IV-6 Question: Recently, Chinese citizens overseas have been attacked or kidnapped more frequently. What is the reason for this? And what consular protection services are the Chinese Government taking to secure the safety of Chinese citizens abroad?
A: In recent years, there have indeed been cases involving the security of overseas Chinese. In 2005, there were 29,000 consular protection cases, and in 2006 the number was over 30,000. Although the figure increased, there were no big cases resulting in serious casualties.
The reasons that caused the increase were due to complicated interactions and the international political, economic and security situation. Inevitably, Chinese citizens in other countries were involved with more incidents of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, violation of their legal rights as tourists and traffic accidents. Moreover, as globalization accelerates, more Chinese go abroad for jobs, tourism, business and study. Statistics show that from October 1, 1949 to 1979, there were only 280,000 people going abroad. But in 2006, there were 34.52 million exit records of Chinese citizens, which was over 100 times more than the totality of the above-mentioned 20 years. The rapid increase in citizens going abroad also increases the security risk of Chinese citizens overseas. Besides, the speed of Chinese going abroad exceeds the speed that the state can offer them safe protection.
Since 2001, Chinese Government has made great achievement on protecting the security and legal rights of Chinese citizens overseas. It established a ministerial joint conference system on protecting security of Chinese citizens outside Chinese territory, which is led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so as to direct and council the consular protection work related to Chinese citizens and Chinese enterprises overseas. It also issued Guide to Consular Protection and Services Outside Chinese Territory, in order to inform Chinese citizens overseas about the basics of seeking consular protection. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website releases information about the security situation, tourism, business and employment of different countries, while following, analyzing and judging the information about security of Chinese citizens and Chinese enterprises overseas. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also evaluates the security situation of different countries and regions from time to time, issues pre-alert information, and reminds Chinese citizens to be cautious of their trips to countries and regions of instability. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government has also established a whole set of emergency system targeting abrupt security incidents abroad. The government holds the information on Chinese citizens overseas, and keeps in direct contact with them. Therefore, when serious casualties or financial losses occur, the system can be implemented immediately. The country can organize related units at home and abroad to go to the spot where accidents happen, begin rescue work and deal with problems arising in the accidents, as well as prompt the involved country to take measures to protect the legal rights of Chinese citizens overseas.
Faced with the increasingly complicated security situations overseas, China is learning from countries that have been successful in this area to strengthen the construction of consular protection systems so as to guarantee the security of Chinese citizens abroad. By actively taking pre-protection measures before anything happens, instead of negatively dealing with problems after they arise, legal rights of Chinese citizens or legal persons abroad can be better protected.
(China.org.cn)