The Urgent Appeal Letter by the two Children of the Trapped Australian Christian Businessman to Australian Prime Minister

China Aid Association
Photo: Joshua and Esther Ng
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP                                                            26th December, 2007
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Re: URGENT HELP – Two Australian citizens trapped inside China as Australian environmental product company Enoch Group revoked by Chinese authorities over religious activities
Dear Prime Minister Rudd:
Congratulations on your recent election as Prime Minister of Australia.
My name is Joshua Ng, I write to you as a son of two Australians whose human rights are highly violating by the Chinese government and their lives are being threatened under a risky situation. As a fluent Mandarin speaker with a longstanding attention in human rights in China, I am strongly convinced that a little help from you will have a significant impact on their trapped situation.
My father Daniel Ng as a Christian Entrepreneur, has sent an open letter to the
General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao as follows:
Dear respectable General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao,
My name is Daniel Ng and I am an ethnic Chinese with Australian citizenship. My ancestral home is in Jieyang, Guangdong Province. Both my wife Elisa Ng and I were born in Hong Kong in 1958. We were naturalized as Australians in 1996. In 1978, as China was just opening up and conducting reforms, my wife and I crossed Xiangjiang River and stepped on that vast expanse of mainland China for the first time. Shocked by the poverty we saw there, we made up our mind to help the compatriots in our motherland. In 1983, we founded Hong Kong Tenglong International Co., Ltd. and attended the China Import and Export Fair twice a year. In the meantime, we brought in a large number of international businessmen and a large amount of foreign currency in US dollars to China. For this, we were rated as “a giant foreign currency achiever” and “Enterprise in Good Faith” in the national foreign trade system. All the products we exported were from the side occupations of many peasants in China.
In 1999, we introduced biological technology and in response of the country’s call to “promote agriculture through science and technology,” we came out with the enterprise concept of “protecting the nature and bring a good life to the people” and invested three million yuan a year to be used in the countryside. In this way, we participated in the sustainable development of the countryside. Though we went through sufferings and hardships and our enterprise was once taken away from us, we persisted in our ideas and founded Enoch Biological Science and Technology Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou. For this, People’s Daily, Quality Supervision Newspaper of China, China Economy, Guangdong Television, Guangzhou TV and other media agencies have reported our achievements.
As my wife and I grew up overseas and are devout Christians, we have received a Western-style education from childhood on; we did not know much about the differences between the Western culture and the Chinese culture. We knew even less how to decorate our strong Christian business culture such as the themes in “Love at Your Side,” and “Giving is More a Blessing than Receiving,” etc. Our expression of this culture was too direct and too high-profile. As we did not know how to make our business culture more Chinese, we have caused some misunderstanding in our compatriots in China and relevant agencies. For this, we really should do some self-examination and self-introspection on our words and deeds, but we would also like General Secretary Hu and Premier Wen to get to know the truth on this incident and give Christian entrepreneurs a relaxed business environment.
As entrepreneurs, our purpose is operating a business and promoting the economic development of our motherland and to help the peasants and disadvantaged groups get out of poverty and become rich. Our purpose in China is absolutely not preaching Christianity. Christianity is only our business culture and religious life.
At this time, the Chinese government also advocates that businesses should not operate purely for money and that they should have sense of responsibility for the society. Therefore, I responded to the call of the government and actively helped the peasants and funded the college educations of students from economically strapped families. At a time when the business operation was losing money in the company, we still gave, for free, a large amount of probiotic bacteria beverages to sick and poor peasants and disadvantaged social groups. As a result of our efforts, tens of thousands of poor peasants have recovered from poor health. This is purely a self-less donation from the bottom of our hearts. As our appreciation, we invested 30 million yuan that we earned from trading with China and we even sold our real estate properties in Australia and Hong Kong.  With this, we fully committed ourselves in solving the three problems in China’s rural areas: agricultural production, rural development and assistance to farmers. We have held over 20 Christian-style events of seeking investment and gatherings attended by Christians specializing in the fields of industry and commerce. These are all natural displays of my religious life and we never had a penny of financial support from overseas. As we overstated our Christian business culture in our efforts to seek investment, employees from the Administration Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the local police station once came to visit us, but no relevant agencies have ever said anything against us. Yet, we have attracted a lot of attention from the central government on our company’s conduct.
After August 21 of this year, investigators from many government agencies have come to our factories on a continuous basis and repeatedly asked the technicians of the factory about the relevant recipes, technological processes in manufacturing, control points and other trade secrets.  What is more serious is that they used the media and concocted false news in an attempt to damage the company’s reputation. Many government entities came to us on various grounds and conducted investigations for over two months. They detained the key members of our company and do not allow us to leave the country. Even now, they still have not given us a unified, reasonable and just explanation for their actions.
We therefore appeal for your help:
1.        We hope the government can understand the strong patriotism of overseas Christian entrepreneurs. The business culture expressed by an overseas patriotic businessman is purely to teach our compatriots to be good people before they perform good deeds. However, our way of presenting this culture may not be very accurate as it was done in high profile. The discs we burned and our printed materials were all given away in public to our distributors. This indicates we are honesty and straight-forwardness; we conduct everything in the open. By the principle of our faith, we support the Chinese government by following and respecting the policies the laws of the State, in which we have never committed any vicious provocations. Our ultimate goal is to create an opportunity to make our contributions to the economic development of our motherland and give our care to the society. We hope the government leaders can comprehend our rationales and provide us with support.
2.        Please complete your investigation as soon as possible so that we can resume our production: It has been over two months since August 21. The investigation has created a high level of stress and pressure for the company, which resulted some resignation of employees As our assets are frozen, the factories cannot operate normally and our business is on the verge of bankruptcy. We believe that after almost three months of investigation the government agencies should have a good understanding of our company. We also hope this investigation can promote our exchange of ideas and understanding between us. It is also our hope that the government perform their moral obligations on the couple who have been serving the countryside of China with love for the past 20 years and help us resume our normal production.
3.         As an old Chinese saying goes, “harmony is at the top of all achievements,” different cultures are here for people to share with each other, not to harm each other. We believe all the bad things will turn into good things: 1) all the work units involved in this incident are helping us conduct reforms; 2) all the government leaders involved in this incident will become our friends; 3) all the law enforcement officers who are monitoring and investigating us will be our protectors.
If the relevant authorities decide to abolish our company, it will be a relief to us as well as a loss.  However, the harm it would do to China would be in multiple aspects and in multiple levels. (We are trying to prevent that)
1.        Economically, the destruction of a sunrise enterprise with five sets of biological technologies would be a heavy blow to the construction of a new socialist countryside.
2.        Personnel-wise, a team that has made its contribution to the protection of water, soil and environment, pest control, food safety in agricultural products, human health and other areas would disappear.
3.        Environmentally, it was we who led the agricultural production to ecological balance. We have become a bellwether in the industry and have attracted attention from our peers.
4.        In the countryside, the two major indexes for the sustainable development of the rural economy—enhancement of quality of agricultural products and the natural recovery of the rural resources and environment can both find solutions through our biological technology.
5.        Culturally, “Love at Your neighbors” —the sense of mission for businesses we advocate and man’s sense of responsibility for the society would become just an echo in history.
After this incident, we will make more efforts in studying the laws and policies of the State and strictly distinguish religious activities from business activities so that we will not cause any more misunderstanding from the law enforcement agencies. It is already 30 years since we first came to China and we have grown together with Guangzhou. We hope we will not leave behind any regrets and sadness in our motherland. Instead, we will continue to serve the Chinese countryside and its peasants.
Yours,
Salute!!
Humbly presented to you from:
Daniel Ng and Eliza Ng
Interview with Rev. Ng, please contact:
Tel: +86-15302260242 or +86-13265947777
Email: [email protected]
Issued by CAA on November 21, 2007
This letter was written and sent on the 15th November 2007, but until now their restrained situation remained unchanged. This has deprived them of their opportunity to attend the family gathering in Hong Kong for Christmas. Both my Grandparents and my sister are eager that to see them and wish that they can come back to Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year gathering which has a significant meaning to our family tradition.
For more articles relating to this case, please visit the following website:http://www.monitorchina.org/english_site/document_details.php?id=5045
We urge you to publicly as well as privately raise this matter with Chinese officials at the earliest opportunity. This will rescue my parents from being tortured and abused by the Chinese Central Government leaders as well as salvaging many other Christians who have been suffering from the religion persecution in China.
« Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves» -from persecution.org
Yours Sincerely,
___________________________                _________________________
Joshua Ng,                                                                                        Esther Ng
Address: 5/47, Storey Rd, Reservoir, VIC 3053
Contact Phone number: +61433567531,        Email: [email protected]

Cc:
The Hon Stephen Smith, MP – Minister for Foreign Affairs
The Hon Robert McClelland, MP – Attorney-General
Senator the Hon Chris Evans – Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
p.s.  -The Chinese government does not officially acknowledge my parents’ Australia citizenship since they pass through the Chinese Custom with Chinese passport instead of Australia passport.
-The Chinese version of the open letter is attached. Those victims who have been suffering from the persecution will be grateful if you can hand this to General Secretary Hu Jintao personally.