BEIJING — China on Wednesday handed out long jail terms, including two life sentences, to 14 people who participated and organized a three-day sex tour for Japanese businessmen in September.
The case, which involved several hundred executives of a Japanese construction agency and several hundred Chinese prostitutes, sparked an uproar in China because the Japanese tour group unwittingly chose to come to China on Sept. 18, the date Chinese mark as the start of Japan’s World War II invasion and occupation of their country. Chinese claimed the three-day sex tour in the southern city of Zhuhai was another example of Japanese imperialism.
The tough sentences meted out to Chinese citizens by a court in Zhuhai have been accompanied by the issuing of arrest warrants for three Japanese accused of arranging the sex party. China has asked Japan to help in detaining them, according to the official New China News Agency although there is little chance the men will be extradited to China. The two countries have no extradition treaty.
Two defense lawyers in Beijing said the harsh sentences indicated that the Communist Party, not the courts, decided the verdict in this case. Chinese nationalists used the case to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment even though prostitution is rampant throughout China and many Chinese companies also engage in sex tourism both here and abroad.
"The party felt compelled to order tough sentences to show that it is at the head of the patriotic movement," one defense lawyer said. "A normal sentence would have left them open for criticism. So they sacrificed more than a dozen lives to save face."
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