
Chinese Cops Now Spying on American Soil - ytNumbers
https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-uighurson-american-soil
======
emodendroket
While this is alarming in the context of ethnic cleansing in Western China,
it's not really remarkable that foreign intelligence is operating in the US;
what country on Earth does not have foreign intelligence agents operating in
it?

~~~
macintux
I don't imagine many foreign regimes have an intelligence operation in the
U.S. dedicated to monitoring their own citizens.

~~~
emodendroket
I think you might be surprised.

~~~
macintux
Russia, I would expect. Cuba, maybe, although that'd be incredibly expensive
given the number of ex-pats here relative to the government's budget. Iran
conceivably. Mayyyybe North Korea, although are there enough to matter?

Who else would bother?

~~~
emodendroket
The United States collects information on every phone call its citizens make
domestically but you find it implausible that they keep tabs on US citizens
abroad? If anything, what's striking here is how hamfistedly the Chinese
government is conducting this program, but I suppose that is because
intimidation is the point.

~~~
macintux
I was specifically and explicitly discussing foreign operations on U.S. soil.
Why are you beating me up for not talking about what the U.S. government is
doing abroad?

~~~
emodendroket
I thought it was reasonable to extrapolate from what the US does. And in some
cases, for instance, the Five Eyes countries often cooperate as a way of
bypassing their own laws, so it's directly related.

Anyway, for a specific US example, Russia alerted the US about the Tsarnaev
brothers. Anecdotally I heard from a South Korean about a visit in Japan from
some official with photos warning him to stop associating with some North
Koreans he'd met. Call me pessimistic but I think this is going on all the
time everywhere.

------
paradite
For those who just read the headline and are thinking about (or even
commenting on) cops being "physically" in the U.S. to spy on people, no, it is
not what's happening. The headline is grossly misleading.

The only news here is relatives calling overseas Chinese (who are Uighurs) to
collect information on their overseas employment, ID and financial information
(presumably instructed by the police).

It is invasion of privacy, of course. But I don't think it is that bad of a
measure to counter religious extremism and radicalism. Similar measures are in
place or planned in U.S. (Muslim registry, surrendering your social media
accounts upon immigration check-in).

The bulk of the article then goes on and on talking about China's influence
and old news about reports within China on human rights and surveillance
(which you have seen a millions times in every news about China).

Honestly I am amused by the fact that Western media need to recount back all
the past events whenever some new information about China emerges. I don't
know, it feels like they are just doing this to please their readers by
reinforcing the negative image of China.

Full disclosure: I am an overseas Chinese who hasn't been contacted by the
police, but then again I am not a Uighur.

~~~
volkisch
> it feels like they are just doing this to please their readers by
> reinforcing the negative image of China.

It's not like China has been doing a good job on removing this negative image
of themselves, aren't they? Granted, not that they should care, they just pay
attention at their own game.

Either yanks or russians pulling strings in MENA to satisfy their geopolitical
ambitions, or the CPC doing the same in Subsaharan Africa, or major cities of
the western world.

It shouldn't really surprise you to see headlines like this.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China doesn’t really care what the rest of the world thinks about it, so they
aren’t thinking of their international image when they do things like this.

Reading the Chinese press makes this even more obvious, and leads to an even
poorer image of China than CNN could ever accomplish. The western media
actually makes China look better in that way.

~~~
emodendroket
I think that's a mistake to say; I'd say rather that their goals of national
unity without domestic challenge override their international image in this
case. It's really no different than Trump's obsession with purging immigrants
overriding the hit to the US' reputation that his policies have caused

~~~
seanmcdirmid
With Trump, however, most Americans _know_ he is hurting our image abroad. In
China, they are almost completely oblivious to global PR.

~~~
emodendroket
What do you base that claim on?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
US western media talks a lot about how trump is damaging our image. Chinese
media never even mentions how Xi or decisions made in China are giving it a
bad reputation.

~~~
emodendroket
Perhaps, but you are assuming, I think unjustifiably, that Chinese people are
unable to use their imaginations or what information they can find online (the
censorship is largely reactive). Also, Chinese papers often will highlight
foreign criticism to rebut it and foreign criticism can sometimes be a
galvanizing force. On a more basic level I have to imagine that when Chinese
people heard Xi Jingping talking about his principle of non-interference in
internal affairs they have some idea that he's rejecting foreign criticism.

Additionally, China is a global power and has to care about its reputation to
the extent it affects its international projects.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It isn’t a bad assumption. Many Chinese have no idea where France is let alone
about what France thinks of them. Even in the cities where people are more
educated, they are dumbfounded when Vietnam riots against them, completely
unaware of the reasons why they might do that. At any rate, China has always
been self centered throughout their 5000 years of history, it’s even in the
name 中国 that literally means center of the world.

Chinese papers are very weird. They attempt to rebut foreign criticism without
even repeating what that criticism is. GlobalTimes does this all the time in
their editorials, it is totally surreal. I’ve had cases where I’m reading
chinadaily and I have to go to a foreign news source to understand what they
are actually railing against; eg the article would be like “the Dalai Lama did
something, it was wrong!” without ever elaborating about what “it” was.

~~~
emodendroket
Many Americans have no idea Puerto Rico is part of the United States or that
we bombed the island when an independence movement broke out; I'm not really
sure you can attribute that to their iron grip on the media. Or educated
people are baffled as to why North Korea would distrust them. Honestly, you
could make a lot of these criticisms of any place.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Sure, but they are mostly aware of the hurricane that happened in Puerto Rico
and the USA was somehow negligent even if they didn’t know PR was actually a
territory.

China has third-world media problems; e.g. how do we get these people not to
show there reverence for Xi so strongly. The USA has first world media
problems (Trump says CNN is fake news). The same with education and an
awareness of world affairs. They aren’t equivalent at all, they are on totally
different scales.

------
dsfyu404ed
If these people are so terrible then why are they going out of their way to
annoy the ones who have left the country and may possible help their relatives
leave the country?

Do they think that if they prosecute them enough the West will accept them as
refugees? (I don't see that happening post-Syria or being good for China if it
did.)

~~~
exelius
In Machiavellian power politics (which is how the Communist party operates),
you want to keep all potential usurpers under your control. If any can escape,
they will, and they will come after you. This is China reminding them that
even though they are not in China, they are not free from China’s influence.

And make no mistake, the folks they’re doing this to are essentially the
“nobility” or “landed gentry” of Chinese society. These people have
connections and skills such that they will be fine if China does not want
them, and they would likely be among the political leaders / influencers in
the event of a collapse of single-party rule.

~~~
volkisch
I wonder how many of these people are somehow related to ROC, that would be a
powerful fuel to fire the CPC paranoia.

Even so, I guess that most chinese in exclaves like Vancouver, Montreal,
Eastern Australia, and NZ don't suffer this harassment.

------
eivarv

        "Now..."
    

This has been going on (at least elsewhere) for a while [0] now.

[0]:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8556736.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8556736.stm)

------
chopin
Serves as a sobering reminder why ubiquitous surveillance is bad.

------
JoeAltmaier
Spying is always bad, when its the other guy doing it. Isn't the rule pretty
much, its ok as long as you don't get caught?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
These aren’t really spies though, just some police offers trying to track down
and apprehend people wanted in the PRC, like what happened with the
booksellers in HK and Thailand.

It would be like US cops or FBI going to Beijing to try and abduct someone.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hey that's every other Jackie Chan movie!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Which way? I think the first US one with chris rock was Chinese police coming
to the USA, and the second one was USA police going to China. Unless you mean
super cop, which was...mainland police in HK?

------
macintux
The term Orwellian almost seems an understatement for what China is doing.
Astonishing.

------
stunt
Who is not spying?

