Gordon Chang: ‘China Is Not Safe for Foreigners’

“China is not safe for foreigners,” warned Gordon Chang, Daily Beast columnist, expert on China, and author of The Coming Collapse of China, in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Rick Manning.

China arrests foreign nationals to use as hostages in pursuit of its geopolitical aims, said Chang, highlighting China’s detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

“We do know that China has been holding what are called the two Michaels, and these are one former diplomat, one Canadian businessman, and these two Canadians are being held for no reason other than Canada has, pursuant to a lawful extradition request from the United States, detained Meng Wanzhou, who is the chief financial officer of Huawei technologies.”

Chang continued, “They have no reason for holding the two Michaels — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — and so we know that China has absolutely no compunction about taking hostages, and they’ve also taken American citizens  as hostages.”

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Chang recalled China’s barring of  Viktor and Cynthia Lieu — the children of a U.S. citizen — from leaving its territory as a reaction to a a financial dispute. Breitbart News reported, “Chinese officials put the so-called ‘exit ban’ in place for the siblings in an effort to force their father Liu Changming to return to China, where he stands accused in a $1.4 billion fraud case connected to a state-run bank where he once worked.”

Chang remarked, “In one particular case, there was a business dispute involving an American citizen in a question of debt. What the Chinese did to get leverage was detain the U.S. citizen’s wife and the U.S. citizen’s children, who have no connection with the dispute, and now they’re being held as hostages, as well.”

“This is something that Beijing does all the time, and China, right now, I believe, is not safe for foreigners, especially for Americans and for people who are Canadians, British, you name it,” concluded Chang. “China is not safe.”

Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.