Hacker News Reader

Comment by luckylion | Hacker News Reader

Why though? We don't know what the Chinese will do, but we're somewhat informed what the US will.

Sure: the Chinese might be much worse. But they might also not be. So far, I haven't heard of intensive drone usage by the Chinese to bomb weddings half way around the world.

View on HN

>>> So far, I haven't heard of intensive drone usage by the Chinese to bomb weddings half way around the world.

But you surely heard of "missing people" in China after speaking against the government. What if this very comment would put you in prison for the rest of your life or worse, get you a death penalty(with or without trial) ? I'm pretty sure China would do some atrocious things given the chance to fight a foreign enemy. There is no real rule of law in China. That's the issue with all the communist/dictatorship system.

Surely you've heard of the most recent American version, Guantanamo?

You can't compare them. No American accused of terrorist activity on US soil has ever been held at Guantanamo Bay.

If you hang around with terrorists in a war zone(i.e Afganistan) you can expect your rights to be violated. Surely mistakes are made in a war. That quite different than being kidnapped from your home for expressing different political views.

> If you hang around with terrorists in a war zone(i.e Afganistan) you can expect your rights to be violated

Or in such places as Italy, just walking around, being an imam. Google Abu Omar.

So there was an abuse and it seems there was a trial to prosecute. Some people got jail time for that. You may say that it was not perfect and some people didn't get what they deserved. I agree.

But, have you seen any such trial in China? You may be put in jail for even demanding prosecution of the officials responsible for such acts. The press is not allowed to talk/write about such things.

China like all the communist countries and authoritan states(i.e Russia) has no real rule of law. In practice the party leaders are the law.

> But, have you seen any such trial in China?

They have show trials of corrupt politicians, just like we do. What does that matter, though? The CIA will continue exactly the same way, with or without some show trial. As will those Chinese government officials who weren't used as an example of Xi's latest war on corruption.

> You may be put in jail for even demanding prosecution of the officials responsible for such acts. The press is not allowed to talk/write about such things.

I'm not saying they are great. I'm saying maybe stop pretending we are. Sure, we have great explanations for all the extra-legal things ("they were terrorists", "this was a special case, it will never happen again", "it was wrong, the low level official responsible was punished") we do, but so do they. It would be so much easier to criticize them for the stuff they do if the CIA didn't have torture camps all over the world and wouldn't kidnap people "just because" and get away with it by pointing the finger at China or Russia and saying "look, they are much worse than we are".

> But you surely heard of "missing people" in China after speaking against the government.

Sure, and that's terrible, there's no question about it. But it does not affect people outside China in the same way that the US's actions affect them.

China might very well do the same things the US does if they ever get to be the planet's only super power. But they are not, so why overhype the possibilities?

Better the demon you know than the demon you don’t. China has frequently implied jurisdiction of any Chinese national inside or outside its borders. Giving them more international data is a scary thought for me

As an Australian living in China one of the things that annoys me is that I have to provide all of my Australian bank accounts and investment accounts with my Chinese tax file number. I also have to tell my Chinese banks my Chinese tax file number. This only started 2/3 years ago.

This isn't for the Chinese government or the Australian government. This is for the American government because of the FACTA law.

The US government wants to have jurisdiction of everyone ... just in case you might be an American not paying taxes.

that’s a fair grievance. At least in the current world you can raise those concerns publicly without being censored. You can raise awareness and organize individuals to enact change. I fear that given chinas love for internet censorship that would not be the case if your government gets too cozy with Chinese telecom.

Starting this year it will be for China. Not sure if you heard, but now all foreigners who live in China more than 6 months a year will have to pay tax on their global income.

I'm not sure this is correct. According to [1], foreigners have to pay tax on foreign income if you have live in China for 183 or more days in 6 consecutive years. And you can reset it by leaving the country for 31 or more days. However, foreigners do have to pay tax on foreign income of Chinese entities if they stay longer than 183 days.

So don't invest large amounts in dividend-paying Chinese stocks if you plan on living in China long-term, I guess.

[1] https://www.hrone.com/china-individual-income-tax-2019-impac...

Thanks for this, you might be right. I will have to look into it more. If it's true then this is not so bad.

Edit: Can you find a better source? All of the sources I find say that "it is not clear" if the 5-year rule and 30-day leave reset still applies. Therefore, one should plan for the situation that it does not apply anymore.

[1] http://www.mondaq.com/china/x/777948/tax+authorities/Changes...

Strange to hear that, given that China is the pretty much the only country whose financial companies pay the FATCA tax (yes, ICBC and co are some biggest FATCA tax payers in US)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com