Based on the history of other people disappearing in China, I would speculate that he must rather have been caught on some anti-corruption/anti-tax evasion campaign of some sort.
I would not want to live under CCP rule, but it seems like skepticism goes out the window and people will believe anything if the story is about China.
Just like it’s common knowledge the USA is a democracy, not a one party dictatorship. The Chinese communist revolution is relatively recent history.
Or talk to any Chinese exiles/dissidents living in the US. Or any Taiwanese person.
In the US maybe. In the rest of the world it will be a much more nuanced discussion.
So, like Guantanamo, kidnapping, secret sites [1],[2], [3] and so on?
Or routine police shootings, Judge Dread style?
Or having an out-of-all proportions inhumane incarceration system, with 25% of the world's prisoners for only 4% of the world's population? (a statistic many ignore, and I like to emphasize).
Or like Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but not having been snatched in the last 150 years out of nowhere, but actually like Tibet having centuries of being part of China in the past?
So, like those bad things, but restricted to their own citizens? And with no bombings and military invasions in 3-4 different countries just in the past 20 years?
Where do the rest of the world signs up so that other countries restrict those activities to their own citizens too?
If you expect a nuanced discussion about the US, you should expect a nuanced one about China.
(Not to mention being the greatest trading partner with China, token statements aside the US have more actual business interests in common with them than even with Britain)
https://www.businessinsider.com/at-least-54-countries-helped...
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/investiga...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
The parent isn't arguing that Americans are angels, but that it is well established that the Chinese state (which is a glove on the CCP) is responsible for pretty brutal and systematic repression (of Uyghurs in particular), but also dissidents.
And despite the regular injustices America dishes out through love of greed, people are not disappeared because they have incorrect thought. >10k people were massacred in 1989. Millions were killed by famine during the cultural revolution. These are only contested in the same way that climate change is contested.
One could argue that the 2003 invasion of iraq body count outweighs these sins, and ascribe malice to the US versus high intentions to the Party. But it doesn't change the fact that China is now, and has long been, an authoritarian state. In fact, it is now pre-eminent, the poster-child for post-capitalist autocracy.
(But there is one one demonstrably wrong part of the grand-parent's post: calling China 'Communist'.)
So while it may trend autocratic, it seems inaccurate to simply call it an autocracy.
Just because communist power struggles happen out of sight doesn't mean they don't happen.
http://shanghaiist.com/2016/03/16/china_conviction_rate_near...
"In Canada, the national conviction rate is about 97%. This does not include cases in which the charges are dropped, which comprise about one-third of criminal cases. Absent Quebec, the province with the lowest conviction rate, the figure is 99%."
"In China, the justice system has a Conviction rate of about 99.9%. This has been attributed to the use of torture and other coercive measures to extract confessions and pressure on courts and prosecutors."
Either their justice system has incredibly low false positives (99% of people charged are provably guilty), or it's rigged.
Or their prosecution standards are much higher before the cases come to courts...
Although I'd still question the fundamental ability of any bureaucracy to be correct 99%+ of the time.
Given correlations that high, one almost suspects the courts and government aren't independent.
https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories/china/criminal-la...
Highlights:
- 1-7 days arrest and detention without a formal arrest filed (up to 37 days in some cases)
- Up to 13.5 months detention without formal charges filed
This is contrast to the US 72-hour rule & writ of habeas corpus avenue.
Objectively, I feel it's merited to say the Chinese judicial system is inefficient, unjust, and inhumane... at best.
Similarly, in China today, everyone who is anyone in the apparatus is cheating taxes in some way, but it's brought up only if they become a problem for the leadership for some other reason.
Jailing after trial and due public process is one thing, "disappearing" people is another.