3 Men Convicted of Harassing Family on Behalf of China’s Government | Hacker News Reader

3 Men Convicted of Harassing Family on Behalf of China’s Government

nytimes.com

174 pointsjbegley126 comments

Frankly I'm surprised only the Chinese are doing it. You would think large corporations would do the same against internal troublemakers, competitors, etc.

https://www.efsas.org/commentaries/the-killing-of-pakistani-...

>You would think large corporations would do the same against internal troublemakers, competitors, etc.

They certainly do! Here's a recent example, although it ended in prison time for the executives:

https://text.npr.org/2022/09/30/1126078948/live-spiders-and-...

Like Tesla to whistleblowers?

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263757/tesla-elon-musk-...

https://nationalwhistleblowercenter.medium.com/sunday-read-r...

And eBay. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebay-stalking-scandal-haunts-st...

And Hasbro: https://www.polygon.com/23695923/mtg-aftermath-pinkerton-rai...

They have, writ large. i.e. United Fruit, Pinkertons, etc.

Yeah, what about (ism) them?

Is it used as an excuse for the harassment?

This is the answer to folks in the US saying: "I am not worried about a foreign govt. having my data"

Sounds like something straight out of a Cold War spy novel.

I don't really buy Mr. McMahon's defensive. I suspect he deliberately didn't ask any details about what he was doing for whom.

I think that is his defense: he probably got the message that he shouldn't ask questions, and TFA says that his lawyer made that exact point in court.

It's not a good defense, but it's the best one he has.

>The case centered on Xu Jin, a former Chinese government official who moved to the United States over a decade ago

"Over a decade ago" - 2010-12 - was when PRC dmismantled CIA intelligence network, and found out CIA infiltrated into CCP to the point of buying high level promotions. Queue anticorruption + operation foxhunt to purge and repatriate these individuals. Wonder if Xu is among them, timing lines up. Either way, in lieu of extradition treaties which US/west will not establish with PRC, not even for obvious financial criminals let alone dissidents, these extraterritorial operations will continue if only to keep setting examples that there's no golden passport for Chinese nationals and their offsprings who undermine PRC interests.

Yup, that whole fiasco seriously puts into question the utility of the CIA and its ilk. The whole situation really spooked Xi Jinping and gave him good reason to clear house, ending up with our current situation. I wonder how many agents are in the high levels of the party today, if at all.

Probably more than the CCP would like to admin.

Money and houses in Vancouver didn't stop being effective levers, they just had to get more subtle.

The family has been listed in the fugitive list since 2015 (See [0]), and the reason Chinese government gave is bribery.

[0]. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2015-04/23/content_205144...

when you spend years insinuating that every academic researcher, high tech employee/executive, investor, or random chinese national on vacation is potentially a spy, i don't really expect the general public to object to the fact that they're being coerced by china into returning to china.

Chinese intelligence services absolutely do use those people to gather information through a "thousand grains of sand" approach. It has been very effective. That doesn't justify paranoid xenophobia but we need to recognize the national security threat that we're up against.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/spies/dif...

lol yeah, that's my point. they're all spies, so why should anyone care if there are chinese police stations sending them back to china?

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