Friends of Prisoner in China Ask U.S. for Help

The Bush administration is being asked to step up pressure on China to release an American businessman who claims he was unjustly imprisoned in Shanghai for alleged tax fraud.

Jude Shao, a 42-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was notified Jan. 31 that China’s Supreme People’s Court had rejected his petition for a retrial. His campaign to overturn his 16-year prison sentence garnered support from prominent U.S. politicians, human rights groups and his former Stanford University classmates.

Shao’s supporters say he paid taxes for his medical-equipment importing business in Shanghai but was convicted after refusing to bribe Chinese officials. They also say that he wasn’t afforded due process, and that evidence proving his innocence was ignored by the courts.

Shao, who has already served six years of his sentence, can file more appeals under Chinese law, but his chances for success are virtually nil, his supporters said Friday.

Given that, the supporters said they planned to ask the U.S. government -- and in particular, new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a former Stanford provost -- to increase pressure on Beijing to grant Shao an early release because of a heart condition. In June, his family filed a request for medical parole.

“Medical parole is the most likely route,” said John Kamm, a human-rights advocate who has pushed for the release of Shao and others imprisoned in China. “It is very rare for a Chinese court to rule that another court has erred.”

Angela Aggeler, a State Department spokeswoman, said Friday that consular officials had been in regular contact with Shao and “will continue to express our concern” about his case to Chinese officials. She said Shao told a consular official during the last visit that the imprisonment was “taking a toll on his health,” but he seemed in “good spirits.”

Shao’s predicament is unusual but not unique. As many as 60 Americans have been imprisoned in China in recent years, many for “economic crimes,” according to Kamm’s organization, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation.

Most of those imprisoned are ethnic Chinese who may have gotten involved in risky ventures, legal experts said. Foreigners, like Chinese citizens, may run afoul of corrupt officials or get involved in disputes with powerful Chinese firms that have close ties to judicial authorities.

Chinese courts have improved dramatically from the time when they were virtual kangaroo courts for the Chinese Communist Party. Nonetheless, Shao’s case illustrates that a lack of due process and transparency remain as serious problems in the Chinese legal system, Kamm said.

A native of Shanghai, Shao was arrested and imprisoned in 1998 on charges that he had not paid proper taxes for a medical-equipment importing business he started after graduating from Stanford Business School.

Shao fought back, hiring a lawyer and providing tax receipts and other documents. But two Shanghai courts ruled against him. In February 2002, he filed a petition for a retrial with China’s highest court in Beijing.

Shao’s story was the subject of a front-page article in The Times in 2003.

A campaign by Shao’s Stanford classmates -- which attracted the support of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) -- has helped push him to the top of the U.S. government’s prisoner priority list, Kamm said.

James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, raised Shao’s case with Chinese officials in November at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum’s annual meeting in Chile.

Using their university connections, Shao’s supporters hope to persuade Rice to lobby for Shao’s release. A Rice mentor, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, is a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and has written letters on Shao’s behalf to President Bush and others.