writing, the intention when the system was created. 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:20.240 Since a large part of it is the national security dissidents, terrorism charges, do people necessarily know that they're being held for those reasons? 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:35.759 And considering especially revenge cases where Beijing is taking retribution for other countries' actions or statements China doesn't like, do public security officers go through the motions of pretending it's really about something else? 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:48.960 Yes and no, from I think Michael has a lot more experience personally on that, but when we we talk to people, we've interviewed a little bit over 200 people at this point of RSDL victims over the years. 00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:54.799 And they do go through the motions, including when it comes to foreign citizens being held. 00:09:54.879 --> 00:10:01.679 Uh, I think partly that is because with

international attention, certain parts of RSDL must be respected. 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:12.399 For example, the six-month time limit, uh which means that they need to have in their mind a solid case so they can move it forward to arrest if they need to hold the person longer. 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:20.240 Uh so I think that's one of the reasons why, even when it's quite blatantly fake reason for holding someone, that they will still go through the motion. 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:26.080 I also think that a lot of the interrogators actually believe the allegations levied against these people. 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:31.600 And even if they didn't, they still must treat it as such, because otherwise they will suffer themselves. 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:42.720 Yeah, I don't want to go into too much depth on my case, but based on a lot of the other ones I've read, I would say it's it's a consistent pattern that the officers go through the motions completely. 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:46.879 They never break down the fourth wall, they never drop the pretense. 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:50.320 And the going through those motions are actually the point, right? 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:52.320 Part of it is compartmentalization, right? 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:59.759 The officers in the room are not the people who decided that you would be taken, and they genuinely may not know why the file landed on their desk. 00:10:59.919 --> 00:11:07.120 In my own case, it became, you know, because I had consular meetings, it became and in which we talked about the Mmung case. 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:21.759 And there was one moment in the concept reading where the um the interpreter actually told us to stop talking about Mmung's case, and I deliberately turned to him and said, There's no rule that we're not allowed to talk about news of the day. 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:23.519 This is a news issue in Canada. 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:24.559 I'm interested in it. 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.639 Why, what reason could there be that I could not talk about it? 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:33.679 Which annoyed the hell out of them because, of course, the reason was they knew damn well it was connected to my case. 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:35.759 Um, but they would never acknowledge that. 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:40.960 Uh, but so and I think more generally, right, the system doesn't require the interrogators to know. 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:46.320 It requires them to build the case, and the law is written so that a case can always be built. 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:54.879 Uh I would point your um your readers uh actually to an article I did for The Wire China last year called Is It Safe to Visit China? 00:11:55.279 --> 00:12:09.600 Uh if you take the state secrets offense that's typically used against foreigners, the Supreme People's Court in 2001 defined intelligence as matters relating to national security and interests that have not yet been made public. 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:12.399 Not classified, just unpublished. 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:22.879 And a second provision says material carrying no classification marking at all still counts as long as you knew or you should have known it was sensitive. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:31.679 So if you're a journalist or a researcher or a diplomat or doing due diligence, uh, the test is basically satisfied by your job description. 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:44.960 So the interrogators technically don't need to fabricate, they're working methodically through a file of entirely real things you did under a definition that's broad enough that the real things you did can be construed as an offense. 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:53.919 They they have their perspective, a party perspective, in which you're guilty, and they would just keep building that reality around you. 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:58.080 And so whether the detainee knows what it's really about varies enormously. 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:06.559 Some people work it out, some people are told more or less explicitly, and many spend months genuinely trying to identify the thing they did wrong. 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:12.639 And that's part of how the pressure works because that's a you know that really messes with people's heads, right? 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:22.399 So for the majority of people, the way out of RSDL is you are actually charged with a crime, there's a concrete case. 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:26.080 What happens to the prisoners who make it through that process? 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:36.320 There is a rather significant amount of people that are placed into RSDL, often held for the full six month period, and then released under so-called bail conditions. 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:43.039 Uh, so there's a very significant number of cases that never ever reaches either the prosecutor's hand nor a court. 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:53.759 Uh but the majority of cases based on Chinese academic studies uh do lead to an arrest and later, of course, prosecution, imprisonment, and so-called release. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:01.600 One of the more interesting developments we've seen is something that Jerome Cohen called a non-release release or NRR. 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:06.960 It's not brand new, but it's becoming more systematic, systematically employed. 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:19.600 And that is when they release you from a prison, or it could be from, say, uh from a jail as well, if they decide to drop the uh the prosecution, and you're moved into softer house arrest, but still kept incomunicado. 00:14:19.679 --> 00:14:32.240 And this is a process that goes from weeks to sometimes several months, which is a way to sort of manage the release of especially dissidents or anyone that might garner media or public attention. 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:45.039 Uh, but once that's over, what's interesting with police in China, especially local police, is that their memory is quite short and they are not very systematic, and they tend to sort of lose, lose focus after a while. 00:14:45.200

--> 00:14:53.440 Uh so as long as you lay low for a little while, local police tend to sort of drop their surveillance uh quite quickly, a few months, I would say. 00:14:53.679 --> 00:15:02.720 And one of the inspiring things is, and we see that from the testimonies of people, uh Chinese dissidents and so forth in the book, they do find their way back to activism. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:13.600 Uh, whether it's been RSDL, whether it's been imprisonment, whether it's been torture, almost every single one finds their way back into activism upon release. 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:22.240 It's really remarkable, Dan, uh what you said there, that people come back to such a risky activity after everything they've been through. 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:35.600 Because part of uh, in my experience, you know, what I've seen reading a lot of these essays and talking to a number of other detainees, part of the point is legally the point from the state's perspective is to coerce a confession because that's the gold standard. 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:45.600 But the the extent you don't need six months and then potentially extend it for another 13 months for a total of you know, a year and a half of interrogation. 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:52.240 You don't need that much interrogation time to get the facts in the vast majority of imaginable cases, right? 00:15:52.480 --> 00:16:01.759 The purpose of that is coercing a confession, but also to I think it draws a lot on the party state's long tradition of thought remolding, right? 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:11.519 Of reshaping not just behavior, but thinking, of you know, whether you wanted to call it brainwashing, going back to the Korean War, or just rectification. 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:17.919 They want you to acknowledge the state's power and the fact that the party is infallible. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.000 It's always scientifically correct. 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:23.039 And for it to be right, you have to be wrong. 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:32.559 If they were just looking to expedite confessions, they would write up the crimes that you have they want you to confess to and give you a piece of paper and just say sign here. 00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:45.919 They don't do that, they make you write out your own confession at great length, and in many cases, they then make you rewrite it over and over again because it wasn't sufficiently groveling and apologetic. 00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:52.320 Uh and what's the logic of doing that except to try to reshape your thinking and align it with the party states? 00:16:52.399 --> 00:17:01.919 Uh, and the striking thing is that the activists, the advocates that you talk about, Peter, it doesn't work on them, but the state just keeps doing it over and over again anyway. 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:15.519 For any listeners who haven't seen it yet, the link to the excerpt from the most recent edition of People's Republic of the Disappeared is on our website and it's linked in the podcast description. 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:18.400 Speaking of this book, this is the third edition. 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:23.920 Do you fear there will be a fourth, a fifth, a sixth edition as this practice continues? 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:26.000 How does this all end? 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:27.920 How can this all end? 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:34.400 What do you hope this book and the continued publishing of this book can do and can lead towards? 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:42.079 Well, from our point of view, we look to the abolition of the re-education through labor system as an inspiration. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:49.839 There was a time where there wasn't a bilateral engagement with China where their re-education through labor system didn't come up. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:52.880 There wasn't a multilateral fora where it didn't come up. 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:54.000 It was constant. 00:17:54.240 --> 00:18:03.039 And I don't think that was the main reason they abolished the system, but I think it kept the discussion within China alive that this is an issue, we have to address it. 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:07.920 And down the road, the only suitable solution was to actually get rid of it. 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:23.599 And RSDL, as well as the sister system that exists for state workers and party members, very similar to RSDL, taken together, we're talking at least somewhere around 70,000 people a year being disappeared into these two systems. 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:34.319 It is by far the most significant challenge against the international consensus that enforced disappearances has no role to play in civilized society, much like torture. 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:38.640 And we've actually built this against enforced disappearances ever since the 60s. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:45.039 And China, and with these two systems, especially the RSDL system, has really brought back the issue. 00:18:45.279 --> 00:19:00.000 And my personal fear is that we have a lot of other countries looking at the lack of blowback, the lack of pushback against the system, and will seek inspiration from this because it is an incredibly powerful tool for any authoritarian out there. 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:07.839 There is a reason systematic disappearances are classified as a crime against humanity for, you know, for a very good reason. 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:14.319 So I think it's very important to get as much information and discussion about RSDL going. 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:17.519 And a book is one of many ways that can be done. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:30.640 But yes, again, using actual victims, in this case, foreign victims primarily, and their own writing, I think can bring something new that, again, our data analysis and law analysis cannot. 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:38.799 Uh, which is why I think we're gonna unfortunately have to keep pushing this book and probably making new additions over the years uh to come. 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:44.960 To end on a some more positive uh or uh optimistic note,

right? 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:51.440 Safety defenders project of this book is incredibly important because RSDL depends on deniability. 00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:51.680 Right. 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:59.680 Each testimony that you can check against other testimonies makes the denial fractionally harder and more expensive to sustain. 00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:19.680 And I I was just last month uh or in September, I was at uh a conference on Chinese law, gathering both Chinese and foreign lawyers, and I put a couple of questions to criminal procedure experts about RSDL, and the Chinese ones effectively wouldn't even acknowledge its existence or talk about it. 00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:22.480 They said that their research hadn't covered anybody like that. 00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:24.160 It was very awkward for them. 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:31.599 And so by putting this out there, you're providing evidence and first-person testimonials that it happens, that it happens, it's real. 00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:36.960 We have in this book 10 new first-person accounts, plus a dozen from earlier editions. 00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:45.279 And what they reveal is a curriculum, uh, so the same sequence, the same techniques, the same skirts across decades and different cases. 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:51.359 That's not improvised cruelty or exceptions, it's training, it's doctrine. 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:57.680 Thank you so much, Peter and Michael, for your time, for sharing your experiences. 00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:08.480 And again, that is People's Republic of the Disappeared, third edition by Safeguard Defenders, which is out now in English and Chinese. 00:21:09.759 --> 00:21:23.759 In addition to the excerpt from Safeguard Defenders book, which again is available at the link in our description, we have a whole raft of news stories this week in our most recent issue. 00:21:24.319 --> 00:21:32.400 Our cover story, written by Ben Buchanan and Tantum Collins, is an extract from their new book, The Bitter Struggle. 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:45.359 The two are former Biden administration officials, and they discuss how they sought to control the outsourcing of leading American AI technologies and prevent their possible leakage to China. 00:21:45.680 --> 00:22:00.880 Also, this week, my colleague Rachel Chung writes about how China's pharma industry has become adept at innovation, but the struggles they face with developing companies to challenge big multinationals such as Eli Lilly or Johnson ⁇ Johnson. 00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:12.319 Also, this week, I profile Hung Li Group, the industrial conglomerate headed by Chen Jian Huang, Fan Hongwei, and their children, who are some of China's richest people. 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:26.160 Hung Li Group not only operates textiles and petrochemical factories, but also leads the largest shipbuilding facility in China, which received over 200 new ship orders in the first half of this year alone. 00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:30.079 Our QA this week is with writer and historian Robert D. 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:36.160 Kaplan on the quote, China whisperers who shaped how the US views its main rival. 00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:47.920 Our opinion piece on China's renminbi-based trade with countries such as Russia and Iran and what that means for dollar dominance in the world economy is written by Ho Feng Hung. 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:51.599 All of these are available on our website, thewirechina.com. 00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:53.119 Thank you so much for listening. 00:22:53.279 --> 00:23:01.279 Do share this episode with anyone who might be interested in listening to it and see you next week on the Wire China podcast.