Second Canadian 'missing' in China | Hacker News Reader

Second Canadian 'missing' in China

bbc.com

138 pointsrgbrenner108 comments

If this is a retaliation and they intend on continuing on this. China is going to find it's self on the bad end of travel advisories by a lot of western nations.

BTW There have been videos about "tourist crackdowns" and how some of the authoritarian governments use visitors as scapegoats of bad behavior.

That seems to be the least of the problems right now. And of course when Canada just arrested business people they never need to worry about the travel advisories for Chinese ppl.

I'm suggesting is that a lot of western nations may place it on a "Risky Travel location" warning.

US has become a risky destination for ordinary business travel. I suppose business and tech conferences better take place in neutral places where rule of law prevails.

This is simply false, and the US will continue to be the #1 location for tech conferences for the foreseeable future.

The only risk to travellers is that US customs may require people to see their Facebook profiles etc. - which is bad - but nobody is getting arrested arbitrarily, and even if they were 'rule of law prevails'.

Well I don’t know about tech, but multiple swiss banks have had internal advisories against visit to the US, as some of their employees have been arrested.

Swiss banks have been hiding assets of people worldwide and many nations consider that a crime. So yes, if you're helping Americans cheat on their taxes, you're going to get arrested.

So the 'advisory' would be: don't break laws.

> So the 'advisory' would be: don't break laws.

Whose laws? Why should the Swiss follow US laws? What if the US establishes arbitrary laws? Should the Swiss still follow those laws?

But that's the point, no? Swiss have their own laws (hiding assets), US have their own laws (arresting people who hide assets), seems perfectly fair.

Personally, I wish no developed (e.g. EU, US) country would allow any economic relationship with any country that allows tax avoidance (like 0% tax) or tax evasion (like bank secrecy).

> Personally, I wish no developed (e.g. EU, US) country would allow any economic relationship with any country that allows tax avoidance (like 0% tax) or tax evasion (like bank secrecy).

But US allows huge tax deductions for businesses. Maybe other countries don't? Wouldn't they have a right to say, "Personally, I wish no developed (e.g. EU, US) country would allow any economic relationship with any country that allows unfair deductions or tax evasion (like states give to Amazon).

Tax avoidance is fine. That's for the government to sort out.

As for " Swiss have their own laws (hiding assets)," - not really.

UBS et. al. are not supposed to be helping Americans evade paying taxes - by their own law.

Money laundering and tax evasion are not 'arbitrary' laws.

> Money laundering and tax evasion are not 'arbitrary' laws.

Please define tax evasion. If country X's government legally authorizes a tax provision like mortgage deduction for tax reduction or tax-free interest or tax breaks for S-corps or tax reduction for exported payments, are these all tax evasion?

When people talk about companies evading taxes, they're really working through the tax code. Some countries have positive balance sheets and very little debt. They can afford to give companies tax breaks.

Tax evasion is simple: people not paying the taxes they are owed to the government. What you are referring to is tax avoidance or minimization, which is fine (or rather, another problem, mostly the governments)

"When people talk about companies evading taxes, they're really working through the tax code."

Switzerland facilitates tons of actual tax evasion, which they are not supposed to do, and which is illegal in the US.

From [1] "the Swiss financial sector and the DoJ began a decade ago when whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld provided evidence that his former employer, UBS, was helping wealthy Americans evade taxes.

Switzerland’s largest bank was fined $780 million in 2009, but it was later discovered that other Swiss banks had been poaching UBS clients after the criminal probe had been announced. "

Switzerland is party to many treaties with EU, US etc. - and they (gov. and banks) know exactly that they cannot facilitate tax evasion, if so, it becomes a crime.

This is not ambiguous.

If you, living in Switzerland, help facilitate a crime such as murder (i.e. totally unambiguous) in the US, then the US will extradite you even though you may not have broken any Swiss laws.

Tax evasion is a crime like any other, hence extradition and arrests etc..

Though some cases may have some ambiguity i.e. (what constitutes 'aid' and maybe some hairline differences between 'evasion' and 'avoidance') - in general, it's crystal clear: if you help people with tax evasion, you've committed a crime.

And FYI - the reciprocal works just the same - if you murder someone in Switzerland, but have not broken and US laws, you can be sure that the Americans will arrest you and send you to Switzerland if that's what the Swiss authorities want.

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/-5-million-fine_swiss-bank-sett...

I remember German and France businessmen arrest in US. IMF's ex president is also arrest because he question the GOLD problem.

It’s a risky place to go if you break US sanction and export law.

(Citation needed)

China is actually doing something similar right now, albeit in a different way: https://nordic.businessinsider.com/china-swedens-bizarre-feu...

Chinese tourists visiting a Swedish hostel in Stockholm sparked an international incident when they appeared on video screaming and crying and accusing local police of trying to murder them.

The "graveyard" they were dropped off at is more of a park, with a train station 8 minutes from the city.

China will avoid doing the same with other nationalities. Only canadians will be targeted. And they will not target people with no significance.

They also don't care about other chinese nationals getting harrassed in canada. They want to prevent rich people from taking more money out of the country any way. Problems with canada will get that good side effect. China care very much about Huawei and tech sector overall. They will do anything it takes to help them.

If you are canadian and maybe maybe also american who is somebody (not nobody), you may want to avoid china in your trips now.

Outline for us Indochina types: https://outline.com/qUJvaJ

Quite surprised Canada has gotten itself into this considering the potential for escalation which is now playing out. A "NGO worker", possibly of natsec value and now another Canadian national.

What did they really expect arresting corporate dynasty?

Watching the US and China duke it out in a trade war is somewhat in other countries interest economically, high profile arrests to use as bargaining chips is a risky business and the canucks seem to have thrown themselves right in the midst of it.

To add to the absurdity the EU is pushing ahead with maintaining the Iran deal and are indicating their multinationals will continue doing business despite US sanctions.

Canada has an extradition agreement with the US. The Canadian government has a duty to uphold its end, which means arrest the individual when the US requests it and investigate the merits of the case.

The Justice Department would do the same, though I'm sad to say, as a Canadian, that our prosecutors in Canada seem less interested in high-level white collar crime. (Yes, less interested than their American counterparts, believe it or not.)

I agree with this perspective, with the addendum that the US president's statements might end up working against the prosecutors requesting extradition. It raises the real possibility that Meng's trial in the US would be subject to political or economic considerations as opposed to the legal facts surrounding the foundation of the extradition request - an argument I would expect her lawyers to seize upon.

Before the statement by Trump, I was expecting the extradition request being granted. After the statement by Trump, I am more expecting it to be rejected.

It is an unfortunate circumstance that Canada's implementation of its laws (specifically extradition laws) has run afoul of China's sensitivities and resulted in what seems to be retaliatory behavoiur. However it would be quite devastating if those considerations factored into our implementation of our laws.

Canada should do this by the book, and it seems it will.

> Meng's trial in the US would be subject to political or economic considerations

Unlike in China, Canadian and American courts are fiercely independent of the executive.

I've seen this brought up quite a lot, but to me, a Chinese national, it's confusing how judiciary branch is independent.

Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? And isn't the nomination confirmed by congress? What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?

Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?

Edit: Great. Thanks for the downvotes as answers. Now I have a better understanding of how things work in the US.

The executive nominates judges, but they hold tenure for life and after confirmation operate with complete independence as a separate branch of government with their own budget etc. The Supreme Court is also irrelevant to this because they do not initiate investigations, they do not oversee prosecutors, and they do not administer the justice system. They only hear cases about Constitutional issues - not criminal issues, so unless there's a constitutional dispute a case has no chance of reaching them.

Judges in general do not oversee or initiate prosecutions, U.S. attorneys do. They're also appointed by the executive, but they operate independently and while, subject to Congressional oversight, he can fire some of them (but not the permanent civil servants who are the bulk of the staff), he cannot directly order them to do anything.

In any case, an investigation of this complexity almost certainly started under Obama, just because they tend to take many years to reach the stage where charges are filed.

Trump frequently claims to have powers that he does not have. He has said many times that he is going to do something only to find that he cannot actually do it, and so it hasn't been done.

Trump says a lot of things but the system is actually more balanced than the power-play media show makes it seem.

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice?

Independent, not sovereign [1]. The branches can check each other, but a judge over whom the President has pretty much zero power will decide if Ms. Meng is guilty or not.

For example, one of Trump's nominees recently voted to keep existing case law regarding Planned Parenthood in place [2]. This disappointed conservatives. But there isn't anything the President can do except complain about it.

> didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?

Trump says lots of things. His Justice Department can decide whether or not to bring the case. That's prosecutorial discretion, and it's devastatingly powerful. But in the end, if Ms. Meng is to be convicted, an independent judge presiding over a jury must agree with their case.

(It's not all rosy. The U.S. federal conviction rate is over 90% [3]. Better than China's 99.9%, but nothing to phone home about.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence

[2] https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/12/12/wh...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#United_States

[4] https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...

Side note: You asked an honest question. It's ridiculous you're getting downvoted.

Well things just got more ridiculous now that your comment is being downvoted. HN is weird sometimes.

Whenever you post something negative towards China then your post usually end up at -2 ~ -5 before slowly climbing up again. I personally don't care about karma but I do care about text becoming less readable, so it's unfortunate that it's so easy to game the system.

High conviction rates are not bad. A low rate would likely mean that lots of innocent people are being made to face trial. Alternately, it could be a sign of incompetence.

It is easy to make the rate low: prosecute based on mere suspicion, or have the prosecutor be a person who barely graduated from law school.

If a judge in China gets told to do something by someone above him in the CPC the judge will write a plausible or not so plausible legal opinion justifying what they were told to do. There is unlikely to be any explicit paper trail and from the outside you might confuse the Potemkin legal system for that of a Rechtstaat, where the government is, at least theoretically, bound by laws. In the US or Canada the government can interfere in the judicial process for reasons of national security and that’s really it. If Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton or any of the others called up a Supreme Court Justice and tried to tell them what to do they’d get told, politely or not, to go take a running jump. The government’s lawyers can make an application for evidence to be sealed from public view if it’s classified, or they can ask that a prosecution be aborted for reasons of national security.

The big difference is that things do not work on the basis of discretion or chain of command. If the sub mayor of Baoshan District Shanghai tells a police officer to cover up a murder or charge a foreigner with drugs offences because they broke up with the sub mayor’s daughter it will happen. If Trump tries to shut down the Huawei investigation for national security reasons the court could listen to his justifications and say no.

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice

Yes, nominating judges is basically the extent to which the judiciary is not independent, nominated justices are very much expected to act independently and without regards to who nominated them. Some examples of what Trump and Congress cannot do would be removing someone from the court, forcing the court to rule in a certain way, and so on.

> Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?

Trump regularly claims to be able to do things he can't in my experience - but yes. Trump can, perhaps, intervene in choosing not to prosecute Ms. Meng for a crime she did in fact commit. That's because how a court case works in the US is two sides argue their case to a judge. The judge is part of the judicial branch, but the side of the case representing the government is the executive branch of the government, which Trump is the head of. Prosecutors (the part of the executive branch that prosecutes people) have discretion towards which crimes they prosecute. With most prosecutions the president actually influencing the use of that power would probably be near impossible (but likely legal), extradition is more political as I understand it so he might actually be able to do so.

What Trump can't do is influence how that judges will react to the prosecution. If Ms. Meng did not commit a crime she will be found innocent (and indeed, if the government can't show that she committed a crime in a public trial with legally gathered evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). If the government can be shown to be knowingly maliciously prosecuting her despite her being innocent the attorney's involved will be sanctioned and she can likely sue the government for significant sums of money.

> What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?

This is basically entirely an unrelated internal politics thing. The US constitution is a rather vague document really, and as such there are some different interpretations. One party would prefer one set, another party would prefer another set, and they both try and nominate supreme court justices that will agree with their set. This has to do with things like "does the second amendment protect carrying handguns or just owning them". A "democratic" justice isn't going to be ruling on things because one side of a case is a democratic or anything like that.

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? And isn't the nomination confirmed by congress? What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?

I am not from the US but another democratic country. So I think I can provide an answer.

Being nominated(in democracies) doesn't imply that they've to play by the nominator's rules. In democracies, all branches of the Government have to work by the constitution(unlike in China where they are answerable to the Party). For example, in India, the judge of the Supreme Court is appointed by the President(head of the executive) who is essentially just a figurehead for the legislature(or the Parliament). So, indirectly the legislature nominates the Supreme court judge but Supreme court occasionally strikes down laws that it finds unconstitutional.

> Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?

Not sure about this but the executive/legislature often has powers to overturn the Supreme court's decisions. In India, the legislature often passes laws that by bypass/overturn Supreme court's decisions. In the case of the US, I think the President can do this as the US is essentially a Presidential form of government.

That's not the way things work in the US. First, the president is not a figurehead of the legislature. He's the head of a separate branch of government called the executive... which also contains all US agencies: DOJ, NASA, HUD, CIA, BLM, SEC, etc.

He nominates judges, and the legislature (which is its own branch) decides if they agree with his picks (by voting in the senate).

Similarly, he nominates people to oversee each division in the executive branch, and the senate confirms those people also. The people he nominates are in charge of their division. He can't go to the DOJ and demand they drop cases... that's a crime called obstruction of justice.

Constitutional cases are heard by the supreme court (but Meng's case isn't one of those).. but if the president does not like their decision, he can't do anything himself about it. There are only two ways to change the constitution: by getting 2/3rds of the 50 states to agree to the change (very hard, long process that usually takes much longer than the president's term.. rarely attempted); or by nominating judges to the supreme court who favor a different interpretation.

On the second part, there are a few road blocks too: whoever he picks must be confirmed by the senate. Once they are confirmed, it's a lifetime appointment. So if you look at the current court, you can see the current judges were nominated by 5 different presidents over 30 years. Since he needs to wait for one of these judges to retire, the president's picks will always be a minority on the court. He has no way of knowing when or if someone will retire. He'll only get a couple of chances to nominate a judge during his term (presidents serve max 2 terms of 4 years).

The legislature and president can change laws (sometimes those changes are the result of court decisions), but they don't change the court's decisions. Just their future decisions. Also laws can't override the constitution. And there are limits to the laws they can pass.. they can't for example make things illegal retroactively.

Also, I should add, the president can be imprisoned for violating the law. If he obstructs justice, he can impeached by the legislature and removed from office. He can then be prosecuted for the crimes he's committed. It's very unlikely though, because in the past, the vice president (who replaces the president after he's removed) can pardon the president for his crimes.

Thanks for the information.

US is indeed a presidential system.

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? And isn't the nomination confirmed by congress? What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?

There's deliberately limited legal ability for the legislature or the executive to influence or impose penalties on a serving judge, and the rule of law means that the president can't apply extra-legal pressure either. A judge could removed from office for really extreme or criminal behaviour, but that's considered extraordinary.

Day-to-day, judges can rule against governments and politicians without any fear of reprisals. The selection process just weeds out people who are likely to frequently make such rulings.

> I've seen this brought up quite a lot, but to me, a Chinese national, it's confusing how judiciary branch is independent.

I'm an American, but I have a Chinese friend who liked the 近距离看美国 series of books by 林达 as an explanation of the American system for a Chinese audience.

Thanks for the suggestion. Gonna pick it up soon!

the world doesn't work like that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik

power and situation dictates how laws, specially from international treaties, are upheld.

[Downvotes for my parent are unwarranted.]

It would be naive to believe politics/geopolitics plays no role in the justice system; it would be equally naive to believe rule of law is a sham.

I am an immigrant from a place where the legal code is largely a set of tools and pretexts for the powerful. I can assure you that the rule of law is more than just a phrase thrown around by our politicians.

Not according to Trump tho.

The US has a long history of refusing extradition requests by allies despite overwhelming evidence. It's become a one way street. The UK has blocked extradition to the US before even though the guilt is assured[0], the alleged crimes here are nothing in comparison.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon#British_governme...

> the alleged crimes here are nothing in comparison

Willfully violating sanctions is a serious crime.

Sanctions imposed by the U.S that hold no merit according to WTO or International law aren't even legal and are in fact considered an act of war. The only crime committed here is by the U.S.

Meng's arrest is for actions she allegedly took to help Iran evade sanctions years ago, during the period in which U.N. sanctions on Iran were in force.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...

The US sanctions limiting export of US tech to Iran have nothing to do with the WTO or 'International Law'.

Meng has apparently comitted a serious crime according to US law by exporting US-made tech to Iran.

If this is proven to be true, she's clearly violating the law, and surely knowingly so.

UN sanctions were lifted on 16 January 2016.

The US unilaterally decided in May this year they want to pull out of that agreement.

The EU is still pushing ahead to have their largest companies trading with Iran despite American protestations. We both know nothing will happen to Daimler or Societe General execs.

Meng has been arrested for her alleged involvement in sanctions violations that took place sometime between 2010-2013 (i.e. during the U.N. Sanctions on Iran era), not for violations of the the current US-led sanctions.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...

I stand corrected, according to the article she was somehow involved with Skycom and they sold computers to Iran during UN sanctions.

> Skycom tried to sell 1.3 million euros ($1.7 million) worth of Hewlett-Packard Co. computer gear in late 2010, according to Reuters.

How egregious that may be is up for people to decide themselves. Bail was set at $7m.

Were the escalating tensions not so serious there'd be room here for a joke about Huawei doing the west a favour with such a poor choice of manufacturer.

Which is why U.S. banks simply get a fine when they do it. The hollier than thou attitude when it comes to discussing China online honestly urkes me.

"What did they really expect arresting corporate dynasty?"

Justice? Transparency? Rule of law? Freedom of conscience and expression?

'Doing business with Iran' is not what she was arrested for - she was arrested for proving tech made in the USA to Iran, which is definitely a different thing. Grated it was very low tech.

Okay, hold up. "grated it was very low tech"; where did you learn about this (or is this an opinionated downplay)?

The tech she exported was HP gear - I'm not aware of anything specifically that HP make that is particularly high tech.

> Crown counsel told a Friday bail hearing in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Friday that Meng is "charged with conspiracy to defraud multiple international institutions"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bail-hearing...

Do you foresee extradition requests for EU executives doing business with Iran?

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-plan-to-sidestep-iran-sanctions-how...

The crime is not trading with Iran, the crime is defrauding the US financial system in order to do it. For some reason, this is framed as though Huawei is accused of trading with Iran completely independently of the United States. That's not the case at all.

> The crime is not trading with Iran, the crime is defrauding the US financial system

Is that not exactly what I said in response to a comment claiming she was selling US tech to Iran?

I don't foresee extraditions merely for 'doing business with Iran' because that's not what she was extradited for.

The EU and China have been trading billions with Iran for quite a long time [1]

Meng was picked up for a business relating to shipping US tech to Iran via Hong Kong.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/count...

The idea that Meng was arrested as part of a ploy in the 'trade war' is completely unfounded. These investigations take years and are initiated by the independent justice system. Trump can run his mouth off as much as he likes, but the U.S. system is not structured like China and the executive does not have supreme authority to direct arrests and prosecutions.

Is this really retaliation for Meng? Wow that's incredibly artless and ham-fisted if true.

I agree it is out of the blue. But defending is normally lacking preparation and elegance than offending especially for sudden atracks, just like in real fight.

All evidence points towards it being so.

The first Canadian detained this time was a diplomat on a leave of absence from the foreign service [0]. As non politically neutral as you can get without seriously violating diplomatic protocol.

China has a history of detaining people over political issues like this. The last time (2014) we (Canada) were considering extraditing a spy to the US they arrested two random Canadians and held them for half a year and 2 years [1].

As a Canadian I certainly hope that the only reaction by the Canadian government to this will be sanctions and cooling of relationships. We should not give into this bullying. Having a totalitarian state behind you should not make you above the law. People who chose to visit foreign states have to accept the risk that they will be subject to unjust laws.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kovrig-detained-china-tuesd...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/canada/canadian-cou...

Authoritarian governments are rarely accused of being artful.

People are jumping to a number of conclusions in these threads with little evidence. The rapid down-voting is crazy.

There's no confirmation that this had anything to do with Meng, or that these people weren't guilty of something worth investigating.

Wait for more details before assuming that everything is connected.

Extrapolating from that, I always find it amusing when people seem to have global politics figured out, not realizing that it's a complex dynamic system with hundreds if not thousands of agents at play, when they ,the very same people, would be lost watching a two-player poker game.

But how can we know if we should agree with your comment without knowing your political affiliation?

It's concerning. People have strong opinions (bordering on it being a "fact") about places they've never been to (or near). They might have never even left their country. It isn't something they've studied, it isn't remotely related to their work. But they still _know_ how it is.

I shamefully lived in China for a long period, and almost every Chinese person I've talked to was either misinformed or oblivious to the kind of negative news you see discussed on HN. You can learn a lot, both negative and positive, about living in the country that you'd have no way of knowing if you hadn't been there (or done a lot of research), e.g. how foreigners are not allowed to stay at most cheapish hotels and will even be turned away from a lot of apartments. But by living in China then you're less likely to know about these news because if it isn't censored then you'll be exposed to their propaganda instead. And things are going to get much worse when the social credit system really kicks in and the citizens benefit from spreading propaganda.

I suggest you learn more about China before expressing opinions about the plausibility or not of these theories. Some good websites would be Balding’s World, written by Christopher Balding, or Scholar’s Stage, written by Tanner Greer.

Alternatively you could follow the two of them on Twitter, @BaldingsWorld or @Scholars_Stage

China is making themselves look horrible here.

Ms. Meng has a proper reason for being arrested (the allegations are that she committed fraud to bypass US sanctions against Iran and sell them US tech by lying about HuaWei and SkyComs involvement to HSBC). There will be a trial, this investigation has been happening for years, and it is by the Justice Department, not a request from Trump (who seems to have been caught surprised by the move). Canada didn't do anything, they are simply honoring their extradition treaties.

In contrast, China is just throwing a fit in response and arresting random Canadians on trumped up charges. These are clearly politically motivated (China had threatened Canada with 'consequences' -- the timing is way too suspect here). We have been given no reason why they have been detained, and there are no court hearings or anything -- they have just been 'disappeared'. With this move, China has shown how authoritarian and anti business they are. No justice department, no investigation. These are simply political hostages. Further more, it is completely spineless that they are going after the, less powerful, Canadian nationals, and not Americans.

How did you come to a conclusion that randomly arrested two people? Double standard?

Different systems and real differences. China does not have the rule of law or separation of powers like western countries have.

In the west it's not easy for the executive branch to interfere with individual cases. US or Canada executive branch can't just tell justice department to arrest someone. In China that's possible and common.

> China does not have the rule of law

A quick look at Wiki suggest that there's at least some aspects of rule of law in China (1) - although with some defects.

I don't have the background to compare these defects with those of any other country (like the US's high incarceration rate (in general, and of minorities specifically)). I have lived a few years in China and Hong Kong and know a few lawyers and accountants born/working there. This experience has left me with a generally positive outlook.

I always try to keep in mind that my experience is narrow, but, sadly, people often have absolute opinions with even less experience, so it's always hard to gauge. I'm curious if this is a field that you've studied or work in specifically?

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_law#Rule_of_law

The fact that you conflate Hong Kong and the PRC mainland tells quite a lot. Hong Kong had the rule of law and still has a close approximation. The mainland doesn’t. If you knew accountants in both places you doubtless know that an audit from a HK firm is held in vastly greater esteem than a Chinese one because they’re less likely to be leaned on or threatened.

Did you know any business people? If you did you know how much contracts are worth when the other party has pull/关系.

Conflating them would have been "I lived in Hong Kong thus have an informed opinion about China."

I gave a link with specific examples of _experts_ saying China has rule of law but with limitations and asking someone with expertise to compare these limitations to those you find in, say, America.

All you're doing is repeating "China doesn't have rule of law." Unless you are such an expert (and you very well may be, but I have no way of knowing), don't you feel weird treating something as fact that people more informed than you disagree/debate?

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thatschina

> After seven years building up a magazine empire in China, I had it stolen by the state. I lived in the grey zone that is China's media business and, despite my commitment to the country, paid a high price

https://www.baldingsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/An-...

> A few weeks later over beers with a lawyer colleague, I recounted my tale of hysterical woe. He informed me that in reality, much of Chinese dispute resolution from neighborhood quarrels all the way through to significant civil and criminal litigation follow a similar pattern with open conflict avoided. According to him, recompense for damages all the way through to incidents involving death can allow people to avoid jail time. What I first thought a mistranslation, Negotiation Rooms existed to serve that purpose where every dispute from noise complaints to many business disputes to many acts that would qualify as felonies resolved themselves with official help in a Negotiation Room. In China as a foreigner, you become so used to being treated differently, both good and bad, that it surprises you to find out your experience is just like everyone else.

This doesn't completely address the commenter's point. They asked how the GP came to the conclusion that they were arrested randomly which is a reasonable question. Not knowing doesn't mean your guess is accurate. Granted, one can take issue with the double standard question...but to twist it a bit, it's kinda a double standard to, without evidence/reason, say a country is doing something without evidence/reason.

There are charges laid against Meng in public, the whole world can see what she's accused of. So far, there seems to be rule of law.

The Canadians in China have vanished: we don't know why they if they have been arrested, charged, there's no hint of anything.

So yes - 'being charged in a court of law' is rather different from 'government agents arbitrarily grabbing you off the street'.

Once again doesn't answer the original question. How did the commenter come to the conclusion that two people were randomly arrested?

We still don't know why they have been arrested. The only reason that China has given was they were 'endangering national security'. Seeing that they use this reason every time they want to arrest a dissident, it seems like a random arrest.

Whatever it is, it's nowhere near is simple as the good guy / bad guy situation you're making it out to be.

US sanctions against Iran versus the "situation normal" with Saudi Arabia despite the state-sanctioned murder of a journalist makes a mockery of US foreign policy.

It's not as simple as that either. It's politics and money. ie. There will be no winners, and everyone involved is already covered in shit.

I'm not arguing for or against Iran sanctions. However, they exist, and the US has a history of enforcing such sanctions. Getting around sanctions is typically given large punishments (see the Movie 'War Dogs'). This is not some arrest on trumped up charges for 'national security' like the Chinese arrest

The fact of the matter is that there is strong evidence that Huawei committed fraud to breach US sanctions. This is neither a 'good' or 'bad' thing, it is just very illegal.

Since no one has any actual proof, I’ll just guess that the arrested Canadians are spies.

They are not random.

At very least, they are political actors, which is a dangerous job in China. Presumably they have been under watch by the Chinese government for a some time, and only now they decide to arrest them.

I have little doubt both of these guys are spies. A guy working for an NGO that does "crisis research" and a guy leading tours in North Korea. LOL. Any country with sufficiently advanced counter-intelligence has a list of spies operating on their soil that they monitor and keep in reserve for when it's politically favorable to round them up.

1. Canada doesn't spy China. They cannot be spies. 2. China is an authoritarian state. The two Canadian are innocent. 3. I have made my mind before reading the article.

I totally agree. Or at the very least, assests to spies.

China knew about them but let them operate, since known spies are better than unknown ones.

I mean, since everyone is already jumping to conclusions with no proof, this seems just as valid.

> "endanger China's national security"

Victimization is a common tool of tyrants. In particular, China govt likes to use the phrase "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" (伤害了中国人民的感情).

Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer.

Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to the media, and if extradited, will receive due process and a fair criminal trial where everyone will get to see the evidence against her.

These two men have been 'disappeared'. Good luck ever seeing any shred of due process for them. Not even the most shameless Xi mouthpiece can credibly claim that China has anything resembling an independent judicial system.

It's not surprising that all Chinese media and all commentators loyal to the Xi clique have cynically framed this in terms of Meng being 'abducted' or 'held hostage'. The worldview of authoritarian, personal dictatorship cannot even conceive of due process and the rule of law (which also accounts for some of the idiotic off-the-cuff remarks that Trump has made - fortunately, the U.S. still has a semi-functioning government with separation of powers and an independent judiciary, so he's not really in the saddle here)

None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

While the majority of US Federal prosecutions are honest, FBI agents and US attorneys do get involved in misapplication of the law and reckless prosecution for political or personal reasons.

And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell. It would be easier to sell sand in the desert.

Canada absolutely should not have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Canada, like any civilized nation, should follow the rule of law. If that has consequences for our deals with and nationals living in totalitarian states, so be it. You shouldn't get to be above the law just because a big trading partner wants you to be.

Canada doesn't have a president, but the idea that our Prime Minister, or more importantly, our government respects the rule of law more than China isn't a hard sell at all. As bad as Trump is, the same is true about him (even if arguably only because the system forces it on him), and is certainly true of the American government as a whole.

My understanding is that these treaties are not so cut and dry. Treaty extraditions to the US have been refused on grounds of human rights, probable cause and documentation issues and I've never known of retaliation for failure to act. The US trend of "The World is My Jurisdiction" is sketchy and arguable enough for a country to refuse.

In his official actions Trump has shown that he does not know what the law even is so expecting him to respect it is like a pipe dream. And what has come out about some of his personal actions in the past doesn't give much hope either.

(I'm an American so when I speak about "our" I mean US)

> None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Maybe on HN, but is this really old news to all of our governments? I was watching CBC last night on all the issues the Canadian government is now running into with their 5g rollout since they were one of the few western countries who decided to deal with china.

Either they didn't know what china was, or they have better information on china then we do.

> And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell.

Is this a troll? Did we see trump pass a law unlocking the term limit for president? Because Xi did that, that's why hes even still in office.

Nobody sane ever expected China to be a 'rule of law' country in the Western sense though. I don't know enough about Chinese law to judge whether changing a law should have been allowed. But that law is changed, by whatever mechanism, and that is a bit different to acting in contravention of a law.

China disappears people all the time. May or may not be related to the Meng thing. Here's another:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7911948/chinese-photographer-d...

global fight for dominance via proxy countries didn't end with cold war: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalism

The US has played Canada. They request this, Canada performs the arrest, Trump plays good cop ("I'll intervene if I have to"), and China can't retaliate against the US but can take it out on Canada. I'm sure Trump is giddy given how much he dislikes Trudeau.

I don't believe Canada was played. I doubt she would have ever taken a flight through the USA and therefore this was probably their only chance to get her.

The sealed indictment for her arrest was 4 months ago on Aug 22, she has traveled through numerous countries including Canada in that time. The arrest came only hours after US/China trade talks finished, it's also unusual in that it's an individual rather than the company being taken to court.

She's also the CFO of the world's 2nd biggest smartphone manufacturer that just overtook Apple. Decide for yourself.

If this is true, it really sheds light on this because it would indicate the arrest was political.

Given the situation, I actually doubt it. I don't think this is Trump et. al. throwing a curve ball, I think this is the Feds just doing their job with bad timing.

At the same moment the President is sitting down with Xi discussing trade government agents are making moves to arrest an incredibly high profile Chinese figure and everyone seems to think it's a coincidence?

China has an extensive history of politically motivated trials when there is foreign relation disputes between countries. They barely hide it. What's interesting here is the US doing the same thing back to them.

I don't believe the US is doing it, essentially I'm doubting the specific facts you presented i.e. a warrant since Aug but no arrest until now, for political reasons.

One of the reasons I doubt this is because Trump does not control or direct these orgs - they are not highly politicized.

And also ... why would the US create some kind of warrant/indictment to not have her grabbed?

Maybe you are right, but I actually don't think any of it makes sense. Trump gains nothing by having someone nabbed like that.

Chinese nabbing of Canadians I do however think is political.

Nobody played Canada. There is an extradition treaty which specifies when one country may arrest suspects in the other country.

Rule of law.

Neither popular opinion nor pressure from government executives supersede the law. If the law is thought to be wrong, then a challenge may be taken to the courts.

When will China's pleistocene concept of law catch up to the 21st century?

That's not how it works, Canada has refused numerous extradition requests from the US.

Wasn’t China going to buy a ton of Canadian soybeans since they were avoiding US ones?

Recent news says China is starting to buy US soybeans now. If this was an American plan, it was brilliant.

This battle between the US and China for influence and control over the world will be interesting. We all know the US are far from harmless in their foreign policy. But still, between a US-centered world (which is still where we are in the western world, maybe not economically, but culturally for sure) and a China-centered one, I would choose the former by far.

This is still very much fiction, but there are many possibilities in the open. With the US questioning the support of EU to NATO, and the EU wanting the European Army, who knows where things will go (EU-China allying vs the US being the fictional world war III scenario).

canada had to have seen this coming.

Canada was fulfilling an extradition treaty it has with the United States. It really had no say in the matter.

This should be of surprise to nobody.

No, Canada had a say. It's a card like any other. Comply with the treaty or not. There's no clear answer. What happened here is clearly a choice officials weighed in on.

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