Even in the US, there are over 20,000 laws and regulations at the federal level alone. In China, there are even more. Any small foreign operator in China naive enough to assert with 100% confidence that they are not in violation of any of those codes is being dangerously foolish.
So here's the thing, I actually agree with you. What China will do, they will do out of retaliation. However, I can pretty much guarantee that whoever the patsy is, that person will be in violation of some obscure code that no one in their right mind would have been paying attention to. They will definitely be in violation of some law. And they will condemn him/her to whatever ungodly prison camp for however many years.
So China will also be simply arresting someone for violating their laws. That's the issue.
Now my point is that if you are American, and a small operator without the clout to prevent this sort of thing from happening to you, it's best to try to get out in front of the problem. I know that I really don't want to be one of the poor stooges sitting in a Chinese prison for a decade because these people are trying to make tit-for-tat points.
I'm not talking politics or philosophy. I'm just saying that China is not like the US, and I'm advising people to be careful if they are small and plan to operate in what appears to be a dangerous legal environment that will likely be getting more treacherous with time.
Huawei is a huge player in an inherently global business, complicated by the fact that selling telecoms network equipment necessitates dealing with quasi-state actors in most countries. Anyone playing at the C-level in such a company is definitely well advised around things like FCPA (and its non-US equivalents) and sanctions regimes.
Small operators get the short end of the stick, sure, but Huawei's CFO is not a small operator (and the sad recipient of China's likely retaliation probably won't be, either).
Exactly.
Selective enforcement is indistinguishable from arbitrary arrest.
China's harassers get to use the much more powerful "lock up whoever I want for no reason at all, forever"
There are enough laws on the books to lock people up at essentially any time if the police care enough to do so.
"21 USC §§331, 333, 343 & 21 CFR §133.113(a)(3) make it a federal crime for a cheesemaker to sell cheddar cheese unless the curd was matted into a cohesive mass."
Specialists exist both on the government side as say food safty inspectors etc, and the private side as compliance officers. So, rules like this are not obscure for people building factory’s to manufacture cheddar and your local cops are not going to know about this crap they are searching your house for something else.
This actually works really well, as we want food to be safe to eat even if most people are not aware of how long food can be kept at what temperatures. Likewise what safty systems need to be part of nuclear reactors, or the minimum safty factor for bridges.
I don't think your average reasonable person is in opposition to requirements to label food correctly and not mislead consumers. These things are already written in law, in the case of food it's governed by the FDA. However, when we start including overly specific laws like this, of which this is but one of many (sheesh, check-out what was in the TPP), then every other company in every other industry wants the same treatment, and we end up with a convoluted mess that we have today. This is a problem because your average citizen can't possibly keep up with all this; but more importantly these overly specific laws are a nightmare when it comes time to introduce new legislation. So much time is wasted on garbage like this.
The TPP actually had plenty of reasonable components to it, but it was also filled to the brim with corporate garbage. It's hard enough to form trade agreements and pass legislation without corporations insisting their obscure needs must be met. Particularly when legislation and agreements are either signed and passed as entire unit, or not at all. It just wastes everyone's time when there's a few odd sticking points holding up the whole process.
I said that it's odd that these things are written in law seems as we already have laws that cover this more broadly. Attempting to maintain in written law explicit definitions of every food that humans can fathom, and how they are presently produced, is clearly untenable.
> Seems pretty clearly tenable to me. It is, in fact, being tened. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
in response to:
> Attempting to maintain in written law explicit definitions of every food that humans can fathom, and how they are presently produced, is clearly untenable.
Written laws give Government bodies power to maintain and enforce theses standards, independent of legislation that needs to be passed through long slow processes involving many politicians who have no knowledge of the relevant field.
> Written laws give Government bodies power to maintain and enforce theses standards, independent of legislation that needs to be passed through long slow processes involving many politicians who have no knowledge of the relevant field.
"Written laws ... independent of legislation" doesn't make sense. What are you trying to say here?
You're right, it doesn't. That's what happens when you truncate a quote to completely remove the context.
This is one of the most interesting cases I've seen:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-...
I, too remember the cold war. I don't see this happening today.
When did Assad get overthrown, and why? And how? Very confusing comment.
Currently Germany, the largest EU economy, is dependent on Russian natural gas. Once you cut that dependency, Russia will get weaker and more isolated, which is in national interest of US I assume. US is also trying to make Germany less dependent on Russia so they can put on more pressure on Russian economy without damaging Germany's economy.
Google is your friend, there were plans for the Iran–Iraq–Syria natural gas pipeline and Putin intervened to stop the project as it was against Russian national interest. Also don't forget about Russian military base in Syria, getting rid of that in the process would be an added bonus from US point of view.
I did not specify business interests exclusively btw. It could be business interests or national interests (or combination of both, often when a country pursues regime change as a part of national interest, there are private companies that make profit).
Governments do not get toppled only for economical benefit, often it's mainly because of geopolitics, see cold war, both US and Russia were toppling over governments and installing puppet regimes in various countries as part of their fight for dominance. Economic/business interests are secondary most of the time.
Reasons for overthrowing Gaddafi were iffy at best also (I'd would actually like to turn the table and let you explain it to me, because I haven't heard any valid reason why we randomly started bombing Syria).
I'm not familiar with any important economic interests there, although they produce some oil and export it mainly to Europe (but it's small potatoes). So I'd assume it was geopolitics again, maybe Gaddafi was friend of Putin also.
Syria now is a complete mess with different local strongmen and terrorist groups competing for power, there's basically a constant state of anarchy and violence so I don't see how you can argue it was a good idea.
“Most of all, America passes the critical gate test. Open the gate and see where people go — in or out. This is still the country people flock to.”
— George Will, 1992
“We are the ally of the US not because they are powerful, but because we share their values. I am not surprised by anti-Americanism; but it is a foolish indulgence. For all their faults and all nations have them, the US are a force for good; they have liberal and democratic traditions of which any nation can be proud. I sometimes think it is a good rule of thumb to ask of a country: are people trying to get into it or out of it? It’s not a bad guide to what sort of country it is.”
— Tony Blair, 2003
When there are people camped outside of the Chinese, Polish, French or Serbian embassies waiting to apply for immigrant visas, then maybe I might agree that the US isn’t a beacon. However, reality is that more people want to emmigrate to the US compared to every single other country in the world. That seems like the very definition of beacon to me. Perhaps the British aren’t clamoring to move to the US, but citizens of many other countries are. The US does have faults, but if you dig deep enough into any country, there are faults. The US is just a popular target for hatred because nobody in the media really gets worked up over the policies of Denmark or Uruguay. Nobody could probably even name a single person extradited by Canada to a non-US country, but it happens every day, but since it’s the CFO of a major corporation, it’s big news and somehow the narrative is being proffered that the US is acting in some exceptional way here.
Unsurprisingly, many pagans chose to convert to Christianity, rather than be murdered on the spot.
So maybe we can stop using this word "beacon", and use something more appropriate. How about "fortress"?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
I've see US soldiers in the Middle East while I was there, generically they're just people but in a way theres something strange about a US military base in another country. I was born an expat during the Gulf War period and US is really seen as a big advanced petrodollar bully in the region and has really only brought even more death and chaos to Iraq than Saddam did ironically. Kofi Annan, past UN Secretary General, himself has said that the Iraq war was unjust but then again I'm just reminiscing about something the US and US citizens no longer cares about. Iraq is now just another failed state, and the deaths there don't matter.
It is absolutely crazy to think that US law should apply worldwide.
The article does not even mention if Wanzhou Meng is US citizen who broke US law in the US.
This case might be retaliation and fear mongering similar to the case of Julian Assange which is pure retaliation and fear mongering.
The other reality is that certain countries have cooperation agreements where they feel their laws are compatible enough that they agree to extradite individuals that break those laws. Seems pretty standard business to me.
If you know you're violating a high profile US law, dont travel to countries that are buddies with the US. Maybe she didn't know about the arrest request?
Don't steal a Canadian company's technology [1], market products in America [2], issue dollar-denominated debt [3] and then violate sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions, and the U.S. and Canada will probably leave you alone.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-ag...
[2] https://www.huawei.com/us/
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-...
Sure, but, most crime denominated in dollars goes through New York too. The section called "Stationary bandits" in the following expands this theory a bit:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-27/don-t-...
They’re calling them US sanctions but the UN has also imposed sanctions on Iran. That may explain why Canada arested him. One signatory picking up a person on behalf of a more motivated one.
Also, under Russian laws companies like Google or Facebook must keep Russian users' data in Russia; they are not complying.
Canada wants trade with the US more than trade with Iran and thus bows to the US.
As do EU nations.
Examples:
https://www.rt.com/business/443315-swift-iran-us-sanctions/
Quote:
The Belgium-based financial messaging service added: “This step, while regrettable, has been taken in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system.”
SWIFT’s decision further undermines EU efforts to maintain trade with Iran and save an international deal with Tehran to curtail its nuclear program, after President Donald Trump pulled the US out in May. Being cut off from SWIFT makes it difficult for Iran to get paid for exports and to pay for imports.
https://www.rt.com/business/444051-eu-fears-us-sanctions-ira...
Quote:
Earlier this week, European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova pledged to find an effective solution, saying that technical work on creating the mechanism to allow EU trade with Iran continued.
“We Europeans cannot accept that a foreign power, not even our closest friend and ally, takes decisions over our legitimate trade with another country,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, stressing that the bloc would not be cowed by probable US penalties.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/1...
No other country could make a law like that and have any success in enforcing it abroad.
Why should Huawei get extra warning shots? They knew they would have to comply with US law and sanctions if they wanted to do business in the US. They chose to try and ignore those sanctions. Ignorantia juris non excusat.
You are suggesting that we make let international companies import products under a pretense, and then we are supposed to politely remind them of their obligations every time they run off the rails?
Huawei is one step away from being a branch of the Chinese intelligence service. We did the right thing.
The reports from US commitee's investigating Huawei have never demonstrated any real evidence of the alleged spying or Huawei being a "branch of the Chinese intelligence". Seems like overblown paranoia and fear as China begins to dominate the worlds economy. Not to mention the US routinely spies on other countries as much as possible, inspects all foreign telecom traffic (including phone calls like Huawei allegedly does) going through the US as the NSA leaks demonstrated, but they seem to dislike it when the tables are turned.
The only reason they get away with double-standards like that all over the place is because they have the biggest guns/economy. I call that bullying not justice. Its clearly a power-struggle not justice, you can't claim some moral high ground over not spying on others when you do the same thing.
I feel they are free to protect their national interests - say by banning Huawei if they suspect spying but if they have no proof, they have no authority to start extraditing and threatening and possibly prosecuting people.
The United States is currently operating an illegal drone war in other parts of the world.
Imagine how you would feel if Russia was flying drones above the US and targeted bombing a certain extremist group of people. Are you sure the next wedding you attend none of your friends friends is a target (or a mistaken target)?
Imagine how you life would be when death can come from the sky at any moment and there is nothing you can do about it.
lol