中美合作反腐

President Xi Jinping has made battling corruption one of the corner-stones of his administration. Recently, the United States has said Chinese citizens fleeing corruption charges in their own country will not find safe haven in the US.

A few days ago, US law enforcement officials apprehended a Chinese national accused of graft and handed him over to Chinese authorities.

The Northwest United States seemed like a great place to start a new life for Shilan Zhao, and her young son Jonathan, when they move there more than half-a-dozen years ago.

But Federal Court records filed in Los Angeles paint a different picture. Her husband, Jianjun Qiao, was the director of a major grain reserve in China. The Chinese government provided millions of RMB that he was supposed to use to help farmers buy grain.

Instead, US court records allege Qiao siphoned off millions and millions of RMB and then shipped it to his Canadian bank account.

Since no one knows where Qiao is, US attorneys are helping the prosecution of his wife.
US law enforcement officers have traveled to China to work with investigators in the Henan province, as they work to build the case against Qiao and Zhao.

Zhao's defense attorney believes with the high profile US visit of Xi, American law enforcement officials are cooperating with China out of a show of good faith, pointing out the US does not have an extradition treaty with China.

But a former US federal prosecutor says, this is not a case of the United States trying to curry favors.

“In the US system, if one is convicted of a money laundering offense or an immigration fraud offense, that deprives the individual of certain protections that that person might otherwise have,” said Ron Cheng.

Qiao is considered among China's top 100 most wanted. And court records allege Qiao and Zhao got divorced in 2001, meaning she lied on immigration papers to get into the United States. But Zhao's attorney is not swayed by the information.

“My concern is that they’d be very, very eager to help the Chinese government and that the evidence given to them by the Chinese government is not going to be accurate,” Kirk Davis said.

China and the US will be working much closer together to make sure Chinese nationals accused of crimes will not find safe refuge in the United States.