Police deport prominent lawyer from China

Bao Yuming, a Chinese-American lawyer who served on the board of telecoms equipment giant ZTE Corp, has been deported from China for violating law practice regulations, police in Yantai, a city in Shandong Province, announced on Thursday.

Police said Bao had seriously violated Chinese regulations during his stay in China and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice had revoked his certificate to practice.

Bao had earlier been accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl under his guardianship.

On Thursday, a team set up by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security to investigate the case said there was no evidence of rape and that the alleged victim was an adult when she had sex with Bao.

Between April 2014 and February 2015, Bao made several postings online seeking to "adopt" a child. Meanwhile, Han, who was born in October 1997 but had registered her birth as August 2001, also sought "adoption" via messaging app QQ in a bid to improve her life.

In March 2015, Han and her father applied to change her birthdate with a fake birth certificate and false testimony by witnesses.

After Han saw Bao's posts, she contacted him and he went to Nanjing to meet her and her mother on October 10, 2015.

They began a romantic relationship under the guise of "adoption" and it later turned into a sexual one.

They broke up in June 2019 after more than 150 days of living together, during which they had argued several times.

The team didn’t find any evidence to show that Bao had forced Han to have sex with him and that Han was an adult when the two met. 

Han's statements that she was forced to have sex didn't tally with the facts, the team said. 

Its investigation showed that Han's reports to police, withdrawing accusations and seeking public help several times were all related to conflicts in their relationship. Every time they reconciled, Han withdrew her accusations.

During their relationship, Han had full freedom to act and keep in normal touch with her family and friends. There was no sign that her personal freedom had been limited and that she could not contact others, the team said.

It also didn't find any evidence of Han's QQ account being controlled by Bao to forge chat records or that Han was brainwashed by Bao into sleeping with him.

Han had also contacted other men and had relationships with them.

After taking all these things into consideration, the team decided there was no evidence to convict Bao of rape.

However, since Bao had thought Han was a minor when he had sex with her, he should be condemned by society for violating social ethics and morality, it said.

The team said local police had responded to each of Han's reports in this case. But it criticized a few officers for their poor attitude in dealing with her calls. 

Han's hometown, Taihe County in Anhui Province, has punished 12 people who had direct or indirect liability in changing her birthdate.

Previous news reports said Bao came into the public spotlight in April when a woman claimed Bao had started sexually assaulting her in 2016 when she was 14 years old.

Her story became a widely discussed topic and unleashed a wave of anger among the public.

A team from the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security was dispatched to Shandong Province, where the case originated, to supervise a local investigation.

During the investigation, Bao was found to have concealed his American citizenship in 2006 and had still practiced as a full-time lawyer after losing his Chinese citizenship.