Canadian who tried to visit ailing father in China blocked from flying home

A Canadian woman who was blocked from visiting her ailing father in China last week has again been barred by Chinese officials, this time at a Beijing airport as she tried to fly home. Ti-Anna Wang and her family arrived in Hangzhou, China on Jan. 9 to visit her ailing father, but while her husband and their 11-month-old daughter were allowed in, she was denied entry despite having a valid visa. She and her family were eventually sent to a nearby South Korean island. On Wednesday, Wang was trying to fly to Toronto from South Korea when her plane landed in Beijing, where she was supposed to catch a connecting flight. As per reports, six police officers boarded the plane, did not allow her to use her phone, and barred her from contacting the Canadian embassy. The family was eventually sent back to South Korea.
“The whole experience today was extremely nerve-racking, I mean, to be escorted by the police off the plane, separated from my husband,” Wang said. She believes the latest detainment is Chinese retribution for speaking out about being turned away from the country last week.
Wang’s father, Wang Bingzhang, is one of the country’s longest-serving political prisoners and has been in solitary confinement in a Chinese prison for the past 15 years. Chinese officials arrested him in Vietnam back in 2002 and brought back to China on charges of espionage and terrorism, where he would be convicted during a closed-door, one-day trial.
The Wang family is reported to have said that Wang Bingzhang was arrested because of his support for democracy in China and he hasn’t been able to return to Canada because he never took up Canadian citizenship, despite earning a PhD from McGill University and being a father to three Canadian children.
Wang’s trouble with Chinese officials is the latest example of rising tensions between Canada and China since the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1 and the seemingly retaliatory arrests of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in the days that followed.
Tensions escalated further this week when Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg had his 15-year prison sentence on drug charges increased to a death sentence. Chinese officials have rejected a Canadian request for clemency in the case.