
China pressured London police to arrest Tiananmen protester, says watchdog - danskeren
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/30/political-pressure-before-arrest-of-chinese-dissident-london
======
chvid
There was a parallel story in Denmark where the Danish police prevented free
Tibet demonstrators demonstrating during the visit of the Chinese president in
2012. It led to an official inquiry but the trail ended blind where the
leading police officers giving orders to detain the demonstrators could not
remember where their instructions came from and the electronic paper trail had
been deleted.

To me the Danish story was less a story about Chinese influence and more about
our democracy's separation of powers or lack thereof. How our most powerful
politicians and their minions basically can have our police do anything even
if it is obviously wrong.

~~~
Tinfoilhat666
I've read similar stories about lost police documents. A public blockchain
could be useful to prevent that.

~~~
chvid
The issue was not the internal communication within the police. For that there
was a complete paper trail. But the top police officers got their instructions
from somewhere; probably high ranking civil servants, spin doctors or maybe
even politicians in the then government. Those communications were gone.

~~~
pjc50
Really for cases like this the only way through is the Nuremberg one: "only
following orders" is not a defence, especially if you can't or won't say who
gave the order.

------
a012
> Police watchdog investigators then found evidence that the Met’s treatment
> of Shao, one of the last protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was
> influenced by pressure from Beijing to ensure Xi was not “embarrassed” by
> protests during his visit.

I'd say no countries dare to not please China. Blatantly attacks the people
who risk their lives to say.

~~~
jammygit
Canada upset China recently and China reacted by arresting some of our people
for espionage and executing a suspected Canadian drug dealer. I imagine our
next election will have some cyber attacks against the liberals but we’ll see

~~~
T-A
> executing a suspected Canadian drug dealer

I don't think he's been executed yet?

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/08/asia-
pacific/ca...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/08/asia-
pacific/canadian-drug-smuggler-robert-lloyd-schellenberg-appeal-death-
sentence-china/)

------
godelski
Coming from a free speech country I'm kinda curious about this. In the UK can
they arrest you for peacefully protesting? I'm looking at the law the paper
cites that he was arrested under[0][1].

1) I'm _ASTOUNDED_ that "insulting" was in there from 1986-2014. 2) This is
extremely vague and seems like it could be used to arrest any protestor.

> (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is
> threatening [or abusive],

> within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment,
> alarm or distress thereby.

Seriously? Causing people distress is a crime? Distress with words? We're not
allowed to make direct threats of violence either, but this seems like a
substantially lower bar.

So from [1] the lawyer has to argue that the conduct was reasonable? This is
extremely subjective too.

This just seems weird to me, coming from a country where freedom of speech is
so highly regarded (and here it has been a little controversial lately). It
just feels undemocratic to me.

I understand my neighbors across the pond may not feel that way and I'd be
curious about their thoughts. Is this just an abuse of that law? Does that law
also feel undemocratic? Other more nuanced position?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_198...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_1986)

[1]
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/5](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/5)

~~~
deogeo
> I understand my neighbors across the pond may not feel that way and I'd be
> curious about their thoughts. Is this just an abuse of that law? Does that
> law also feel undemocratic? Other more nuanced position?

I'm from Europe, though not from the UK. That law feels abhorrent.

You'll often hear the claim that "other countries have a more nuanced view of
free speech". It's certainly true free speech protections are weaker
elsewhere, but using that to imply all the citizens agree with that is
extremely misleading. Plenty of us subscribe to a more 1st Amendment style
view on free speech.

~~~
Mirioron
I think article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights is much more
like the first amendment that what the UK has. How they can have the laws they
do while still pretending to follow them makes me wonder though.

> _Article 19._

> _Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
> includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive
> and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
> frontiers._

------
quotz
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...
for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

The more the West is condemning China without any results, the more we
normalise this kind of behaviour, which in turn makes Westerners tolerate
unfreedom.

------
devoply
Someone in the Home Office needs to be kicked out... rather than this false
narrative of China strong arming the UK, to create manufactured consent
against China. Someone in the Home Office bent over backwards to appease
autocracy.

~~~
gpm
> Someone in the Home Office bent over backwards to appease autocracy.

That sounds like a different spin on the exact same narrative to me. Which
would appear to contradict your claim about this being a false narrative.

~~~
devoply
The difference is China made me do it vs. I chose to do it.

------
allemagne
If liberalism, democratic values, multilaterialism, cultural open-mindedness,
and compromise aren't at the very forefront of the foreign policy of Western
countries, then this is what they will have to look forward to in the next
century and beyond.

This is why projects like the EU, NATO, & NAFTA that require compromise for
the sake of mutually beneficial cooperation should be supported. This is why
continuing any policy of exploitation in the developing world is unacceptable.
This is why countries must be actively engaged in the rest of the world,
instead of selfishly retreating inwards. This is why making sacrifices in good
faith, with no expectation that rivals will reciprocate, is necessary.

Otherwise, these previously powerful countries will quickly discover that when
the shoe is on the other foot, there's no reason to believe that China,
Russia, or even India will treat them any better than Westerners treated those
at their mercy during their own centuries of supremacy.

~~~
cjfd
There is a bit of a problem considering that the organizations that you name
are also in blatant violoation of the principles that you name. As the EU is
growing, it has incorporated countries with not very strong liberal values, so
liberalism may not have a majority in the decision making process. Also, the
EU is a very non-democratic organization. The executive power of the countries
ends up in the lawgiver seat when they go visit Brussels and the power of the
European parliament pales in comparison to that. Also, it is very convenient
for the large companies that they mostly can just lobby in Brussels instead of
in every indivudal country. What the people want is in the mean time an
unasked question.

Also, these trade agreements tend to come with 'intellectual property'
agreements which is the government handing out monopolies to the large
companies. Also, when trade is governed by treaties of 10000 pages length this
is quite the opposite of free trade.

~~~
krageon
> Also, the EU is a very non-democratic organization.

Can you more concisely (or just differently) elaborate on why you think this
is the case? I'm not sure I got it from what you said.

~~~
cjfd
The essential characteristics of democracy are that the three powers
(executive, law giving, judicial) are separated and that at least the law
giving power is in the hands of the people, perhaps by representation and
perhaps directly. If these conditions are not being met bad things can easily
happen. E.g., if the executive branch is also writing laws it is way too easy
to get laws that are handy for the executives but not very fair to the public.
In democracies these separations tend not to be perfect but at least an
attempt is made to put sufficient separation in place. E.g., if one appoints
judges for life the incentive of the judicial power to appease the executive
branch becomes much smaller.

The EU is both undermining the separation of powers in its member states and
also is in itself weak as a democracy. The council of ministers is the
executive branch in the member countries but in Europe they write law. As such
this would not be that bad if the parliament could change this law. It looks
like they can but after parliament is done the law goes back to the council of
ministers that has the option to undo what parliament has done. After that it
returns to parliament again but now parliament has to reach a 2/3 majority to
do something about it. 2/3 is quite hard to get so this procedure severely
limits the power of the parliament.

~~~
krageon
Now that I understand what you see as the problem I don't really see what the
alternative is. From your wording I'm going to assume you think the US is a
strong democracy, but from the perspective of a lot of other (well-off) places
in the world it's not a very good place to live. Regardless of how strong the
democracy is by your definition.

If it doesn't yield a better life for it's citizens, what is the merit of the
system you are espousing?

~~~
cjfd
Both the US and most other western countries have a reasonably good separation
of powers. Also, the US and other western countries both are clearly the most
attractive places to live in the world. And democracy is a large part in this.

However, in both cases there are worrisome trends. It is as if they got it
organized reasonably well and then stopped improving and started backsliding.
There are many things that the western democracies could do better.

To name one, the huge and ever-expanding regulatory state is severely harming
democracy in both Europe and the US. This tends to be seen as a talking-point
of what is called the 'right' (but, indeed, mostly a talking-point, as opposed
to an action point) and as such does not need more elaboration but it could be
a talking-point (but often is not) for what is called the 'left' as well by
noticing that much lobbying is involved in creating regulation and that the
outcome is therefore not going to be in the citizens interest. Regulation is
where the executive branch is sitting in the chair of the legislative branch
and because of this the citizens have little influence.

To name another point, western countries have been far too friendly with
countries that have a very bad human rights situation. I think that taxes on
import should be proportional to the amount of human rights violations and
other failures in democracy that a country has. That way every improvement
that a country makes regarding to human rights immediately leads to a
financial gain. The US being so very friendly to Saudi Arabia is just
terrible. I think this is a thing that if you keep it up for a few decades it
would enormously improve the lives of people all over the world. Note that
this is also something that takes away discretionary and rather arbitrary
power from the executive branch by basing the policy in a very simple and
objective law instead. I think one could gain votes by campaigning for this.
And this is what law should be. Simple rules that feel like they are
discovered rather than invented as opposed to rules so convoluted that only
the executive branch has the means to write them.

You talk about the difference between the US and other western countries. Many
things could be said about this but one thing that seems to be on most peoples
mind in regard to this is that the US has less social security and some
European countries have quite a bit more. Well, I think that is mostly an
orthogonal issue to the point of democracy. The respective peoples of
respective countries can choose for themselves the amount of social security
that they consider to be correct. Let me say that from a democratic point of
view it is much more acceptable to 'bail out' citizens that get into trouble
than to 'bail out' banks that get into trouble. The latter being a prime
example of where lobbying has led to a situation that is in the interest of
the sector being regulated and not at all in the interest of the citizens.

------
mLuby
{China,USA} pressured London police to arrest political enemy, says watchdog

The first time you compromise your principles is hard. Extraordinary
circumstances, a special request in a special relationship, etc. The second
time is easier…

