
Where Is Xu Zhiyong? - nice1
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/07/where-is-xu-zhiyong.html
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compay
On a flight I once sat next to a Cuban-American man on his way back from a
business trip to China. He told me about his company's work over there and how
impressed he was with his Chinese counterparts. He had had a great time and
looked forward to returning some day.

So when I asked him if, since he did business in China, he supported lifting
the US embargo against Cuba, he emphatically said "no, that's completely
different." I asked how, but he couldn't come up with a single thing and
became pretty annoyed with me.

Whenever I hear stories of these kinds of abuses in China I can't help but to
think of the utter hipocrisy of the USA's policy towards Cuba.

------
caffeine
To be fair, the same thing used to happen to suspected communists in the U.S.,
not so long ago. We still do it today, to youths in the Middle East. No trial,
no warning - they just vanish, (and if they're lucky, show up in Guantanamo
Bay a year later).

Refusing to admit mistakes, assuming that power is right, paying lip service
to high-sounding ideals while indiscriminately abrogating freedoms - in this,
as in so many other aspects of pride and capitalism, China has learned well
from us.

Of course, they have much work to do in strengthening their social
institution. But to stand aghast and sling mud at the audacious oppressors
across the Pacific - it's a bit rich.

~~~
sielskr
_the same thing used to happen to suspected communists in the U.S._

Name one suspected communist, please, who was detained by an authority in the
U.S, who was denied a public hearing before a magistrate to challenge the
legitimacy of the grounds for the detention or was denied a procedural right
customary under English common law, such as the right to a trial by jury.

~~~
chaostheory
I can't name a Commi but I can name someone from today who was illegally
detained by our country: Mohammed Jawad

I'm sure others can name more people (US citizens too) for whom our country
has forgotten about Habeus Corpus

~~~
strlen
Communists _did not_ disappear inside the United States. They were treated
unfairly (fired from jobs, ostracized) but legally, they had the same rights
to habeas corpus. At the _height_ of McCarthy hearing, ostracism and loss of a
career was the worst that could happen to a communist. However, this is the
same treatment that was accorded (just previously) to the Nazi sympathizers in
the US. In fact, HUAC was created to go after Nazi sympathizers.

Of course communism had the appeal of being a non-racist ideology, so a lot
more innocent (but extreme naive) people got tangled up when HUAC went after
the communists. That being said, they're both totalitarian ideologies: I
wouldn't want either Nazis _or_ Communists holding public office in the United
States, nor do I have any issues with private employers firing either (at
least in employment-at-will states).

At that time China was going through Great Leap Forward (mass artificial
starvation, with millions dying) and (in the 60s/70s, after HUAC has died
down) cultural revolution. Again, a very blood period.

As for illegal detention, I am pretty squarely against it: either these people
should be held as POWs or be tried as criminal defendants. Yet illegal
detention that happens on the battlefield is _much different_ from illegal
detention of a political activist working _within the system_. If you want to
compare apples to apples, I'd look at China's treatment of US prisoners during
the Korean war or their treatment of their own Islamic extremists in Xianjing
province (yes-- there are _real_ Islamic extremists targeting civilians in
China and no, they're not "freedom fighters").

That being said, it's a silly comparison to do irrespective: provided US _was_
as flagrant about human rights as China, that doesn't justify China treating
their citizens in the same fashion. Nor does China treating their citizens
horribly justify human rights violations by the US. The original article _did
not_ claim anything along those lines. Arguing that "two wrongs make a right"
is logically fallacious and morally bankrupt.

~~~
jacquesm
> Yet illegal detention that happens on the battlefield is much different from
> illegal detention of a political activist working within the system.

That's only a matter of degree if you declare the battlefield to be whatever
suits you.

~~~
strlen
Perhaps "outside of your civil jurisdiction, involving people who aren't your
country's citizens" is a better way to put it (the only, so far, exception to
this seems to be Jose Padilla-- yet even then he didn't "disappear"). However,
that's odd for me to have this sort of argument, I am against extra-judicial
detention. Either someone is a PoW (if they're a member of an army that
follows the rules of war) or they're a criminal.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Just a note: you don't need to be a member of an army to get POW protections.
All you need to do is fight openly and wear a distinctive uniform.

(Admittedly, most terrorists don't meet this criteria, and are therefore
spies/saboteurs with none of the rights of POWs.)

~~~
jacquesm
Makes you wonder how they recognize those terrorists on sight doesn't it ?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Typically when they start shooting at you from a crowd of civilians.

------
thunk
I honestly believe there's a massive social revolution sitting squarely
between China's present and its much touted Glorious Future. They have some
painful lessons to learn about the explosive force of information confined.
Careful now, China: the whole world's watching.

~~~
idlewords
History, especially recent Chinese history, suggests that the world is willing
to watch pretty much anything without lifting a finger.

As for massive social revolution, what do you think is happening in China
right now? The better part of a billion people are moving out of rural poverty
and into the cities in about as big a social revolution as there has ever
been.

~~~
thunk
I was thinking of revolution of a less pleasant sort, for which the urban
immigration is a necessary prerequisite. There's a Tank Man streak in the
Chinese psyche, which, when multiplied by a few hundred million of the
recently enfranchised, well ...

As for lifting fingers (Man the Mice! Man the Keys!), our intense scrutiny may
be all that's required to catalyze the reaction.

~~~
litewulf
This Tank Man streak in the Chinese psyche you speak of doesn't seem to have
come up much since well... Tank Man.

Most of the "strife" in China nowadays is ethnic I think.

(Disclaimer time: I'm Taiwanese, not Chinese. My view of China is a bit
skewed.)

~~~
tel
I spent a lot of time talking with people in the Haidian District in Beijing.
This area is contains the two most prominent (and many, many lesser)
universities in China so it's interesting to see the general opinion of people
around there.

The unfortunate part is that it's a whole lot of apathy. I'm sure it's not
easy, even for a foreigner, to find the heart of some people willing to speak
or move against the Chinese government, but so many who I ran in to were
casually trying to remain in their own world disjoint from the government.
They feel a little rebellious just to support the stores that sell ironic Mao
Zeodong merchandise and love to mildly mention that the government is really
not that great here. That's about the depth of what I actively observed.

I'll disclaim that I didnt' spend much time talking to those in what would
have been the most charged fields (politics or philosophy, perhaps), but the
general apathy was sort of disheartening.

It's not all negative though. The educated Chinese are largely embracing the
internet and desire to involve themselves more. For many, they give you a
surprised look when you ask them about bypassing the firewall: _you mean you
don't have access to a proxy? Really? I thought everyone did_. If this is the
face of the new Tank Man, it's definitely going to be a different ride, but
the transformative power of an enormous information pipeline plugged into the
future leaders of your country still seems pretty portent.

And ethnic strife would need to be the topic of a whole essay. China has
cultural problems there, too.

------
siong1987
In Malaysia, this is even worse. The government actually has the right to
arrest someone "without the need for trial in certain defined circumstances".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_%28Malays...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_%28Malaysia%29)

For example, the recent "Teoh Beng Hock" case happened in Malaysia. This guy
was found death "at the premises of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission
headquarters" after he had been taken there for questioning the same day.

Malaysian police classified his death as "sudden death". Committing suicide?
He supposed to marry his fiancee who has a 3 month-old prenancy on this coming
September. Can you imagine a guy like this would commit suicide?

I am Malaysian myself(currently in US). I usually do not care anything
happening in Malaysia. But, I really think that this incident is just too
suspicious for me to believe in the government anymore.

~~~
antipaganda
Could be worse, mate. Could be Thailand!

