China Travel Advisory
travel.state.gov
travel.state.gov
Ironically this might be the straw that breaks the camels back, when you lock up people on business trips, the companies tend to not look on that very favorably.
When the Canadian government arrested a Huawei exec who was ignoring Iranian sanctions and lying to US investigators, the Chinese government arrested 2 Canadians as spies. Authoritarian governments fucking love to arrest people on "espionage" charges, since it is hard to prove and they can pretend to not be able to share because of national security.
Case in point, the American basketball player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on accusations of having a cannabis vape pen - and was exchanged for the world's most notorious arms dealer, Victor Bout.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/08/brittney-grine...
On the two Michaels', of course they were spies, with the customary NGO cover. Useful idiots who lap up western propaganda love to think PRC... a surveillance state with extremely competent state security organ that completely dismantled CIA spy network this decade somehow needs to capture innocent westerners when they could just snatch up legitimate spies. There's a reason CSIS, Canadian CIA, publically celebrated their release on twitter [0]. Not to mention this tidbit:
>Edith Terry: Michael Kovrig is a friend, and I am very conscious of the privations he has endured. And while his background is complex and possibly included intelligence gathering for the Canadian government during his diplomatic career, he was very open about his research interests and contacts. [1]
The other Michael ran NKorean pertaining NGO out of PRC. Connect the dots.
[0] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441571942721593345
[1] https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china
Like it's not hard to stay out of severe trouble in PRC as a foreigner. Don't traffic drugs, don't spy i.e. don't take pictures of military. Almost all the other small shit you get to drink tea with cops and sign some paperwork which is basically kid glove treament. The only real exception is journalism, hence most foreign media has left the country.
That has not been what I have observed with people I am friends with, nor the experience of other people I have worked with who go to China regularly.
You call them useful idiots, but then call them spies. Which are they? Unknowingly assisting intelligence agencies or illegal spies?
Where is the evidence, the PRC refused to provide any... and I'm sorry, but CSIS celebrating the release of a Canadian citizen isn't evidence they are a spy. Look at their feed, it's full of Canada related stuff all the time.
I'm referring to people who believes western narrative that Michael's weren't spies as "useful idiots" for believing the innocent Michaels propaganda. Spavor was accused collecting info on PRC military on behalf of Korvig who used NGO as cover for intelligence work. That's about normal level of disclosure for national security, comparable to what US intelligence discloses on source and methods whenever they announce capture of PRC national taking photos of US defense installations. So yes, given all the context, CSIS celebrating their release + their NGO background + literal associate/friend admitting they had intelligence background + their subject matter interests all point to them being spies. It takes surpreme cognitive dissonance to assert otherwise in order to support the even less tenuous assertion that PRC security apparatus is so incompetent they have to hostage "innocent" westerners.
I also done incident response for a number of companies targeted by Chinese state sponsored actors going after industrial and financial IP.
You keep calling them spies, but in both cases it's not as clear as you make it out to be and there is no evidence they were spying. The US provides quite a bit of information when they charge someone with espionage. Kicking someone out of your country for taking photos of sensitive sites (US) and keeping quiet about sources/methods is different than arresting someone while refusing to show evidence of their crime(PRC).
You act like someone with a regional interest will always be a spy if they have done intelligence work... there are tens of thousands of people who work for intelligence agencies in Canada and many more former employees.
I'm not even denying they might have been spying or providing trip reports afterwards, but without evidence I have a choice between believing the Canadian government or the Chinese government... I'll choose to believe the Canadian government.
The US also doesn't show evidence for PRC nationals prosecuted for photographing sensitive infra. They're not releasing said photos, only allegations/prosecutions because of course not. And per script PRC MFA will deny and claim they're just tourists with bad english who can't read signage. That's how the game is played. Choosing to not believe PRC is assuming the default position that western spies aren't operating or if they are, are never caught which we already know not to be true per CIA debacle. At the end of the day damning quack like a duck associations are as good as these scenarios will permit. And in Michaels case, involve literal people with acknowledged intelligence backgrounds. which is close to smoking gun threshold. Obviously we'll disagree but I choose to believe a surveillance state with a proven record of counterintelligence is good at surveilling.
That's provably false.
> And in Michaels case, involve literal people with acknowledged intelligence backgrounds. which is close to smoking gun threshold.
Smoking gun in what way? When you look at the geopolitical issues at the time, it's obvious they were arrested with the intent to put leverage on Canada, whether they are spies or not is irrelevant. In fact them not being spies, but related to connected people is actually even better.
Please prove it. You'll find is some redacted district court documents which is as credible as PRC MFA statement with respect to counter intelligence shenanigans.
> In fact them not being spies, but related to connected people is actually even better.
Except it's manifestly not, especially if you look at geopolitcal messaging at the time. PRC's retaliation over Meng was specifically calibrated to message business community was NOT targetted. Apart from Michaels ther was the Canadian drug trafficker with proven traffic activy in Canada. And when media was frenzing over some passengers (I think teacher) having issues transitting via PRC airport, there was rapid messaging from PRC end to assure it was procedural and not part of the Meng drama. PRC messaging could not have been clearer. The Michaels being spies mattered precisely because the point of PRC retaliation was to segregate from commercial activities. This was during time when PRC was fighting hard against decouple efforts from US.
Smoking gun in sense that if an ex MSS member got arrested in US, was returned to PRC during exchange, followed by MSS publically celebrating their return and their associate saying they used to conduct intelligence activities, the parsimonious answer is US security apparatus caught a PRC spy. If that's not enough damning context then there's nothing else to say.
Your chance of being used as a pawn is slim. Even less if you aren’t of Chinese ancestry, just don’t take any pictures of navy boats while you are there. Even if they are really just out in the open for everyone to see, the PLAN is really paranoid about that.
Also, none of the services you used to plan your trip online will work in China. Had a friend come to Beijing and absolutely had a BSD when they found their plans they made in google docs were inaccessible.
When I worked at a huge company, I found that most advisories from state department quite accurately portrayed the risks in country. I would often look at state.gov and then talk to my local security people and they were close enough to be valuable to most travelers.
I believe that probably the most common travel from US->China would be business-related, and I also believe that most of those travelers really don't feel like they have a choice where they travel to, since that's where the factories are and that's where the electronics come from. For now.
There were many, many reasons factories moved away from the US, one of which was the profit margins on goods, which actually is complex and directly influenced by the way taxes/accounting/finances are done in corporate America.
Don't get me wrong, greed has been a major, if not the major motivator, but there were so many people either asleep at the wheel, or actively driving us towards the outcome we have today.
I would say the number one thing people do is they don't allocate overhead or things like shipping/logistics/lead times into the total costs.
Like for example, if it takes 3 months to have a product, you should store more inventory than if you were doing it in the US. You also shouldn't just look at just the raw unit price, you factor in shipping, quality assurance checks, inefficiency of engineering changes, etc. which many people don't actually do.
I'd quit my job rather than go on a business trip to China. No amount of money is enough to put my life at such high risk.
If you want or require mass production of electronics or motors, it's fairly difficult to have done in the US for competitive pricing (or in some cases, at all).