
Why Did China’s Biggest Movie Star, and the Interpol Chief, Vanish? - dsr12
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-did-chinas-biggest-movie-star-and-the-interpol-chief-vanish
======
latchkey
friedcat is another interesting Chinese disappearance. He was the first person
who brought bitcoin (sha256) mining ASICs to the world and did a huge amount
of clever optimization [0]. There is a lot more to the story, just google for
him, it is an interesting read.

[0]
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3030169.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3030169.0)

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jblazevic
They went for a short visit to Room 101, Ministry of love

------
Svoka
I want a news site which would put news in short and non-story manner. Like
seriously, all substance of this article can be fit in one paragraph. That's
it. So much water to dilute the contents :(

~~~
fouc
I agree, I think a "data" only news source would be highly useful. Especially
one that ties pieces of data together so that it's possible to view timelines
and development along different vectors.

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singularity2001
Fundamentally for the same reasons why journalists, Saudis and Röhm[0]
vanished?

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

~~~
qbaqbaqba
But Goering and Himmler are dead.

------
auganov
This is a very important part to understanding how the People's Republic of
China is indeed as communist as ever. Many look at all the rich people and
"private" companies making billions and quickly assume it's a communist
country in name only.

But "your" money, "your" property is only as good as your allegiance to the
party. The state is letting you "have" it, but ultimately it's theirs. It's
only yours if you manage to smuggle it out to the US.

~~~
ttflee
It’s definitely not communist but the Gongsun Wei Yang’s legalism. Each and
every great empire in the history of China took his way of ruling.

------
aerodog
Where are Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker when they're actually needed...

~~~
atticmanatee
About that:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/518211...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5182114/Jackie-
Chan-says-Chinese-people-need-to-be-controlled.html)

~~~
hnzix
Jackie Chan has been a CCP sockpuppet for a long time now. Then again his
alternative might have been "vanishing for tax evasion".

------
diminish
In the west the common way to suppress dissidents is more civil like legal
extortion ) Aaron Schwartz in US). Rarely there's murder except few cases like
Germany's removal of Mölleman in 2000s. Developing world is still learning at
their own pace like Saudi's butchering of WP journalist during consular
services or China's..

~~~
Zeratoss
Möllemann seems like a clear cut suicide to me. He was finished anyway, why
kill him? why do you believe he was murdered?

------
iliketosleep
That was a well written article which accurately covered what's going on. But
after reading it, I felt admiration for the bravery of the journalist and
immediate concern for her safety. She is of Chinese ethnicity and will be
deemed to be a traitor to China as far as the Party is concerned - a very
serious offence. There is absolutely no doubt she will be targeted in one way
or another, and if she has family in China the Party will use them to get to
her. This is not an exaggeration, and shows how bad the situation really is.

~~~
jhanschoo
It isn't improbable that the author and her immediate family is in the US, and
that the Party will have limited reach on the author.

~~~
iliketosleep
According to her online bio, she moved to the US when she was 8. That means
her immediate family are probably in the US, but she'd have extended family in
China.

~~~
ttflee
Extended family does not seem to matter. The brother of one of the top leaders
of the party (Yu Zhengsheng) has defected to the US long before Yu being
elected into PBSC (Politburo Standing Committee), the board of directors for
China inc.

~~~
fjsolwmv
Indeed. For all of modern Communist China's problems, taking revenge on family
members isn't known to be one of them. They focus on a individual's own
loyalty to the state and whoever holds power. As is to be expected, as part of
the point of Communism is to destroy the family unit and replace it with the
state. This is different from, for example, Japan, where their are explicit
laws mandating familial responsibility for (adult, not only juvenile)
relatives.

~~~
yourbandsucks
Wow, you started great there and then went off the rails. Why does everybody
bring grade-school lessons about Russian communism to the current Chinese
situation? The cultural revolution ended a long time ago and they're not proud
of it.

Chinese society is extremely family-oriented. Xi Jinping has been much more
aggressive with government power than his immediate predecessors, but his
biggest themes are conservative and traditional. Lots of taoism and confucius.

I'd posit that their government doesn't go after (han chinese) families
because it turns one dissident into 50.

------
vertline3
I once read a story in the Art of War, but also maybe had some words by his
grandson not just Sun Tzu, I was maybe 12 so it is foggy, but the story was
discussing different kingdoms, one had a wealthy government with small fields
and government soldiers on all the corners, the other country had a poorer
government with large fields and few soldiers, the question was which country
will last the longest. Anyway the story said the second country because the
farmers would be willing to fight to defend it, where in the first country
there would be less motivation.

~~~
tEMporality7
In reality, the soldiers would win because not only would they be well
equipped, they would also be better at fighting.

~~~
forapurpose
Remember that the capability ratio between soldiers and civilians was much
less before the rise of modern nation-states and technology. (The following is
generalizing a very wide swath of places and times, and based on some things
I've read; perhaps others know more:)

Before modern nation-states, there weren't national armies so much as forces
'raised' by the aristocracy of civilians pressed into service, barely equipped
or trained or even fed, and led by aristocrats who often had similar training
(but better equipment). IIRC, Napoleon was the innovator of the modern nation-
state military that you would recognize, in the late 18th century.

In technology, the difference was civilians with heavy or sharp pointy things
(maybe knives, maybe pitchforks or homemade spears) and poorly trained
soldiers with spears; a mass of civilians had a chance. Today the difference
is between civilians with handheld firearms and trained soldiers with tanks,
missiles, artillery, attack helicopters and jet fighters. Even for the heavily
armed civilian population of the U.S., your fate relies on whether the
soldiers are willing to massacre you.

~~~
tormeh
>IIRC, Napoleon was the innovator of the modern nation-state military that you
would recognize, in the late 18th century.

Side note: The ottomans had standing, professional soldiers before that. The
janissaries also served as police or firemen on occasion, but they lived in
barracks.

------
artellectual
This is the stereotypical story of someone who makes it in an Asian country.
When their power and influence are about to wield them more influence than the
existing power, the powers that be step in, do all kinds of blackmailing, to
coerce them into submission. Nothing new here if you are familiar with Asian
culture. “Respect your elders” we’re constantly taught.

If she did indeed evade tax why was there no trial? Why did she have to
‘vanish’? I smell blackmail from a mile away.

~~~
browsercoin
I have a problem with your comment attempting to use a stereotype of a
communist country to "Asian". First, what part of Asia, its literally 60% of
the earth, its fucking huge. I mean, are you talking about Bangladesh or
Indonesia? In the UK, Asians are dark-skinned folks, not the East/South Asian
that American/Canadians are referring to.

The other issue here is misusing a neo-confucian value as a basis of China's
corrupt system.

Again, attempting to conflate a single country's generalizations to a an
erroneous and inappropriate label accepted by North American society.

You should've just used Oriental country.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
"You should've just used Oriental country."

Among North Americans and perhaps native English speakers elsewhere, the term
"Oriental" has been increasingly taboo and claimed to be offensive for decades
now. I am not sure whether this is entirely down to Said’s _Orientalism_ , or
if opponents of the term have other grounds, but often saying “oriental” gets
you a scolding these days and an encouragement to say “Asian” instead.

~~~
lordnacho
In the UK, "Asian" means people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri
Lanka.

In the US it seems to mean Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and a few others.

As for "Oriental" it's not universal that it's offensive. It's not used much
in Britain, due to there not being a lot fewer Far Eastern people than
Indians.

------
DanielBMarkham
I have been following this along with a couple of related stories. I am trying
not to go into rant mode, but there is a disturbing trend of late that folks
should note.

States have always hidden, tortured, and killed their citizens. Good states do
it very, very rarely, in secret, and as an extraordinary exception to normal
rule. Bad states do it whenever they like and in response to any discomfort at
all. I think it was Saddam (or Stalin?) that said something like "You have a
man. You have a problem. No more man. No more problem."

When the U.S. started droning its own citizens a decade ago, we libertarians
said that this was a very bad, no good, horrible idea. You can't treat your
own citizens this way.

Looking back, that statement was too idealistic. What happened next was a
discussion about ticking bombs, people planning to use WMD, and so on. Nothing
much happened. The droning continued.

Next the Russians decided to use nerve gas in London (!) to kill somebody they
didn't like. This past week, the Saudis decided to lure somebody into their
Turkish embassy where it looks like he was tortured, killed, and chopped up
into little pieces. Now we have the president of Interpol vanishing. One hopes
the Chinese are at least polite enough about it not to be so braggadocious.

What we're learning from this sorry series of events is that _if a leading
nation does it systematically and publicly, the rest will too._ There are no
special "The U.S. gets to do it but nobody else can" cards to hand out.

It is quite disturbing. I expect the trend to continue.

~~~
scoggs
It's scary as shit. It seems to be sending a message of, "Your government not
only can't protect you, they won't.", when journalists, politicians, key
figures in ongoing trials, and famous people are being rounded up and/or
offed. Lots of respect for anyone still willing to speak out but I fear for
them and wish them all the best and hope they are able to get their truths
out.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Yeah. It's like we've lost our grip on common sense.

When the U.S. courts decided, back in the Bush days, that the U.S.
Constitution applied not just to its own citizens, but to everybody we
interacted with? Nobody thought through the consequences. If it applies to
everybody, it applies to nobody. That is, whatever rules you can make about
killing non-combatants in a foreign land, you can make about your own folks
right here at home.

And that is where we're headed.

It's like we're having to re-learn the rules of nation-states again: why they
exist, why they have embassies, why they're polite to one another even when
they do bad things, why they keep certain things secret, and so on. In the
constitution issue, it's the rules of the way the country operates, as
understood by its citizens, that make them give a crap about it. (Not the
rules as applied. The rules as understood by the common person.) You start
publicly saying that it's a sucky deal? Soon enough people will believe you.
In the U.S. domestic arena, if you treat all of your citizens as if they all
might be violent at any time and deserve close watching? They'll live up to
that expectation.

I don't like any of it, any violence at all. I understand it exists whether I
like it or not, and I understand that international politics is a messy
affair. But there are supposed to be some grown-ups involved that keep it all
heading in a good direction. Those people have left the room. Decades ago.
(Note: my comment was about trends, not current politicians. I don't argue
about current politicians and try not to mention any of them if I can. Trends
are much more important.)

~~~
yesenadam
_That is, whatever rules you can make about killing non-combatants in a
foreign land, you can make about your own folks right here at home. And that
is where we 're headed._

So the thought that the USA may soon treat its own citizens the way it's
treated the citizens of the world in the last 130 years whenever it's wanted
to - e.g. invasion, mass slaughter, carpet bombing, coups etc (assassination
hardly rates a place in that list) - is terrifying to you. Fair enough, I
guess. But why (I get the feeling from your tone) has it been perfectly OK
that the US treat the rest of the world like that?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Apologies. I should have been more clear.

I don't like any of it. But the interplay back and forth of nations doing
horrible things like this to the other citizens is what has created all of
these international norms in the first place. We don't want the Iranians
grabbing people off the streets of DC and killing them in their embassy. We
shouldn't do it to other countries.

I agree with you. Once we started doing it, then it's okay for everybody and
there's no clear delimiter of what's okay and what's not.

It's not okay. This is the reason we're supposed to declare war before we use
force overseas. You can't continue to do this semi-war thing for very long.

My only point was that in reality things aren't perfect. That's fine. If the
Soviets kidnapped some person from Nevada and tortured and killed them in 1960
it was a horrible thing. But the international order continued. It continued
because we had established norms. Countries knew that if they had to do things
like this, it should be hidden.

What happened after 9-11 is that we've systematize a lot of things that should
be done by exception-only. And now we gotta go back and re-learn why all of
those norms were there in the first place.

~~~
scoggs
I think, without saying that things were "fine" or "tolerable" prior to this,
that the feeling is akin to "I can't believe things have become so blatant,
obvious, and delivered / met with this total lack of caring."

It's astonishing that things don't even seem to be thought out. It's almost
like "We need to get rid of X person and we'll worry about the fallout / cover
up after the fact. First we need to find out how much evidence we left behind,
how guilty we look, and what our options are before we admit to anything and
start playing defense."

Something along those lines, at least.

------
_cs2017_
I'm puzzled by comments that describe this as a well written article. There
are no new facts here; nor are there even any guesses as to what actually
caused these detentions. There is no amazing investigative work, no deep
unexpected insights.

What exactly does this article say to stand above the news media noise? I
guess it does provide some simple analysis of the general situation in China,
but even here it doesn't deviate from the well known story about how Xi
Jinping is moving China back towards heavy handed government control.

~~~
yesenadam
If you can do better, please do. Or teach us something instead of just
complaining that other people liked it. Comments like this add absolutely
nothing to HN; it was a total waste of time reading it.

~~~
mayankkaizen
So basically I shouldn't judge or comment on something because I can't do that
thing? I mean I can't appreciate/criticize art/poetry because I can't paint or
write poetry?

~~~
fjsolwmv
You can do whatever you want. But it's not interesting. People aren't coming
here for hot take tips on how journalism is bad.

------
nkurz
_After expressing “deep shame and sorrow,” she admitted to years of
underreporting her earnings, through the practice of “yin and yang” contracts,
in which a smaller contract is disclosed but a larger one is paid to the star.
She was ordered to pay a hundred and thirty million dollars in back taxes and
penalties. Her actions amounted not only to a personal misstep, she wrote, but
to a betrayal of China._

I find myself agreeing with the confession: if you illegally evade $100
million of taxes by lying about the amount you are paid, you are betraying
your country. While the Chinese approach to prosecution seems open to abuse,
the outcome here seems actually seems reasonable: the actress pays substantial
penalties but goes on being an actress, tax evasion is not condoned, and rule
of law is upheld.

By contrast, the outcomes of the US system often seem perverse:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-
trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html). This is an in-depth NYT article showing
how the current president seems to have used similar illegal maneuvers to
avoid paying many millions of inheritance taxes. The outcome seems to be that
if you have enough money, you win, and the ordinary taxpayer loses.

~~~
skrebbel
> the outcome here seems actually seems reasonable

But wait, wasn't _disappearance_ the outcome?

~~~
nkurz
No, as far as I can tell the outcome is that she is back in public and will
continue making many millions of dollars a year as an actress. But I'd guess
that she (and all other high flying Chinese actors/actresses) are going to be
particularly scrupulous about their upcoming tax returns, and are much less
likely to flagrantly misreport their earnings than they did in the past. I
realize that it's close to praising the fascists for making the trains run on
time, but I do find this to be a good outcome, even if the process is scary
and subject to future misuse. It's hard for me to read the linked article
about American tax evasion/avoidance and feel that our system is truly better.
But perhaps there's somewhere else that does it even better than both?

~~~
DeonPenny
No but she still got snatched by the Chinese government. You don't see a
problem with that?

~~~
yourbandsucks
Was Wesley Snipes "snatched" by the US government?

OP said that he doesn't like things about their justice process. Did you just
skim over that part of the comment? You want them to come back and say it
again for you?

Due process, if actually executed faithfully (cough), is a method for trying
to ensure justice is reached most of the time. In this case, OP is arguing
that it looks like they got to justice.

~~~
DeonPenny
No Wesley snipes was arrested. She was not arrested. There was no trial or due
process. Did you skip over that part.

~~~
yourbandsucks
I read this yesterday and I read this today and I honestly don't understand
how you could get that from my comment. Or the grandparent comment. I spent
like 80% of my words talking about due process, and you say I was unaware of
the facts in this case?

I'll give you one more try, please put your open-minded hat on:

You're aware how the "due process" justice system works in the US in many
cases, right? Plea bargain for 1 year or they'll throw the book at you for 10.
You've got 15 minutes with an obviously overworked public defender to think
about it. Easy call, you take the year. No trial, no jury, no judge involved.

There's more to justice than a binary "due process or not". It's a big wide
world out there. Injustice can happen with due process, and justice can happen
with no process.

~~~
DeonPenny
Ok well the problem from your statement above is clear. There no better way of
telling you this, but

You don't have any idea what the statement "due process" means or it's
purpose.

It's purposed is to protect your rights as a citizen against a tyrannical
government. It has nothing to do with plea bargains or ultimatums. It's about
always having a choice of a fair and public trial. If you punishment is 10
year thats what you fairly deserve for the crime the plea bargain is supposed
to present a more than fair deal.

The problem here is that that choice as it looks as not given to this actress.
Therefore justice was not served. She was victimized by her country. Justice
is binary these is none with due process. This was not justice.

