It's common, in the open, and Western Governments are too afraid to do anything material about it. That tells you who has power.
It's bad.
It's bad.
Some western people are completely out of bounds. You're basically suggesting trading humans. It's called slavery. To arrest someone and trade him for someone. What's going on. You're not the only person suggesting it. I saw similar comments on other websites. For example someone suggested to arrest some random Russian sportsman and trade him for American sportsman girl who was arrested because of marihuana found on her in airport.
It's just wrong. It creates all the kinds of wrong incentives. If you think that someone is a spy and you can prove it, go ahead and put him in jail or deport him or apply whatever measures law requires. But no human trading.
There are tons of proof and examples of this being false. Lots of example of police targeting people then finding the law they broke, instead of starting with a crime and finding who did it
The US secret service has offices in over a dozen countries, including China.
But all of that would be pretty hard in the current geopolitical situation, there would be a huge price to pay.
Australia was slapped with huge trade war in the order of billions for pointing out that China was lying about COVID origins.
Major American corporations have deep ties with China and China would pressure them to tamp this down.
Without some kind of institutional support from probably a few media companies it would be very hard.
The 'Tea Party Movement' was basically nothing until Fox News decided to put them up front, for example.
American corporations have incredible influence over media.
In particular, the massive hypocrisy over the NBA, and some players who scream about injustice, and then repeat Xi's talking points when it comes to China. Even NBA players have their marching orders.
Truly grassroots things are really really rare, it usually takes participation from aligned forces.
Do you notice how 'Tibet' used to be all the rage? It was the hip thing in Hollywood about 2000. The Dalai Lama was a thing. China put huge pressure on everyone to "Shut the F up about the Dalai Lama" and so corporations, NGOs, Hollywood, Governments, go the message. It becomes more rare to have him visit, and corporations no longer talk about Tibet.
Marc Benioff of Salesforce fame, is illustrative of this - he's ostensibly a big supporter of Buddhism etc. and the Tibet issue should be front and centre with him if he was in any way legit, but of course he keeps his mouth shut entirely, because, hey: it's just business.
Hollywood dutifully keeps their mouths shut and will happily kill anything in their periphery (i.e. documentaries) with the word 'Tibet'. Actors who want to not be blackballed/banned from China will stay the F away from the world 'Tibet'. Actors are corporations.
And of course the Uyghur issue - can you imagine any other major nation putting people in camps on the basis of their ethnicity? E. China is an open air police state, with stations every few hundred meters, propaganda everywhere etc.. There would be huge uproar over this if it were any other state. But we are told to keep our mouths shut, 'or else' - so we do.
All of this could change however - with a bit of coordinated action and political will, it could flip.
Lastly, Germany, which mostly controls EU, is one of the few nations to be a net exporter to China, and they don't want to mess that up and so they are the most likely to 'acquiesce' on the issue, which means the EU will 'keep their mouths shut'.
- evict caught spies and other agents (or imprison them, it's no secret China does that as well)
- summon or evict their embassy staff and ambassadors
- harass China-owned companies or make their lives difficult with bureaucracy just like China does
- impose tariffs and trade sanctions
- support CCP-critical groups and dissidents both domestic and in China
- threaten China militarily (e.g. by deploying maritime units just right outside of their maritime borders), just like China does
- support nations whose sovereignty is threatened or violated by China, including African nations where Chinese fish trawlers are stealing fish
- hack Chinese government and corporate entities, just like China does
- impose export bans on technology or resources that China needs (which is already done, e.g. ASML litho machines)
- restrict Chinese citizens from visas, buying real estate
- seizing Chinese-owned assets like real estate (bonus: reduces housing pressure)
So USA would implement X% tax on China for their authoritarian stuff, Y% for their aggression against Taiwan and Z% for their carbon emissions.
Every nation gets a tariff.
That would push them into line on some things.