Prosecutors from
China and Russia
have pledged to strengthen cooperation to fight cross-border
crimes, including terrorism.
The two countries will strengthen sharing of intelligence and
expand personnel exchanges, according to a final document of a
Sino-Russian vice-prosecutor-general meeting that closed Tuesday in
Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin
Province.
The two-day meeting followed the themes from this year's Shanghai
Cooperation Organization summit in St Petersburg earlier this
month. Leaders of the organization's member states, including China
and Russia, have vowed that they would join hands to crack down
terrorism, separatism and extremism as well as organized crime and
the illegal trafficking of drugs.
"The cooperation between prosecutors of the two countries has
contributed to the crackdown on cross-border crime, the promotion
of economic development in the region and the maintenance of
stability along the border," said Liang Guoqing, vice
procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
Sharing a border of more than 4,300 kilometers (2,672 miles), China
and Russia have cooperated in the investigation of more than 160
such cases since 1998.
In
April, the procuratorate in Jilin Province extradited, with the
help of Russian prosecutors, a Chinese who was suspected of
illegally pocketing more than 1 million yuan (US$120,000).
According to Long Mei, of the Supreme People's Procuratorate's
department responsible for cooperation with its foreign
counterparts, most of the cooperation between the two neighbors are
conducted in criminal cases, such as drug trafficking and
trespassing.
Long said that further discussions on the prevention of
cross-border crimes between China and Russia will continue in
October, when prosecutors-general of the two countries lead a
bilateral conference in Shanghai.
(China
Daily June 19, 2002)