Similar things happened in New Zealand to another writer who was critical of China[0]. The government didn't even want to hear about it. I challenge the Dutch government to do better where it comes to protecting their own citizens.
I was referencing (very implictely) the current seated PM saying that The Netherlands "doesn't have to be the best kid in class", with the EU being the class, and then proceeding by aiming for being the worst.
> China has also been accused of illegally operating secret police stations in Amsterdam
I had to read that a few times because it just sounded nonsensical. What where the repercussions for Chinese govt. for that action? It there weren’t any except strong worded “we seek explanation” requests, the Chinese will just double down on attacks. Bullies see weak responses as an invitation for more bullying.
It unfortunately is not only nonsensical but also true and it is one of the worst violations of Dutch territorial integrity in a very long time. The whole idea that some far away country would subject its citizens here to their laws makes absolutely no sense and has no doubt interfered with many police cases over the years.
What is really mind blowing is that the Chinese society in NL is so closed off from the rest of the country that word of this did not reach the authorities for many years. And what it says to me is that if this could happen in Amsterdam, 300 meters away from a Dutch police station that it likely can happen anywhere in the world and that I would not be surprised at all if more of these turned up if people actively went looking for them.
The dutch ambassador in China sent to the Chinese government a weeechat message: "not cool :/". That should do it.
In all honesty, I don't think the Dutch (or Canadian or else) governments will really care since these are "ethnic Chinese" citizens. It's not their business. The image of dutch sovereignty has only to stand to the eye of its very "own" citizens and even so.
The only world power that is standing to that is the USA. And that's not because they care about these particular persons but because they are currently engaged in a feud with China.
It has been happening anywhere in the world, there have been reports from several countries of this. Including close neighbors of the Netherlands, such as Germany.
No it’s not that. I’m just simply telling you the truth: China has the upper hand in respect to the Dutch. Just like when the Dutch had the upper hand, they did funny stuff in Indonesia. I’m telling you why this is happening, not making moral judgments.
> China has the upper hand in respect to the Dutch.
That's complete nonsense. Yes, China is larger and has many more people. But inside NL the total number of Chinese is tiny and they are subject to Dutch law, not Chinese law. The whole idea that any foreign nation would be operating an active police station on Dutch territory - or the territory of any other country for that matter - is against a lot of basic principles of international law. So I really don't see how 'China has the upper hand' matters, it's not as if China has threatened to invade Europe if we kick out their police stations, which is exactly what I think we should do.
>far away country would subject its citizens here to their laws
...
>word of this did not reach the authorities for many years
The entire PRC "overseas Chinese service stations" are AKTUALLY ILLEGAL POLICE STATIONS VIOLATING TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY/SOVEREIGNTY is new propaganda framing to sell United Front threat. State intelligence in the west has known about United Front activities, from their actual (predominant) legitimate diaspora services to their grayscale tactics to "coerce" Chinese diaspora - some dissidents, most financial criminals - to return to PRC on their own accord for 10+ years. Dissidents have been whining about UF for even longer. Like no one's being illegally renditioned, they're being told of personal and extended consequences in PRC if they don't return and face justice. That kind of conversation is legal statecraft, and TBH a workable arrangement between PRC and the west who has no extradition treaty with (due to politics/optics) while actually shelters a fuckton of PRC criminals who should have the book thrown at them in PRC.
It makes perfect sense that ex/PRC nationals who committed crimes in PRC should be subject to PRC laws. That's why countries have extradition treatises, because it's bad form to shelter criminals across borders and expect smooth diplomatic relations. The funny side effect of PRC capital controls is that virtually every PRC ex-national with a decent amount of assets abroad didn't get it there legally. The West wants PRC diaspora wealth, knows it's misbegotten, and can't survive politics of formal extraditing to PRC, so we have this informal shenanigans.
Then they can make a regular extradition request. That's not what these police stations are used for, they are arms of the CCP into the Chinese communities in other countries, they are used for rendition and intimidation. They are incompatible with our legal system and should not exist.
There doesn't have to be a treaty for you to make a request. You can then (1) see your request honored because in spite of the absence of a treaty there are good enough reasons to extradite or (2) be told to fuck off. A bit more politely than that of course.
Typically whenever there are diplomatic relationships extradition requests can be made and these are honored if there is reciprocity and there is sufficient evidence that the request to be have been made in good faith.
This is assuming PRC hasn't made formal requests - been asking for extradition rights / treaties since mid 2000s (before Xi) to host of western countries where big grafters were fleeing. And been given the cold shoulder. Naive to believe polite or none polite fuck off is end of story to west harbouring PRC criminals consquence free, leading to these grayzone methods. "Typical" is reserved for "like minded" relationships, reality is it is political suicide in west to send even criminals to PRC, hence it won't happen no better how sufficient the evidence and faith.
It is a good lesson for 1 person, or a whole government: when you look around you and the entire world are assholes it is time to look in the mirror and ask, "Am I the asshole?"
If no one will make deals to help your government then maybe you need a new one.
There's no extradition treaty. Nor are there any illegal renditions. If there were then media wouldn't be screeching over nonsense "intimiation" angle, because person of interest would just get nabbed and it actually be a massive sovereignty violation / diplomatic incident. And it's generally completely compatible with western legal systems, that's how they've operated for so long with awareness from western govs / security. United Front agents passing a note that if person doesn't return to PRC to face justice out of their own acccord is just having a "conversation", frequently delivered by other naturalized citizens. The reason there's so much reeeing about this in western reporting is that there's nothing functionally inappropriate about what PRC is doing since it's just words and actual consquences are happening on PRC soil.
It's a bit of a stretch to go from 'intimidiation' to 'extralegal rendition'. Though to be fair there is some evidence that these 'police stations' were used to get people critical of the party to go back 'home' by applying undue pressure. And that's one more reason why they should be shut down.
> there's nothing functionally inappropriate about what PRC is doing
I'm just clarifying your assertion that these stations:
> are used for rendition
There's no extradition agreement between PRC and NE hence rendition could only be extralegal/extraordinary, which these stations are not doing. That's borderline declaration of war territory. I'm not suggesting these stations are not also used to "pressure" / coerce people to return - they explictly are - but my point is in terms of functionally appropriate is there's nothing wrong about informing people about consequences on PRC soil if they don't voluntarily return. I don't see how "free" societies can enforce, in this case dutch nationals (again a lot of these stations are staffed by nationals) telling other dutch nationals about "implications" on PRC soil. That's as tame as it gets in terms of permissible foreign influence.
Even if they have an extradition treaty it only apply to crimes which are actually crimes in both countries. So most political "criminals" couldn't be extradited anyway...
> diaspora wealth, knows it's misbegotten, and can't survive politics of formal extraditing
So prosecute them for any crimes they committed in your country? I mean the Chinese government is thoroughly corrupt so the fact the they want to arrest certain people and not others is not a great indicator on which wealth is "misbegotten"...
> told of personal and extended consequences
Right.. like how much their families will suffer it they won't return. The Soviets were using the same tactic on political dissidents to shut them up,
> capital controls is that virtually every PRC ex-national with a decent amount of assets abroad didn't get it there legally
Safeguarding the capital control laws of the PRC should be something anyone cares about why exactly?
Dissidents no, but in terms of financial crime PRC pressure / focus largely on 10s of millions to billion tier, the obviously misbegotten gains that western court system would look retarded to pretend otherwise. Millions of PRC diasphora in the west, are we going to pretend they're all upstanding. PRC isn't generally wasting time on petty graft, and even then optics of cooperating with PRC is none starter. And when did I say other countries care about safeguarding PRC laws, clearly they don't because they benefit from it, including hosting dissidents who get weaponized for anti-PRC campaigns. Hence PRC resorts to grayzone methods like threatening consequences on PRC soil, which is valid tactic calibrated to not actually cross sovereignty lines in host country. There's likely a reason there's so many "investigations" into these sensational "police stations" while so few have actually been shut down. Meanwhile we don't hear about mass PRC agents being deported because most of the messengers are actually citizens who has right to act as intermediaries to activities that doesn't trip up on foreign agent politics.
> focus largely on 10s of millions to billion tier, the obviously misbegotten gains that western court system would look retarded to pretend otherwise
Well yes, but they are only after the misbegotten gains of the people who currently don't have the favor of the party/Winnie-the-Pooh. So either western countries have to become tools for the Chinese "judicial system" or they have to start investigating these alleged crimes themselves to determine which are legit and which are political motivated (problem is that most are probably both...).
Neither seems like a great option...
Besides this I mostly agree on your take on this whole situation overall though.
>don't have the favor of the party/Winnie-the-Pooh
Operation Foxhunt criminals being harboured in west should get a pass just to stick it to CCP/Xi is pretty much why Guo Wengui happened. Let a known criminal swindle billion+ in US instead of working out deal to hand him to CCP after years of petitioning because... I don't even know. Ultimately extraditing even criminals to PRC too much of political shitshow in west, especially under current environment.
A big portion of diplomacy is signalling what a country is aware of, how it feels about the transgression, and consequences it claims it'll implement if nothing changes.
The intent of grey actions is that they're arguably legal.
And the intent of response to same is to make whoever runs the program reevaluate the costs of doing so and voluntarily close up the operation.
Ergo, the response is calibrated instead of just dropping the hammer immediately every time.
If nothing happens... then eventually you get police raids.
It's not particularly fair to single out the Nerherlands here. These operations seem to be more or less allowed to continue in the US and Canada as well. The dutch don't have nearly the standing that America has.
tjpnz pointed out how poorly the NZ government has done when an academic her was targeting by China.
In another parallel, China has reportedly been operating a police station here too.
Kind of reminds me of Operation Freakout [1]. Every system of government has weak spots that can be exploited by powerful enough adversaries to intimidate and suppress. I suspect that this is only going to get worse as long as authoritarian regimes are allowed to grow unchecked.
Apple is the worst offender here, they really bend over backwards. It is proper to single them out too as they are one of the biggest providers of consumer goods at a high margin. There is absolutely no reason they should be forced to use slave labour in china. That's not to say there are other companies that do the same, but they are not as valuable or provide such a highly visible product.
Imagine the effect if Apple actually took a decent stance here and how it could spread awareness about the conditions there.
Google for instance decided to just pull out of the market, I have a lot of respect for that.
> Google for instance decided to just pull out of the market
Not out of any moral sense. They were pissed off that China kept hacking their data centers.
>In the end, though, it wasn’t censorship or competition that drove Google out of China. It was a far-reaching hacking attack known as Operation Aurora that targeted everything from Google’s intellectual property to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The attack, which Google said came from within China, pushed company leadership over the edge.
They went on to create a censored search engine, named after their founder's mega-yacht, to try to get back into China.
> Google’s internal project to bring censored search back to China, Dragonfly, was kept secret until revealed by The Intercept. Internal dissent, objections from senators and the vice president, and worldwide protests followed.
"Google for instance decided to just pull out of the market, I have a lot of respect for that. "
Seems unlikely to have been a matter of principle rather than practicality; Google only recently moved Pixel phone production away from China, yet the ethical issues have been well known for many years.
Yes, they might not be 100% ethical in this decision, but the fact is that they are not operating in China. It would potentially be a huge market for them.
I have the impression that their advertising and cloud businesses are just not welcome in China, and if that's correct then it's all practicality and no ethics involved.
All the market analyst comments I've read about moving manufacturing of phones focused on cost and supply chain reliability with no mention of ethics either.
If I remember, the reason they were not welcome was that they didn't want to censor stuff and hand everything over to the CCP.
But I see the sibling post, I think the management probably wanted to get in here, but apparently the internal uproar made them cancel it[1]. I have yet to see an uproar from apple employees over using slave labour to make their phones or handing data over to the CCP.
Google are not saints, but I prefer the path they took. Even if it was bumpy.
You don't create a censored Chinese search engine to try to break back into the Chinese market if there is any truth to the notion that management is staying out of China over ethical concerns.
> Google’s Chinese search app would have reportedly complied with demands to remove content that the government ruled sensitive and linked users’ searches to their personal phone numbers.
Of course we are free to do that, and in fact you can easily find such comments on Western forums, whole subreddits full with such drivel and even specialized forums just for that. It's called freedom of speech and is one of the basic rights in liberal democratic societies, as opposed to totalitarian societies (be they communist, fascist or theocratic).
Yes. Read HN for a bit, you'll find plenty of anti-capitalist and anti-NATO statements. The police don't show up for the authors. The posts are often downvoted, though - not because they're anti-sacred-cow, but because they're usually shallow propaganda talking points, with no thought or substance.
Russian militias with Russian military hardware shot down a plane which had 192 Netherlands people on board and there was no response from Netherlands, besides a 8 year long "legal action" which issued arrest warrants.
At minimum they should have sent a squad for the commander who ordered the firing and who is a big social media star today on Russian Telegram.
Yes, I'm sure starting a war was exactly what was needed at the time. The question really is if we had done that - and there were plenty of voices calling for just that - if the Ukraine situation would have improved or gotten worse. You could make pretty strong arguments either way.
There was no need for war to send a message. Taking tailored action against the SAM crew, leadership, associates and families would be sufficient and may have been happening already. Ukraine is orthogonal to the issue.
I am really surprised that the western governments still talk about how the free trade will somehow magically turn the CCP into a democratic government with a serious face.
The reality is that they are extremely afraid that the flow of cheap goods from china to the population will stop I think.
It doesn't necessarily seem as though the Chinese government is behind this.
Look at what actually happened: Somebody called in a bomb threat under her name, and somebody made some fake reservations under that name at a hotel near the location they were "threatening."
...That's the sort of thing a bored teenager on 4Chan or KiwiFarms would do, without even breaking a sweat. There's nothing in the article to suggest that the Chinese government is behind this; their only action was to report the bomb threat as though it was credible. The threat itself probably came from some terminally-online, but patriotic, expat Chinese ne'er-do-well.
Actually you may be right. There are many instances, like SerpentZA's parents being harassed in their home country (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-i-hung-up-on-warre...) or student from Hong Kong being doxxed and harassed in US (https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2019/05/28/frances-hu...) that are obviously done by people sympathizing with CCP but without an obvious direct participation of Chinese government. Although keep in mind that if they are doing this it is a consequence of their government's policy encouraging this behavior.
Needless to say, that type of online community is virtually impossible to shut down. Shutter one site, and another will pop up. China is not at all unique in that regard: Even though it was hit with unusual and really quite severe measures in an effort to take it offline, The Daily Stormer is still going strong.
Any bored teenager with a text-to-speech app and a stolen or prepaid credit card could have pulled off the stunt mentioned in OP.
I just finished The Prince podcast. Pretty good. I learned quite a bit. The later episodes cover how the CCP deals with criticism.
The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping
"Xi Jinping is the most powerful person in the world. At China’s 20th Communist Party congress in October he secured a third term as party chief, and may rule China for the rest of his life.
But the real story of China’s leader remains a mystery. The Economist’s Sue-Lin Wong finds out how he rose to the top in our eight-part podcast series. The Prince is the epic story of Mr Xi’s turbulent past, how he has changed China and how he is trying to change the world."
In the category of "questions that already have the same answer presented a million ways on the web, on youtube, etc. etc. etc."? If you still don't know how, you've intentionally made sure to never actually look that up.
"western journalist who writes critically on China" you mean like EVERY SINGLE western journalist? China has a plan to "intimidate" every single journalist in the NATO countries and its allies?
Sorry, I dont buy it. Every single day is another "china bad" story. The journalists who write positively on China are the ones targeted and harased. Thats easy to see on Twitter with the extremely few people who write anything positive on China.
In case anyone is worried about us "banning $user just because you disagree with their $views" - I've spent countless hours protecting and defending HN commenters who happen to be posting contrary views on China, just as on any other topic. You can see years' worth of this at https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod, which is a list I made when this worry came up once before.
So yes, it's certainly ok for people with different backgrounds to defend different views on HN—that's an important principle here. It's not ok, though, to just use HN for destructive flamewar. We have to ban accounts that do the latter regardless of what they're arguing for.
Accounts arguing for contrarian positions are under greater pressure because they get surrounded and pounced on by the majority in ways that can feel very much like being ganged up on. This makes it understandable that they tend to become defensive (i.e. aggressive), resort to snark and fulmination and flamewar, etc. But even though it's understandable, it's not ok, and we don't have a choice but to ban accounts when they are doing this with no regard for HN's rules.
You can't post like this to HN, no matter how another commenter is behaving. The site guidelines are quite clear about it:
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
The reason is that internet users are overwhelmingly too quick to accuse other people of being spies, manipulators, etc.—it's a garden-variety form of online disagreeing that is at least as destructive to the community as anything people are accusing each other of doing.
We have long years of experience investigating this stuff and have nearly always found that it is simply a disagreement between people with different backgrounds happening to have different views. That doesn't mean there's no organized abuse—just that (as far as we can tell from the data we have) that's a rarer phenomenon than internet users poisoning the ecosystem unprompted. This leads to ugly things like mob behavior and good-faith users being hounded off the site. That's absolutely not ok, so we have to be careful about enforcing this rule.
Yes, that's basically the default internet user reaction, and it's particularly poisonous to discussion and therefore explicitly against HN's guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
[0] https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/108649435/professor-annemarie...