U.S. Diplomats Rescue Chinese Woman and Daughters from Communist Security Personnel

It was not U.S. Special Ops that rescued a woman and her two daughters in Thailand last month, but U.S. diplomats who successfully brought the family of an imprisoned Chinese human rights attorney to safety in the United States.

Despite the Washington Post’s article leading with criticism of President Donald Trump for “playing down human right abuses in other countries,” this is the second rescue successfully orchestrated by his administration in recent weeks.

Late last month, Phan Phan-Gillis, or Sandy Phan-Gillis, was quickly “deported” back to the United States after she was convicted of espionage by the Chinese communist government. She had been imprisoned for two years after she disappeared on the final day of a business trip. Phan-Gillis’s release followed Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Florida estate and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to that country in March.

Chen Giuqiu and her 4- and 15-year-old daughters were pulled out of the back door of the prison in Thailand, where they were being held, the Associated Press reported.

“In an apparent bid to pressure [Chen’s husband] Xie [Yang] to retract his story [about being tortured], his wife said Chinese authorities constantly followed and watched her, subjected her to long interrogations and threatened her with dismissal from her job as a university lecturer, eviction from her home and expulsion of her children from school,” the Post reported.

“Chen, a Christian, contacted Bob Fu, a Christian rights activist based in Texas, who helped her flee China, traveling in secret by foot and car for five days until they reached Thailand,” the Post reported.

But their escape was short-lived and, on March 2, Thai police, accompanied by an interpreter who Chen believes worked for the Chinese Embassy, arrested her.

A court ruled that she had entered Thailand illegally, and Chinese agents showed up to take her back to China.

“But, the AP reported, American diplomats appeared in the nick of time and spirited her out the back door of the jail and to the airport. There, a heated argument ensued over several hours as China put more pressure on Thai officials to hand her over. She finally arrived in the United States on March 17 and is rebuilding her life in Texas,” the Post reported.

“Cleary the administration is putting priority on cases involving U.S. citizens, no question about it,” John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, told the Post. His foundation had been working on the Phan-Gillis case.

Chen’s husband, however, is still imprisoned in China.

“On Monday, her husband appeared in court in the city of Changsha in central China,” the Post reported. “The court said he confessed, denied he was tortured and admitted being ‘brainwashed’ by Western constitutional thoughts in Hong Kong and South Korea to overthrow Communist Party rule in China.”