VANCOUVER—The case of a Swedish bookseller who supposedly renounced his citizenship after being seized by Chinese authorities, is being seen by critics in Canada and elsewhere as a dangerous precedent with chilling implications.

And it’s rippling through Chinese communities in this country, where some worry they could someday lose the protection that’s afforded them by their Canadian citizenship.

“We haven’t really seen something on this level before, and it could represent a whole new type of threat,” says human rights activist Peter Dahlin, of Safeguard Defenders.

Earlier this week, Gui Minhai, originally from Ningbo, China and a naturalized Swedish citizen, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in mainland China for “illegally providing intelligence overseas.”

The Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court said Tuesday Gui had confessed to the crime and did not plan to appeal the sentence.

At his sentencing announcement, the court also said Gui had applied to get his Chinese citizenship back in 2018 while in custody.

Gui worked at a Hong Kong company publishing books detailing the secret lives of Chinese officials. He vanished from his Thailand home in 2015 and reappeared in mainland China in custody months later. Four of his colleagues also disappeared only to end up in China months later charged with crimes.

Sweden’s foreign ministry in China was not given access to Gui’s trial and was not allowed to provide him with legal counsel. Sweden has demanded access and condemned China’s actions. China has insisted Gui’s rights have been fully upheld.

A report in the publication Hong Kong Free Press reported the Swedish government confirmed Gui is still a citizen of that country.

Dahlin called the incident “dangerous” because of the implications China is trying to circumvent consular access rights for foreign detainees charged with crimes — including two Canadians currently held there.

“What it means is China could basically detain anyone and say they have renounced their citizenship and become Chinese,” Dahlin said. “They can deny consular access simply by having the person denounce their citizenship and be given Chinese citizenship.”

Dahlin said the international community must condemn the actions strongly. He said China is likely trying to see how far it can push the tactic of forcing a foreign detainee to accept citizenship in the People’s Republic of China.

If not, China could try a similar strategy on people who have never even been Chinese citizens, Dahlin warned.

Dahlin said the same tactic could be tried with detained Canadians like Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who were arrested more than a year ago on espionage-related charges in what is widely regarded as retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei official Meng Wanzhou.

Meng, the CFO of China’s telecom giant Huawei, was arrested travelling through Vancouver on a request from the United States who seek her on a variety of charges, including fraud.

Gui’s sentencing and citizenship issue has also raised concerns in the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

Cherie Wong, of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, a newly formed organization aiming to counter Beijing’s influence in Canada, said such actions can exacerbate fears of Chinese people in Canada about speaking out against China’s government.

Wong said the move is in line with Beijing’s attempts to control Chinese people around the world through intimidation and trying to assert control based on an emigre’s Chinese origins.

“If you’re ethnically Chinese or if you’re a Chinese national, there’s a certain level of ownership, like the party owns you,” she said. “The party owns what you say, what you do, what you represent. And that’s what makes it so dangerous to be ethnically Chinese and a dissident.”

Wong said the timing of the arrest has placed added stress on Chinese communities in Canada because many are already preoccupied about the coronavirus outbreak and worried about family in China.

Beijing has been accused of bungling the response to the outbreak and critics of the government’s handling of it inside mainland China have been arrested or have vanished.

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Being in Canada doesn’t make many people out of the reach of the Beijing government, Wong said. Her group has been critical of Ottawa’s handling of China relations, accusing the federal government of silence on Beijing’s human rights abuses and of attempts to intimidate Canadians in their own country.

“We can tell that the Canadian government aren’t going to speak up for us,” she said. “It’s up to us to protect ourselves and look out for each other.”

A request for comment from Global Affairs Canada was not answered by deadline.

With files from The Associated Press

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