Emily Howie from the Human Rights Law Centre in Melbourne said she would be disappointed if the terms of an extradition treaty with China undermined Australia's pledge to lead a campaign to abolish the death penalty in its bid for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says the government will lay out its economic and tax strategies in the May budget. Credit:Sanghee Liu Australia signed an extradition agreement with China in 2007 that was never ratified. It is understood, however, that the treaty will now be tabled with Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties as early as next month. Mr Turnbull is due to make his first visit as Prime Minister to Beijing in April. The unratified treaty signed between Australia and China provides grounds for refusal for political offences and if there are fears of torture or inhumane punishment. In cases where the person sought may be sentenced to death, Australia can undertake that the death penalty not be imposed – or if imposed, that it not be carried out. The ratification process, which ordinarily would take months, could be drawn out further as the government gears up for an election this year. "The Australian government will seek to progress this matter," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in Beijing on Wednesday. "We think that our bilateral law enforcement relationship should be enhanced as all aspects of the bilateral relationship with China are progressing."

China established a new agency, the Department of Overseas Fugitive Affairs, last month as an extension to its "Fox Hunt" and "Sky Net" operations targeting suspected economic criminals and corrupt officials hiding overseas. Chinese authorities routinely cite Australia, along with the US and Canada, as the most popular havens for its fugitives. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in Beijing in February. Credit:Getty Images Promoted breathlessly by state-run media, the shock-and-awe campaign is designed to deter officials contemplating fleeing the country's sweeping anti-corruption drive, while appeasing a Chinese public long fed up with a culture of rampant graft that has seen officials siphon funds offshore, often through spouses and children living overseas. Last month, China's Public Security Ministry said it had secured the return of 857 overseas fugitives last year. The number includes those extradited – mainly from South-east Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, but also those who were voluntarily "persuaded" to return to China. This included 17 from Australia, according to Chinese authorities. Julie Bishop exercises ahead of a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday morning. Credit:Sanghee Liu

Chinese officials have couched the extradition treaty as a natural progression on bilateral police co-operation and an international anti-corruption accord agreed at the 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing. Australian law enforcement agencies are also keen for China's help in stemming the flow of illicit drugs – particularly crystal methamphetamine – from southern China. "China may indeed have good reasons to want criminals to return and face justice for criminal acts, including corruption," said Elaine Pearson, Australia director of Human Rights Watch. "But the question is whether extradited defendants will receive a fair trial with due process and not be at risk of torture. Given the opaqueness of China's criminal justice system, regular flouting of the rule of law and politicisation of the judiciary, [this] remains doubtful at best." China's efforts to nab its fugitives have also been blotted with troubling instances ranging from fumbling overreach to insidious intimidation, described euphemistically as "ideological work" by mainland police.

Fairfax Media revealed last year that Chinese police failed to notify Australian officials when they travelled to Melbourne to pursue Dong Feng, a tour bus driver accused of bribery, prompting a furious response from Canberra. Mr Dong suggested the welfare of his elderly parents was used as leverage by mainland police seeking his return. In another case, a former Chinese boss of a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, Zheng Jiefu, said he had been followed around Melbourne's bayside suburbs in connection with a corruption case involving China's former deputy spy chief. "I'm not worried because I was set up," he told Fairfax Media via telephone on Wednesday, adding that his confidence was bolstered by the fact several of his politically-linked rivals had been arrested in mainland China. Others pursued by Chinese police, including Chinese-born Australian nationals, have told Fairfax Media the charges against them were trumped up and politically motivated. In the US, Beijing is pressing Washington for the extradition of Ling Wancheng, a potentially valuable intelligence target. His brother, Ling Jihua, was a key aide – performing a role similar to that of a chief of staff – to former president Hu Jintao before being arrested for corruption. Chinese security agents were also understood to have attempted to slip into the US to pursue Mr Ling.

In Hong Kong, furore has erupted over the case of five booksellers who were suspected of being coerced to return to China by security officials, including one from his holiday home in Thailand. "China respects laws of other countries and so does with their legal procedures," the director of international co-operation at the Communist Party's anti-corruption watchdog, Liu Jianchao, said at a media briefing in December. "At the same time, we expect laws and legal procedures in these countries not to be abused by those criminal suspects," Mr Liu said, alluding to criminals who hid behind lengthy legal appeals to fight extradition from western countries. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is appointed to assess and apply a national interest test to proposed treaties. The decision whether to enter into treaties, however, is an executive power and usually taken at ministerial or cabinet level. Australia can already consider extradition requests from China under the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.