
US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China - everybodyknows
https://m.dw.com/en/us-citizens-warned-they-face-arbitrary-arrest-in-china/a-54144205
======
simonsarris
Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this, especially
exit bans. From the state department in 2018:

> 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...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180112180843/https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-
travel-advisory.html)

~~~
JohnTHaller
> 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.

AKA taking hostages.

~~~
gambiting
I mean, is it really such a rare thing to do? I know that in Poland if you
have any outstanding and overdue unpaid fines/alimonies/traffic tickets, you
will be prevented from boarding a flight out of the country at any airport
until those obligations are paid.

~~~
mthoms
You're missing the point. People are being accused for crimes they (more than
likely) didn't commit and denied basic human rights.

They face a 99% conviction rate in the Chinese courts.

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-
charges-...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-charges-
michael-kovrig-and-michael-spavor-with-spying/)

~~~
koheripbal
What do you think the conviction rates in western courts are? It's pretty
close to 99% as well.

~~~
mthoms
You literally just made that up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate)

~~~
shadowprofile77
No he didn't. The link itself shows both the lower 2018 percentages from the
justice statistics bureau and also mentions the 2012 DOJ 93% rate. No clear
explanation is given for the divergence over those years or how it fits
together overall but he didn't lie about the source.

~~~
mthoms
Re-read the part where they said "western courts".

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.

------
wendyshu
Not just arrested but tortured, as we've seen with the two Canadian Michaels
and the British Simon Cheng.

Edit: British-employed not actually British

~~~
dehrmann
Aren't the Michaels just retaliation for Meng Wanzhou?

~~~
jszymborski
"just" retaliation... this makes their detention arbitrary. After Meng Wanzhou
was arrested (and placed under house arrest in her multi-million dollar
Vancouver mansion), the Chinese government arbitrarily picked two high-value
Canadians (an entrepeneur and a Candian diplomat) and threw them into solitary
confinement, interrogating them 24/7 in shifts, and giving ostensibly no
access to lawyers/representation.

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...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kovrig-
michael-spavor-canadian-detainees-china-explainer/)

[0] [https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-
detained-...](https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-in-
chinese-jails-foreign-affairs)

~~~
mytailorisrich
It's difficult to determine whether it is arbitrary (in the legal sense)
because the Chinese government does not communicate on these issues and the
Canadian government will obviously not want to spill any beans.

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.

~~~
jszymborski
> I'm not defending the Chinese government

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.

------
ciguy
I've been to China a few times, most recently in late 2018. I traveled
overland by train from Beijing to Xian and then to Shanghai. Everything as a
non-chinese citizen was just harder than it was when I visited in 2014. Buying
train tickets was a massive hassle without a Chinese ID. Paying for anything
was difficult because many places no longer take cash and you can't really get
a proper WeChat account as a foreigner.

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.

~~~
rorykoehler
Posted 10 mins ago and already downvoted. Do HN not have algos to stop this
astroturfing behaviour? It’s becoming very prevalent for anything that
criticises the CCP.

~~~
knolax
[removed]

~~~
calibas
These isn't something vague, we're talking about a specific authoritarian
government who's already been caught manipulating social media.

[https://about.fb.com/news/2019/08/removing-cib-
china/](https://about.fb.com/news/2019/08/removing-cib-china/)

~~~
knolax
[removed]

~~~
calibas
We know manipulation is occurring, and to me that's an argument for greater
transparency and openness so we can tell when it's happening. I don't agree
with the "head in the sand" approach where manipulation is glossed over,
ignored or rebranded under terms like "online reputation management".

That being said, the "anyone who disagrees with me is a shill" attitude is
just as poisonous to online discussions as the shilling itself.

------
gentleman11
This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of
spying, all because of political retaliation over that rich lady

~~~
adventured
For Australia as well. They recently gave an Australian citizen a death
penalty sentence in retaliation for the ongoing conflict between Australia and
China.

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.

~~~
Aperocky
> Karm Gilespie, had been sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle 7.5kg
> of methamphetamine through a Chinese airport in December 2013.

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.

~~~
kortilla
So the police can conveniently plant an amount of drugs that fits in their
hands quickly into your pocket and you get the death penalty?

Sounds like a super convenient way to kill off politically inconvenient
people.

~~~
gentleman11
One interesting part is that, when the authorities lose the people’s trust,
people can’t rely on what they say to be accurate and you end up second
guessing everything they say or do. It’s actually an important Chinese
(Confucian/daoist-sometimes) idea to emphasize the importance of legitimacy
and that the working of society is relies on it

------
outlace
I've visited China nearly every year for the past 6 years and never had any
sort of issues. I thought all the security personnel I encountered at the
airport, immigration, subway stations etc in China were very professional and
respectful. In contrast to one of the last times I was returning from China to
the U.S. and witnessed a highly unprofessional U.S. CBP officer who was
yelling and berating incoming international visitors because they couldn't
understand his English, which was infuriating. All this to say that if you
want to visit China recreationally (outside of pandemics), you'll almost
certainly be fine and treated well.

*Edit: I'm just offering my personal experience here for others to consider amongst other sources of information.

~~~
jszymborski
I'm not sure how you can make that assurance.

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...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kovrig-
michael-spavor-canadian-detainees-china-explainer/)

[1] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-
sente...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-sentenced-to-
eight-years-in-jail-by-china-renounces/)

[2] [https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-
detained-...](https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-in-
chinese-jails-foreign-affairs)

------
eplanit
I get the impression that we're now in an undeclared Cold War with China.

~~~
DuskStar
How does a country declare a Cold War, anyways?

~~~
User23
Serious answer: its national media starts saying there is one.

------
magicsmoke
Use this to negotiate hazard pay with your company when traveling to China.
There's money to be made by leveraging the difference between perceived and
actual risk.

~~~
hartator
> There's money to be made by leveraging the difference between perceived and
> actual risk.

You think the risk is not that big?

~~~
computerphage
How big is "not that big"? What do you think it is?

------
fermienrico
Deleting this comment - I will email dang.

~~~
notaround1111
I've also noticed a large influx of new accounts posting low quality,
politically charged comments in the past few months. You can find plenty of
those in this thread.

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

~~~
fermienrico
What's a good alternative architecture that promotes quality content/comments
and prevents regression short of manual compilation, moderation and curation?

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.

~~~
darawk
I think you essentially need something pseudonymous and reputation based.
Something where getting banned has a reasonably high cost in terms of re-
acquiring reputation required to post.

------
knolax
[removed]

~~~
DangitBobby
This is a very uncharitable and pedantic reading of it. If there were a law to
"kill political dissidents of party x" then enforcement of that law would
technically be enforcement of the law, but it would certainly not be for the
purposes of maintaining law and order in the manner that the term is commonly
understood to mean.

~~~
knolax
[removed]

~~~
DangitBobby
Law and Order the euphemism is not the same thing as Law and Order as it's
commonly understood, even if the euphimistic usage appears more often in
modern politics than the common usage. It's unfortunate that euphemisms
dillute meaning (and it's probably unfortunate that they must exist at all),
but that doesn't mean the actual meaning no longer exists.

~~~
knolax
[removed]

------
trixie_
The current administration has been bullying China incessantly. I'm not going
to say if the reasons were justified or not because it's complicated, but we
shouldn't be surprised by China's response. It's not like we're actively
trying to improve relations either.

~~~
wendyshu
China's state-sponsored IP theft has been called the largest transfer of
wealth in history. I'm honestly curious what the best diplomatic strategy is
to combat it, other than declaring war.

~~~
conanbatt
I doubt this claim very much. How was such a calculation made?

~~~
wendyshu
It was in the book "Dawn of the Code War".

