Last week, two Chinese students were locked up for a minimum of 18 and a half years for the kidnapping and murder of a fellow Chinese student in Auckland last year. A third student was cleared of murder but was jailed for a minimum of three and a half years for his role in the kidnapping of 19-year-old Wan Biao.
According to the AFP report, Judge John Priestley said:
“All three of you have participated in a chilling crime. It was calculated, callous and cruel … The three of you lived in an unreal world of cyberspace and sloth.”
His appraisal was based on these gory details:
After luring Wan to an Auckland hotel, the three contacted his mother in China demanding a ransom of four million yuan (540,000 US dollars).
But they strangled and knifed him the same night. After a failed attempt to saw his head off, Wan’s body was stuffed into a suitcase and thrown into the harbour.
The suitcase was found floating the next day, and the kidnappers rang Wan’s mother again, the court was told.
“Your son offended us, he deserved to have this result,” they told her.
As the AP report tells us, the judge was in little doubt as to the motivation of the crimes committed by Cui Xiangxin, Li Zheng and Wang Yuxi:
“Your greed for money led you to hatch this plan,” he told the court.
With these comments in mind, it was intriguing to see China Daily’s report (proxy link because I can’t seem to access the story on the website at the moment) on the sentencing. The first seven paragraphs covered the court proceedings but omitted the judge’s four Cs - chilling, callous, calculated and cruel - and also the reference to greed. The remainder, which was in fact the majority of the article, went down, in my opinion, a curious and inappropriate route:
Some Chinese students and educators believe the “shocking” case raises concern over the situations Chinese students studying abroad have to confront.
“I am shocked. I feel pity for the convicts’ parents because they must have made a great effort to send their sons overseas for studies. They must have felt proud doing so but now they must be desperate,” said Zhang Yongguang, who went to study in Britain when he was 18 and has lived there for six years.
Peking University’s professor of sociology Xia Xueluan said some Chinese students who go abroad face psychological pressure in the beginning and need help from teachers and peers to overcome it.
“Some students have big difficulties with language, which may add to their anxiety and even lead to abnormal behavior,” Xia said.
Chinese employers favor professionals who have studied abroad and have a understanding of different cultures. This prompts many Chinese families to try and send their children abroad for studies. Ministry of Education data show the number of self-financed Chinese students studying abroad has risen 10 times from 1998 to 121,000 last year.
According to Beijing Normal University professor Hong Chengwen, parents should think twice before deciding to send their children abroad.
Wan was a ‘nice guy’
Wan Biao, the 19-year-old student who was kidnapped and murdered in New Zealand, was from the affluent city of Yiwu in Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is called “China’s capital of small commodities”.
Wan was a student of an Auckland language school when three fellow Chinese kidnapped him in April last year, and two of them strangulated him to death.
Wan’s family is well-off, according to Zhejiang media reports. His father is in the construction business, and the family owns a four-story house.
“Wan Biao was a thin, tall man and I think he was a nice guy,” a local newspaper quoted a neighbor as having said. “He always used to smile at me when we met on the stairs.”
An official with the foreign affairs office of Yiwu local government said more and more local families are sending their children overseas for studies.
There is no denying many Chinese students must find it hard to adapt to new lives at universities overseas. Indeed, a report in the New Zealand Herald from April this year says:
Chinese students face a large gap between their expectations of New Zealand (and) the reality, research has found.
Many felt lonely and isolated and found it hard to make New Zealand friends.
“They want to drive cars and be free and are not prepared adequately for the different lifestyle here and the culture shock,” Waikato University researcher Elsie Ho said today.
“Together with freedom comes responsibility and they are unable to handle that.”
They had problems that came with living on their own in a flat, far from their pampered lives in China, she said.
Language and cultural problems made it very difficult to adapt.
Emotional support was not always forthcoming from China as students were reluctant to reveal problems they faced.
All valid points and an issue that deserves discussion. But surely not here, not in a report about a ”chilling” crime and not as a veiled justification for the violent actions of three disturbed Chinese students. I’m sure language difficulties do create anxiety, resulting in sometimes “abnormal behaviour”. Most newcomers to China find themselves, at least once, responding to a communication breakdown that arises from failing to pay a bill, extend a visa or buy a carrot, by berating anyone within a one-mile radius. But there is a long way to travel down the road of mental torment before you end up trying to saw someone’s head off. This report from the Australian Associated Press (via The Age) also said:
The judge accepted the three were isolated from their families, with little social support or parental supervision.
But there were many Chinese students in a similar situation in New Zealand who were leading enriching lives.
The China Daily story mentioned that Wan’s family was well-off but didn’t appear to have access to the following information given in the AAP story:
The victim impact report indicated the devastation of Wan’s mother and father at their son’s death.
They had since suffered health problems for which they would need continuing medication, while all the work they had put into their son’s future was rendered meaningless.
They were continuing to go through “infinite pain and sadness”, something that would follow them for the rest of their lives.
The main reason why China Daily would never have had access to that information was the failure of Xinhua’s one-man bureau in New Zealand to report the sentencing at all. In fact, the last story Xinhua produced on the case came in June, 2006. Clearly, the Xinhua journalist in NZ had more pressing priorities to address, judged by the latest offering to limp out of Wellington, which begins:
WELLINGTON, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — The New Zealand track cycling team returned home Tuesday from the UCI World Cup in Beijing, extremely impressed by the indoor track venue ahead of the Olympics next year.
They won a pursuit team silver in Beijing, having a satisfactory round of results with the men’s team pursuit going close to upsetting the world champion English team in the pursuit final.
The team manager Craig Adair said the venue was very impressive. He said facilities are fantastic, and the locals have looked after the team well.
I might as well just state the obvious to act as a concluding paragraph … things would have been a lot different if Wan Biao’s murderers had not been Chinese.
Zhang Ze-zi | 12-Dec-07 at 12:20 am | Permalink
Excellent post. It really shows how biased media can be.
Just like the NY SEC case against a couple of Chinese traders, we must see what is customary in China in these situations. Chinese, when accused of undeniable wrong doing, will first come up with excuses for their own failing, and blame others. The piece in China Daily clearly demonstrated their skills in doing so, and the intensity of this custom, culture and tradition. A tradition with 5000 years of history, no less.
Imagethief | 12-Dec-07 at 9:48 am | Permalink
What to make of Edwin Maher?…
Imagethief found the LA Times article on CCTV9’s western anchorman, Edwin Maher, quite interesting. I…
nanheyangrouchuan | 13-Dec-07 at 11:29 am | Permalink
Rule #1: Chinese are never at fault for what they do.
Rule #2: when abroad, foreigners are always at fault for what Chinese do.
Rule #3: When a Chinese person is caught in the act of breaking a law or institutional rule, refer to Rule #1.
SinaSource | 13-Dec-07 at 12:05 pm | Permalink
One of the reasons why so many Chinese students have troubles outside of China is because the goal of so many is to go abroad not actually study abroad. There is no such thing as studying in Chinese universities, just attending.
Given that Chinese professors, by and large, care nothing about their students’ education or instilling broad-mindedness—and that middle schools and the media promote Chinese superiority and anti-foreign rhetoric—the only thing about this case that is surprising is that the crime was perpetrated on other Chinese, and not foreigners.
Du Yisa | 14-Dec-07 at 9:31 am | Permalink
@ SinaSource:
You just made the same error in reasoning as the China Daily report, only your conclusion is even more even more outlandish.
MyLaowai | 14-Dec-07 at 12:24 pm | Permalink
You must have been either reading my mind, or my drafts - I was about to post exactly the same thing.
China Daily first says:
“After luring Wan to an Auckland hotel, the three contacted his mother in China demanding a ransom… But they strangled and knifed him the same night.”
Then they go on with:
“Some Chinese students and educators believe the “shocking” case raises concern over the situations Chinese students studying abroad have to confront… some Chinese students who go abroad face psychological pressure… parents should think twice before deciding to send their children abroad.”
Huh? Seriously, huh?
He was murdered by his own countrymen (something that has not come as a surprise to any of the Chinese people I’ve discussed this with). It had nothing whatsoever to do with any other country, or the fact that the kid was abroad for ’study’.
He was murdered by his own countrymen.
The reason for this article, as with many articles that China Daily publish, is simply to remind people in China, that only China is a good place, and that sensible Chinese shouldn’t desire too strongly to go abroad.
China Daily earns this month’s FUCKTARD Award for Services to Reprehensibility.
Incidentally, I know quite a lot about New Zealand, and even lived there for a time. There are a lot of ‘Chinese’ living there, and they fall into two groups:
1. Those who left China before the Communist rebels overthrew the legal government. They are as ‘Kiwi’ as anyone else living in the country, and would be offended at the suggestion that they are somehow ‘Chinese’.
2. Those who have arrived in the last 10-15 years. These arrogant little upstarts are the ones that cause almost all of the trouble that relates to asians living in New Zealand. They are rich, however, with good political connections back home in many cases, which means that they are still received warmly by the majority of most NZ scools and businesses.
Poetaster | 15-Dec-07 at 12:35 am | Permalink
You’re being too harsh on the China Daily. There’s obviously something funny in the NZ water that doesn’t agree with Chinese men of learning - it drove already nutty Gu Cheng to similar gruesome lengths, after all.
ancius | 15-Dec-07 at 2:51 am | Permalink
Just last month, we had a very similar incident.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/26/AR2007112602043.html
Two U-Va. Students Charged in Kidnapping
Police in Fairfax Charge U-Va. Pair With Abduction
By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2007; B01
Two University of Virginia students snatched a man off a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, tied him up in a Falls Church motel bathroom and demanded a $500,000 ransom, police said yesterday.
The kidnappers used the victim’s cellphone to make their demands, and police were able to pinpoint the motel after AT&T provided an approximate location in Falls Church as the origin of the calls, court records show.
Fairfax County police and the FBI staked out a motel in that area and spotted two men going in and out of a room there. When an officer and an FBI agent knocked on the door, they were allowed into the room and found the victim bound and gagged with duct tape in the bathtub, a search warrant affidavit states.
Police charged Guanyu Lu, 19, and Baichuan Shu, 19, both of Charlottesville, with abduction with intent to extort money. Both were arraigned yesterday in Fairfax County General District Court and ordered held without bond.
The suspects were second-year engineering students at Virginia, university spokesman Jeff Hanna said. Both are Chinese nationals, as is their victim, a 20-year-old man who was living with a host family in McLean, Fairfax Officer Don Gotthardt said.
The episode began last Tuesday night, when the victim received a phone call from a friend saying that the friend was having car trouble, Gotthardt said. The victim was not identified, but Gotthardt said he had been a college student in California.
The victim drove to a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, Gotthardt said. He told police that he was met by two men wearing masks who told him they had a knife and implied they had a gun, the affidavit by Fairfax Detective David W. Allen states. The victim reported that he was placed in the back of a four-door vehicle, and police believe he was then driven to the Stratford Motor Lodge, in the 300 block of West Broad Street in downtown Falls Church.
Someone called the victim’s host family that night and demanded, in Chinese, $500,000 for the victim’s life, Allen wrote. The caller also threatened to blow up the family’s home if they contacted police, the affidavit states.
The family received several more calls, telling them that the victim was bound and bruised, Allen wrote. The incoming phone numbers, including some from the victim’s phone, were recorded on the family’s phone. The family contacted police the next day, the affidavit states.
While police were working to find the victim’s cellphone, two men used one of the victim’s credit cards at a store in Tysons Corner Center and purchased more than $1,200 worth of clothes, police said.
Allen’s affidavit says investigators obtained surveillance video of the men making the purchases with the abducted man’s credit card, apparently while the victim was bound and gagged at the motel.
Meanwhile, AT&T was helping police search for the kidnappers by trying to locate the origin of their calls. It determined that some of the calls came from the area of Little Falls Street and Park Avenue, just off Broad Street and very close to the motel, Allen wrote.
Police and the FBI conducted surveillance at the Stratford Motor Lodge, and police obtained records from the motel indicating that Room 27 was registered to a man from Charlottesville, the affidavit states.
The man was a “known associate” of the victim, police said, although Gotthardt said investigators did not know the extent of the relationship.
“This is not a random crime,” Gotthardt said. “We think this particular victim was targeted.” He said he did not know why.
A police detective and an FBI agent went to Room 27 sometime after midnight on Thanksgiving morning, Gotthardt said. The two men inside allowed the detective and agent into the room, where they saw the victim lying in the bathtub, Allen wrote. Lu and Shu were arrested.
The victim was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he was treated for mild dehydration, Gotthardt said.
Shu lives in an apartment on campus, and Lu lives off campus, said a friend of Shu’s from U-Va. who also knew him in Shanghai and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals.
“That’s unbelievable,” the friend said. “I couldn’t imagine this kind of stuff would happen.” He said he knew the men were heading to the Washington area but did not know why. “He plays sports. He plays basketball,” he said of Shu. “He has a lot of friends.”
MAC | 16-Dec-07 at 3:07 am | Permalink
If I recall right there was also a drawn-out kidnapping and murder case of a young Chinese girl in Canada that turned out to have been perpetrated by some Shanghai brat who had gambled away all the money his parents had given him.
Chris O'Brien | 16-Dec-07 at 7:40 pm | Permalink
Thanks for flagging up those cases Ancius and Mac. As My Laowai emphasises, “He was murdered by his own countrymen.” Maybe these bizarre similarities can be explored by China Daily as a follow up. No, I didn’t think so.
Amusingly, about the same time the story was published in China Daily (completely forgot to mention this in my original post), Xinhua released a story (http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/234822.htm) which cited a survey as saying 80 percent of Chinese university students want to study abroad.
For more comment, often of a highly emotive kind but very interesting nonetheless, on this China Daily story, have a look at Peking Duck’s thread:
http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/004776.php#comments
michael | 16-Dec-07 at 9:35 pm | Permalink
Same thing just happened in Australia - Chinese shop worker murdered by an acquaintance {a nice harmless guy according to his friends and family]who took her money and went straight to the casino to blow it all.
retrofitted | 20-Dec-07 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
as a new zealander living in China, I feel I have to comment.
the case of wan biao is not an isolated one, but one of several kidnappings of chinese student in nz by other chinese, usually the people involved were language school students. having been in the country for only a number of months rather than years, we can hardly attribute their behaviour to psychosis induced by lack of KTV and bland food. rather, the asian crimes bureau of the auckland police has speculated that syndicates in china are actually sending people from china to pose as students and execute the kidnappings. as was mentioned, many privileged young chinese come to study in nz, and they evidently have become a target for organised crime - or disorganised, in the wan biao case [no irony intended in using the word 'case', granted that's where he ended up]. in some instances, the instigators used local muscle, but that doesnt change the fact that this is a pattern of chinese preying on chinese.
the impact on our ‘export education’ sector has been a major one. at one point 80% of international students at my university were chinese, when i left about 2 years ago, it was down to 50%. a strengthening dollar aside, the was largely due to negative publicity in the chinese media about new zealand, arising from such cases.
beyond the kidnappings, extortion (clearing out the ATM at knifepoint) and crimes of passion (student cuts his ex-girlfriends throat and stabs her two friends), we have also seen a number of cases where ’students’ have been used to import drugs - particularly methamphetamines [crystal meth in most cases]. these have been major operations, including the biggest ever seen in the country. as recently as a week ago a highschool student from guangzhou was caught importing around a kilo of methamphetamine - do you think he did that on his own? the meth problem has become a major issue in NZ society - not to blame ‘evil triads’ for corruptiung a nation of binge-drinkers and passive potheads, but it certainly has contributed to the problem.
MyLaowai, i disagree with your division of chinese in nz into two groups. granted, many who have come in the past 10-15 years are very privileged. however, for the most part they are not the spawn of high officials, but those who left hongkong in advance of the handover to the PRC. around 15% of new zealanders speak a chinese language as their mother tongue - the great majority of these speak cantonese, many others speak teochiu or other southern dialects, having immigrated from southeast asain countries in the 20th century. most of the other chinese living in nz did not necessarily flee from the communist party [perhaps we could say they fled from the civil war] - most ‘bananas’ in nz are the descendants of the chinese who came to nz to prospect for gold in the otago goldfields as the california goldrush tapered off. many of them invested their earnings into land, and have become successful market gardeners, thankfully adding diversity to our anglo-saxon diets. i wouldn’t say they are ashamed to be chinese, we have vibrant, proud, high-profile chinese communities in every major city.
well, my spiel is coming to en end. i could mention the young man stabbed to death by a chinese student in my home town after another - totally unconnected - individual pushed the chinese guy in the street. i could mention the 4-year old girl who was killed by an unlicenced chinese student driver who left the road well over the speed limit [whose parents negotiated a lump sum to keep him out of jail], i could mention the woman killed by a chinese student driver who ran a red light at speed [no big deal in china] after previous traffic violations - but what would this prove?
MyLaowai | 22-Dec-07 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
“most of the other chinese living in nz did not necessarily flee from the communist party [perhaps we could say they fled from the civil war] - most ‘bananas’ in nz are the descendants of the chinese who came to nz to prospect for gold in the otago goldfields”
Correct. That’s what I meant - sorry for the confusion.