When Victor and Cynthia Liu landed with their mother on a tropical Chinese island in June to visit an ailing grandfather, they thought they would soon be on a plane back to their East Coast lives — he to start his sophomore year at Georgetown University, and she to work at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in New York.
Instead, within days, police officers detained their mother, Sandra Han, who, like her children, is an American citizen. They moved her to a secret site, commonly known as a black jail. The children discovered at the airport that they could not leave China, even though the police had said they were not being investigated or charged with a crime, the children told American officials and family associates.
Sandra Han and her children Victor and Cynthia Liu are being held to put pressure on Liu Changming to return to China. Whether or not China's criminal charges are valid or not, holding Americans hostage is outrageous.
The rise of China will not be good for the world under their current Communist leadership. Long ago we placed our bet on the idea that economic growth in China would lead to democracy and rule of law.
Instead it has just allowed their autocracy to gain more power to control within China and assert control abroad when they can.
