this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Another article, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-executes-canadians-drug-related-crime-1.7487764 explains that all four were in fact dual citizens.
However, from that article,
And from the original article,
These together read to me like a coded reference to Article 12.3 of https://travel.gc.ca/assistance/emergency-info/consular/framework/china which states,
I.e. these folks probably intended to just be treated like any other Canadian by entering China on their Canadian passports somehow. (One method might be to take advantage of the visa-free transit policy, see http://vancouver.china-consulate.gov.cn/eng/ggjry/202412/t20241219/_11502288.htm )
I'm not convinced in any case that dual nationality had much effect on this, as China has enforced these laws before on folks who didn't have it and clearly weren't in any way Chinese, for example see this case of a British Citizen, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/29/akmal-shaikh-execution-china
For the record, I'm against the death penalty and wish national conditions would emerge in such a way as to permit China to gradually abolish it. However, there's also a lot of history behind why China is specifically so strongly against drugs (see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-02/modern-china-and-the-legacy-of-the-opium-wars/10172386 for an overview).