China investigates Canadian coffee shop owners for theft of state secrets

Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt, who run Peter’s Coffee House on North Korean border, have lived in China since 1984

• theguardian.com, Tuesday 5 August 2014
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  A statue of Mao in Dandong where a Canadian couple have been arrested for alleged theft of state secrets. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP

China is investigating two Canadians who ran a coffee shop on the Chinese border with North Korea for the suspected theft of state secrets involving military and national defence research, the official Xinhua news agency has said.
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Xinhua identified the two as Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt but did not say whether they had been detained. In a brief report it said the State Security Bureau of Dandong city in north-east Liaoning province was handling the case.

Canada’s embassy in Beijing said it was aware of reports that two Canadians had been “detained” in China and was gathering information. “Our consular officials stand ready to provide assistance as required,” said embassy spokeswoman Mary Anne Dehler.

Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail said the Vancouver couple had been living in China since 1984 and opened a coffee shop called Peter’s Coffee House in Dandong in 2008. The couple previously worked as teachers in southern China.

It said the whereabouts of the Garratts was unknown. Calls by Reuters to the coffee shop went unanswered.

China’s state secrets law is notoriously broad, covering everything from industry data to the exact birth dates of state leaders. In severe cases the theft of state secrets is punishable with life in prison or the death penalty.

Beijing is also sensitive about its relationship with North Korea, whose ruined economy is partly kept afloat with Chinese aid. Information in China can be labelled a state secret retroactively.

The investigation into the Garratts comes a week after Canada took the unusual step of singling out Chinese hackers for attacking a key computer network and lodged a protest with Beijing. 

Canadian officials have said “a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor” broke into the National Research Council, the government’s leading research body, which works with big firms such as aircraft and train maker Bombardier. In response Beijing accused Canada of making irresponsible accusations that lacked credible evidence.

The Garratts’ western-style coffee shop has a view of traffic flowing across the Yalu river that divides China and North Korea, according to the Globe and Mail. The couple also had a side business helping people plan tours to North Korea, it added.

The coffee shop’s website says it is metres from the Friendship Bridge that spans the river and the “perfect stop off while en route to or returning from the Hermit Kingdom”. The shop also runs a weekly “English Corner” conversation club where Chinese people can practice speaking English.

The newspaper said the shop was named after the couple’s youngest son. It was unclear how many children they had and whether they had also been living in Dandong.

“It’s completely unprecedented. We haven’t had this sort of thing [before],” said Charles Burton, a Brock University professor who served as a diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing in the early 2000s, in quotes to the Globe and Mail.

Canada’s conservative government has had an uneven relationship with Beijing since taking power in 2006. Citing human rights concerns, Stephen Harper, the prime minister, initially kept his distance. Under pressure from business in Canada he sought to reach out to Beijing. China is Canada’s second most important trading partner after the United States.