US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China
m.dw.com
m.dw.com
> Exercise increased caution in China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws and special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals.
> Chinese authorities have the broad ability to prohibit travelers from leaving China (also known as ‘exit bans’); exit bans have been imposed to compel U.S. citizens to resolve business disputes, force settlement of court orders, or facilitate government investigations. Individuals not involved in legal proceedings or suspected of wrongdoing have also be subjected to lengthy exit bans in order to compel their family members or colleagues to cooperate with Chinese courts or investigators.
> U.S. citizens visiting or residing in China have been arbitrarily interrogated or detained for reasons related to “state security.” Security personnel have detained and/or deported U.S. citizens for sending private electronic messages critical of the Chinese government.
travel.state.gov archived from 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180112180843/https://travel.st...
AKA taking hostages.
It's unclear if the westerners detained in China have committed crimes. I think their detention is a good example of what this warning is about. Detained for unclear reasons under broad state security rules with little presented evidence of crimes. Indefinite detention without any hope of a trial, kept in total isolation, without any formal representation.
Meng got her day in court, will the Michaels ever get that?
Someone that didn't visit the US was arrested for "breaking US law"...replace "US" with "China" and see how this sentence rings.
The host country can choose not to extradite, but most countries generally accept this basic idea that sovereign nations can charge and warrant the arrest of individuals as pertinent.
I'm not sure the whole "China is uniquely evil" idea that is expressed in these comments stands up to even the smallest scrutiny.
Probably not, because he's made enemies of pretty much every country or nation state. Maybe Russia would take him in or something but the amount of geopolitical enemies he has is enormous.
> "China is uniquely evil"
I don't think anyone has expressed this. I think it's more, China is totalitarian with little respect for free speech, the rule of law and human rights, and often, arbitrary enforcement of laws. Before you say, "the US does this too!", it's true, but that's also a tu quoque" logical fallacy and is just gaslighting.
I really don't think the West has, currently, anything similar to their concentration camps or lack of religious freedoms.
So, while you're correct that she didn't commit a crime within the USA, she did commit one directly against US businesses and the US government.
As a non-American, I do find the extraterritoriality of US law very concerning, but I don't think this serves as a good example of overreach. She'd have been fine if she didn't enter a country with an extradition treaty with the US. That wasn't the smartest move.
While the US has protected people doing serious crime in Norway.
I don’t defend China, but I wish the US held a much higher standard itself because it is hard for western countries to fight for justice and human rights when the US has such a poor record itself.
Any links to support this?
> While the US has protected people doing serious crime in Norway.
Isn't that an indictment of the Norway justice system? Or would it be acceptable if Norway could protect its citizens in the United States?
The two high profile cases that has any info, Sandra Han + Liu siblings (which triggered the warning), and Huang Wan, all has to do with father being caught with massive corruption charges in China and family members directly profited from i.e. Han + kids had multi-million dollar realestate holdings in the US under their names. Chinese corruption is typically a family affair. I haven't seen any cases that was unambiguous hostage taking.
The broader issue is many Chinese financial criminals flee to the west where they're safe from prosecution, the west benefits and extradition to PRC isn't on the table. So there's nothing China can do except to wait for the extra dumb one's to return or more commonly, or coerce those abroad to return by threatening innocent family members which to my knowledge has been limited to Chinese nationals. Exit bans seem to be reserved for those complicit in crimes. State department is reaching hard to to make it seem arbitrary when tldr is don't go to China if they want you for crimes, double for dissident activities.
We aren’t talking just about criminal or major offences here.
But it gets even worse. Imagine if you went to Poland, got into an argument with the manager of a factory there, and had your exist visa revoked. Imagine if someone from a state service showed up and told you, off the record, that you needed to hash things out to leave the country.
Isn't that pretty crazy? I think so.
The exist visa ban is a broad sweeping power than can be used by the state for almost any purpose.
They face a 99% conviction rate in the Chinese courts.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-charges-...
You be the judge.
Edit: more like 999 out of 1000 as per that wiki page:
> In China, the justice system has a conviction rate of 99.9% in 2014.
Also, that 93% number is Federal only. As per the link, the state numbers range (roughly) from the low 60's to the low 80's.
> In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that among defendants charged with a felony, 68% were convicted (59% of a felony and the remainder of a misdemeanor) with felony conviction rates highest for defendants originally charged with motor vehicle theft (74%), driving-related offenses (73%), murder (70%), burglary (69%), and drug trafficking (67%); and lowest for defendants originally charged with assault (45%).
China's rate in 2014 was 99.9%.
Japan also looks like it has a 99% conviction rate. Most countries have the ability to exit-ban foreigners visiting their country. It's not unique to China at all. US does it. Canada does it. South Korea does it.
I think the warning from the US Government is that, in their opinion, China will illegally detain you over made up charges, be careful.
Say what you want about Ghosn but, I'd GTFO too
Edit: British-employed not actually British
So said each country has their own problem but if anybody focus more on resolving their internal problem before teaching everybody how to live would be better.
In this forum is very hard to discuss anything serious that doesn't follow the prevalent opinion that you get down votes without reason.
As a non-European, non-American and non-Chinese I find this utterly confused line of thinking depressing. It is clear Europeans are subject to their own propaganda in this regard.
Having traveled and met various young Europeans they were often suffering from amazingly ignorant ideas about life in the US(particularly the Germans).
One couple was scared they might get shot while traveling along coastal California. Surprise, gun violence is not evenly distributed, most Americans don't encounter any gun violence.
Police violence? Never seen any except on TV. Weird hu?
Seems to be plenty of propaganda in your own news media, why do you think you are equating China & USA?
I've traveled for an extended time in both US and China and as you say you hardly get shot on a trip in California you also will not get arrested just for holding a foreign passport in Shanghai
As far I'm concerned I felt much safer in China for many reason that I'm not here to explain.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53104303
https://globalnews.ca/news/5257482/robert-schellenberg-death...
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/asia/china-canada-kovrig-spav... [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/asia/canada-china-death-sente...
Essentially, if your father is Iranian, you are Iranian, even if you were born outside Iran, and you must go to Iran to request renunciation - which can be denied, and is hardly inviting for someone criticising the regime.
How do they ascertain that? DNA testing?
They must be getting pissed, curious how things could escalate.
‘You don’t just arrest our business leaders’, there’s a lot of face to save there.
Check out the BBC interview:
Oh, and by the way, you don't need to be a diplomat or entrepeneur to be picked up. They do it all the time [0].
You can read more about Spavor and Kovrig, the Canadians detained in solitary confinement in China for over a year, here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kov...
[0] https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-...
What is plain to me is that a Canadian guy who can live in China at the border with North Korea, can run a business there, and personally knows Kim Jung Un is not just any "entrepreneur"...
Likewise we cannot know exactly what "diplomat" means for someone stationed abroad (including Afghanistan, and Beijing).
I'm not defending the Chinese government but these 2 guys were clearly not arbitrarily picked, it's a little disingenuous to claim that they were.
Strange, because this comment, as well as the vast majority of your comment history, expressly come to the defence of the CCP.
Being an entrepreneur nor a diplomat is not probable cause for an arrest, and the opaqueness of the CCP on all their criminal cases is by design for this very reason; it's a smoking gun, not a smoke screen.
You're right that these two weren't entirely arbitrarily picked, they chose two people high-profile targets as you normally would in a hostage situation.
There are plenty of Canadians and Americans in China, including students, language teachers, expats, etc. and I don't think that they face any particular danger as long as they don't make waves. "Without explanation" (as per the article) is not the same thing as "at random".
The probability of being mugged and shot in the US is probably higher but I don't see articles telling people to stay well clear.
- Expelling people back to their home country where they are still free as a form of diplomacy
versus
- Imprisoning, torturing and passing the death sentence as a form of diplomcy.
Edit in response to jlokier below: I think everyone with a bit of common sense understands what "making waves" means when travelling abroad, and especially when travelling to China (or any country with an authoritarian regime). Be respectful, don't challenge officials, don't get involved in politics, don't make strong political statements on sensitive topics. When you're a guest somewhere, behave like one.
I visited china about 10 years ago, on a working trip. Nothing to do with government, just a very mundane bit of electronics we were collaborating on. While there I asked what I thought were innocent questions about ordinary life and politics, and it became clear that people there did not feel safe answering some of those questions.
To this day I don't know if that counts as "making waves".
These days, I would not feel safe returning to China for work. I recently turned down an excellent job opportunity that would require very occasional trips to China, because it seems just that bit too much of a risk at the moment.
The entire time I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was living in a dystopian future. Security around Tiananmen Square in Beijing was so overdone it would almost have been funny if it wasn't scary. Facial recognition scans on the metro system. In Shanghai they use facial recognition at crosswalks and then put up the name and picture of violators on a huge screen at the intersection (I can only assume they also deduct from their social credit score).
If this is the direction China wants to continue to go in, I no longer want anything to do with it. As long as the CCP is in power I won't be visiting again. And now that includes Hong Kong sadly.
So it sucks that I likely will never visit again in my lifetime. China is already dying, the oppressionist leadership just is self-deluded and doesn’t understand it yet. The further you move away from liberal democracy with deliberately decentralized power, the more isolationist your economy becomes.
On the scale of years, sure you can manipulate markets, send elite spy teams to kill foreign dissidents, pressure other developed economies to buy your exports and respect your authoritarian escalations.
On the scale of decades you can’t. China foolishly underestimates how smart and hard working everyone else is, how easily a generation can be disenfranchised from Chinese exports, and how little of a threat Chinese cyber warfare truly is.
China is just a large, slow North Korea with enough starting capital to superficially appear OK in the short run.
In order to stay relevant, China needs a better educated workforce, but in order to control those better educated people, they will need ever better control mechanisms. I doubt they'll be able to make it work in the long run, so they likely will need to change strategies, but right now it makes sense.
> “ but in order to control those better educated people, they will need ever better control mechanisms.”
This is like a building whose own load directly undermines its own stability, or a roller coaster whose own construction dynamics tears itself apart little by little with each run.
Trying to institute mass social control while changing a population to be highly educated knowledge workers is like boiling the ocean.
In some small local patch of time, it looks scary (ooooh social credit system, face recognition everywhere, disappeared artists and journalists, cyber warfare.. spooky)
Zoom out on the scale of 50 years and it’s farcically stupid.
Wanting an enduring human population asset and wanting authoritarian control are fundamentally incompatible desires. At best they can be sustained through force on short time scales, then ending up very very bloody for the leadership involved.
I think the best thing they can do is induce political apathy. Discourage people from trying to get into even the Party apparatus, except as functionaries doing repetitive, menial jobs, and then keep people prosperous so they don't question.
I've certainly known a lot of engineers - Western engineers, even - who didn't care about politics because they simply didn't need to.
The drives simply can’t coexist in the same mind at the scale of a society. The drive of scientific inquiry required to be literate in almost all knowledge work is an incompatible internal drive against mindless acceptance of authoritarian policy.
Unfortunately it's a misleading, nearly ethnocentric belief, like the one where we assumed wealth and prosperity results in democracy.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/01/how-the-west-go...
This is hubris. "Our model of society is optimal for scientific progress".
The recent Chinese diaspora are largely aggressively pro-china regardless of whether they are here as students or highly educated workers. Everyone who is not Han-Chinese a laowai, or "foreigner", even in their own country.
China is showing the world an alternative to Western democracy, and they can point to clear failures of democracy with populism, corruption, and white people's ridiculous inability to wear masks ;)
Which model will be more resilient when the sea levels start to rise?
I got the same same feeling. They are building a new and technologically "better" Soviet Union, actually implementing a bunch of the ideas from Orwell's '1984' novel about totalitarian communism.
I feel (selfishly) happy that I got to experience Hong Kong a bunch of times while it still existed as free city.
Although if you have genuine concerns about astroturfing, I suggest emailing hn@ycombinator.com.
That being said, the "anyone who disagrees with me is a shill" attitude is just as poisonous to online discussions as the shilling itself.
I also found the security of tiennam square not much different from the eiffel tower (which I didn't enter because the security seems such a hassle at that time). Security of very high profile spots seems to be high in general these days.
Not to deny your experience, I just had a different one. When talking to other travelers, it seems difference in experience happens all the time while traveling.
My experience at the eiffel tower: Bag scanner, didn't go through (because I had a huge bag which was not allowed). Area was limited with huge glass panes. (Don't know if they want to see any ID)
So it felt very much the same to me, but the security in Paris was probably not police (I didn't go fully in, so I don't remember).
You were either paying no attention at all, or you are intentionally misrepresenting the situation.
Your other points notwithstanding, rifles aren't particularly special in French policing. Gendarmerie are basically everywhere.
Apparently yes, at least I can't find them on my pictures and don't remember them (but that doesn't mean they weren't there, human memories are notoriously unreliable). But I didn't took that many pictures either way, because it was slightly raining and not that interesting, I accidentally went when the forbidden city was closed.
> The facial recognition when you go through the scanners?
I have a hard time telling facial recognition and non facial recognition security cameras apart. They are common in many places of the world, so I stopped noticing them all that much.
>The guards posted at vantage points with rifles?
I mostly remember the honor guards and police at the entry. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were some with rifles somewhere, as those are not that uncommon at high profile places.
> You were either paying no attention at all, or you are intentionally misrepresenting the situation.
I'm sorry you get that impression just because it doesn't fit with your experience. I personally think that both our experiences are likely to be true, but are like snapshots of a given time.
Examining my own feelings on this matter further, I think I had a sense that the security at the Eiffel was very focused on keeping weapons and bombs out, while the focus at Tiananmen was more on controlling the crowd and tracking who was there. For example the police station and armored vehicles were inside the square. At the Eiffel the security was outside only.
Having lived in Paris for several years, I don't recall ever seeing access to the Eiffel Tower area restricted at all except during restoration construction. It's a giant pass-through surrounded by park where thousands of people congregate daily.
All previous times (2000, 2005, 2011) I could just walk under without any restriction.
"feeling of a dystopian future"? That sounds straight like from an episode of Black Mirror.
At the rate things are going, in another five years nobody from a liberal nation will be able to safely visit Xi's new hermit kingdom.
It's a shame. I always thought it would be nice to visit Hong Kong.
Now, compared to then, China has a huge internal market thanks to the rising of the middle class that could take the clash of a potential export collapse by leveraging their internal market.
So said, whenever there's somebody exporting there's another one importing. Perhaps we should ask ourselves where are we going to get the goods that now are produced largely in China.
Wikipedia refers to it as:
"The term hermit kingdom is used to refer to any country, organization or society which willfully walls itself off, either metaphorically or physically, from the rest of the world."
Seems reasonable.
China is going to become increasingly walled off in terms of physical access into China (and they'll likely further restrict foreign travel by their citizens), matching how they've already walled the country off with regards to the Internet & foreign press. It had to happen, the smothering process has to continue indefinitely until or unless they reverse course on liberalization. These processes tend to spiral down by necessity. The more you clamp down, the more you have to clamp down; you can't allow challenges to the vast number of invented narratives (which comes from foreign injection: outside press, outside visitors, allowing a large number of your citizens to visit other nations and see that the narratives are falsified, etc).
The exports would be the last thing to get walled off, I'd expect. Neither side of the wall really wants that. It's not hard to see a scenario where China is highly isolated socially and culturally, while still being an immense export power.
One of my abiding impressions and favourite photos of the trip was a street where signage had proliferated so much that it was solid, and the only constraint on incursion into the street was whether or not it got hit by a bus. The ubiquitous vendors of fake watches and shops offering to make you a suit. Skyscrapers on every surface that wasn't a 45 degree slope. The outdoor escalator. Huge, neat, organised, airconditioned subway.
The death penalty threshold is 50 gram for methamphetamine in China, in absence of other 'good behavior' such as collaboration, etc. If any Chinese citizen attempted to smuggle this much drugs into China, it's going to be the same fate, except maybe faster.
Drug dealers in China are executed for much less. To paint that as 'retaliation for ongoing conflict' is laughable.
Sounds like a super convenient way to kill off politically inconvenient people.
Entertainment figures regularly gets shunned by the whole industry because they were caught smoking pot, which is not even a criminal offense in China. The whole mentality is worth a book but to the Chinese society (not just government) drugs are taken very seriously.
*Edit: I'm just offering my personal experience here for others to consider amongst other sources of information.
Fellow Canadians have had to watch as an increasing number of Canadians are arbitrarily detained and held in torturous conditions.
These Canadians range from high-profile and wealthy[0] to low-profile [1,2], and the conditions in which they are detained are an affront to human rights.
[0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kov...
[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-sente...
[2] https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-...
Who can guarantee they never choose a mass arrest as the way to exert pressure on the West?
No wonder the CCP banned the construction of very tall skyscrapers recently.
Until the cracks start opening up. What you see is just them showing their best side all the time. This is not "organization". This is theatrics. You should differentiate between the two!
When it happens in China things may get very messy.
Still, a civil war requires the civilian government to lose control of the military or a central military to splinter into regional militias. That doesn't seem likely in the US or China. Another scenario for a US "collapse" would be a military coup or some other end to the democratic experiment.
I very much do not want to see the US collapse; it would not be a pleasant experience. I don't think it's too likely in the near future, but it's certainly possible and these sorts of developments often only seem obvious in hindsight.
I sincerely hope that the US doesn't collapse because we'd be left at the mercy of Russia and China.
(You probably misread a negation.)
Simple, just don't cooperate with western capitalists looking to plunder an area, a Cold War will be declared shortly after.
This is far far less antagonistic. ...at least for now.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a332183...
The threat of nuclear war isn't the only thing that makes a cold war. It's the constant small economic, social and military pushes by these countries against eachother.without ever formally declaring war.
Canada also harasses US fishing boats, fyi.
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/13/us/fishing-boat-dodges-gu...
This is definitely Soviet-Era style cold war tactics. Could be ripped out of the 60s with the names replaced.
It’s not the same exactly as Russia, but there are parallels.
You think the risk is not that big?
I think its pretty likely that we're headed for an extinction type event for upvote based "anonymous" message boards like HN, reddit ... or at least a significant decline in their usefulness
Edit: Jotting down some ideas:
1) Occlude/Delude/Fog-up the votes for newly created accounts. Mature accounts get to see gray posts.
2) Consesus amongst mature accounts has higher weight over newly created accounts.
3) Penalty for being flagged is higher for mature accounts as with power comes responsibility of good behavior.
4) Karma should have more meaning that just a tally of points. Upvoting costs Karma (-1 from balance). So, people are more careful and have to strongly agree to upvote. Probably some caveats and downsides here.
5) Buffer out the oscillations of upvotes/downvotes. Sort of like a mass-spring-damper system.
6) Hire moderators that are vetted and publicly funded by HN members.
7) Verified accounts with work email or some other means. These accounts would have the highest weight in anything they do.
This is why you should flag every political submission to HN.
1. Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this ...
2. I just noticed - all anti China comments were heavily upvoted but just in last 30 mins ... (this comment thread)
3. Not just arrested but tortured ...
4. This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying ...
5. I've visited China nearly every year for the past 6 years and never had any sort of issues ...
6. I get the impression that we're now in an undeclared Cold War with China.
7. Use this to negotiate hazard pay with your company when traveling to China.
The rest are greyed out:
8. ... If this is the direction China wants to continue to go in, I no longer want anything to do with it ...
9. ... Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War" so I'm not surprised this is as upvoted as it is.
10. The current administration has been bullying China incessantly ...
So, 1/3/8 are clearly anti-China, 4/6/7 can be read either way, 5 is questioning the premise (so we could consider it mildly pro-China, if you will), and 9/10 are the only explicitly pro-China comments. They are also at the bottom.
So I'm not really sure what you're saying.
Why do we even have such a huge oscillation? I am extremely suspicious but cautious with allegation without data.
What I am sure of is the following:
Comments start out positive, then comes the hammer and they go extremely gray (the lightest color and bottom out at -4?) and then we have them back to normal levels. This is a really concerning behavior. If we had a plot of vote vs. time, we'd see this hammer come down. I strongly suspect.
* While I was writing this my original comment score went from 1 to 2 to 0, which kinda proves my point...
What I am concerned about is a coordinated astroturfing that is perhaps state sponsored to change the western narrative. That's pretty fricking scary and should be investigated if that's the case.
It does not have to be "foreign power". To me it looks like HN has groups of "concerned participants" on either side of a fence.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
The point is just that the intent of applying the law is not maintaining law and order.
Lika a policeman seeing 100 people jaywalking, but only arrests the rich/poor/black/white/foreign/blonde/girl/guy, not because they want to maintain law and order by policing jaywalking, but for some other reason.
> Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War"
Unfortunately. The respective threads are also often emotional, light on facts and relatively unreflected.
Perhaps you should read up on the root causes of the recent Black Lives Matter protests in the US.
That's what being tough is all about. Be careful what you wish for.
Hong Kong was already PRC-administered Chinese territory.
Copyright, patents, and trademarks are all just customs to facilitate creation. They run counter to the obvious Schelling point of information being easily propagated. Bundling these customs up into "IP", attempting to cement them into some iron-clad property regime, and then complaining when that is not respected is mostly just a symptom of western corruption.
The immediate remedy is tariffs that compensate for the lack of royalties for goods imported back into the western market. The longer term solution is to accept the reality, and hope that as China develops they will want to buy into the paradigm.
Unconventional scenario: We steal traditional Chinese medicine and deny we took it. It achieves pretty much nothing but hopefully some Chinese people will understand why we did it and realise their government was naughty.
China has illegally extended its maritime boundaries to include boundaries of other ASEAN countries (read up on UNCLOS: [2] and what is considered International Waters and what is not. It even lost a legal battle with Philippines [3] but still continues to illegally expand its maritime boundaries). It can lead to blockade of essential goods and services including oil and gas to Japan and South Korea. US doesn't claim any of those lands or sea except for the base where it has military presence. All major powers in the World have military bases spread across the globe. None of them are considered "expansionist". Many of those bases are setup either through an agreement with the Country in possession of the land or by leasing it. The bases can be removed at any time. But China is claiming territory. Both are totally different! So yes I stand by my point: China is the bully here!
It is doing the same in India as well. Expansion. Please don't compare the two again!
[2]: https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...
[3]: https://qz.com/733012/it-is-beijings-fault-that-china-lost-b...
I think I blamed Obama a bit because it looked like all outcomes of the election lead to no TPP, so he didn't push it hard enough, didn't negotiate hard enough to at least get Clinton to support it, or didn't rush it through while he was in power. It felt like he saw it wasn't going to happen and gave up. Maybe it's not fair to put some of this on Obama, Trump was the one who made it official.