China does not have a jurisprudence system...
In the west, under common law, jurisprudence is independent from any political system and is insulated from anything other the jurisprudence itself (The law is self) which make the 3 separate pillar in western civilization (Executive, Judiciary and Legislative Branch)
ON the other hand, Chinese court system is basically controlled by People's Committee, with the only one remotely not affected is the basic court (akin to local court system) but the basic court is not to deal with any serious offense.
The Appeal process is also inheritancely flawed. Instead of appeal system toward different level of court of appeal (eg in common law, we have district/circuit court, court of appeal, supreme court and Federal Court in the US) and what more important is that appeal court only work if the defendant initiate it. Meaning, as a government (Prosecution) you are not allowed to appeal the sentence if you win, otherwise it would be subject to double jeopardy.
In China, there are only 1 appeal court, that is the supreme court level, and while we use the term appeal, it's more of a review of the case and its circumstance, and as a matter of fact, supreme court in China are controlled by People Committee again, which make the decision depends on the political influence.
While I don't have sympathy to drug runner, this is actually not a surprise move from the Chinese. Were it fair? If you compare to US or UK court system, it wasn't, because the prosecution review would be subject to an action akin to "Retrial" which mean it's basically barred by the fact of common law does not allow a man to be trial twice for the same offence (Double Jeopardy), hence in face of common law, it's unfair. However, China does not use common law, (they uses a legal system called organic law) which mean they can and have the power to retrial people that was already convicted or acquitted of any crime. And it is fair game on Chinese system.
Don't forget, what kind of trial you may get is depends on the local system, if you know the risk of you are not getting a fair trial and still willingly committed the crime, then you should be expect to face up to the same system, not yours , when you get caught. As the old saying goes, if you can't do the time, then don't do the crime.
That's probably because the west does not, I say again, DOES NOT, distinguish between "Accessories" and "Principal" of a crime, both carry the same penalty, and more often than not, the "Principal" actually serve less time than "Accessories" the same crime, if the principal of the crime either started a plea deal, or the crime cannot be committed without the help of the accessories. (Especially in serious crime such as murder)
In Common Law, the person who smuggle the drug Is equally culpable than the person who finance the drug smuggling operation. Because the whole operation cannot work without runner on the ground, however, since runner on the ground are more common, and stopping them won't actually stop the operation, most of the time, DA would make deal with the drug runner, to take down the bigger fish. And the prosecution is more inclined to offer deal to the runner than to the dealer.
On the other hand, the second "trial" would not happened at all in the west, you can review its sentence but you cannot provide EXTRA evidence, because that would constitute a "Retrial" and in the west, you cannot retrial a person if a judgement has been handed down, which mean if the accused is to lodge a appeal, in the west, the court system would go over the transcript and see if there are aggravated factor or mitigated factored to either increase or decrease the sentence. But the scope only work on evidence already existed, not providing new evidence.
The second "Trial" would be unheard of in the west. but as I said in previous post, it is allowed in China, and this case happened in China, so there are no surprise there.
