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Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

Non-China cities with Chinese police stations include:

> Amsterdam, Athens, Belgrade, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Budapest, Dublin, Florence, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Lisbon, London, Madeira, Madrid, Milan, New York City, Paris, Porto, Prague, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Sao Paulo, Slovakia, Stockholm, Rotterdam, Toronto, Tokyo, Valencia, Viña del Mar, Vienna.

https://jamestown.org/program/future-global-policeman-the-gr...

> some countries where fugitives may have fled have either avoided signing extradition agreements with the PRC or have rescinded them following the introduction of the National Security Law to Hong Kong in 2020. These include Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, and the United States.

> ..PRC authorities ..use alternative means to apprehend fugitives. “Persuasion” has become a common tactic, which human rights groups have called “involuntary returns.” Such returns are achieved by threats against family members in the PRC, directly approaching and intimidating the fugitive overseas, or outright kidnapping ..Involuntary returns ..comprise a mix of genuine criminal fugitives, officials who have fallen out of favor with the CCP leadership, and others pursued for their religious or political beliefs.

Earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33049729

View on HN

Note that in Australia I know first hand of Chinese university students having their families back home threatened due to them participating in protests.

I have no doubt that this is not just about criminal activity but any activity that the PRC does not approve of.

There was a similar situation during the pandemic in the UK, I know of individuals whose parents in the PRC were contacted by the authorities to “encourage” their kids studying abroad to stay abroad, lest they risk bringing covid back home.

This seems a normal reaction

I would say it was a common reaction, but it should not be considered "normal"

Traveling during a pandemic is not normal so I find the advice not to travel back home during a pandemic is totally normal. Doing otherwise puts everyone at risk (the traveler, people who he/she interacts with during the journey and the host/home country)

I am equally sure you probably support lock-downs, mandatory vaccination, mandatory masking, and all manner of other Draconian actions

Where me and others did not, I did not find these things to be "normal" either.

It all depends on where you place the freedom vs safety metric, I place on the far extreme end of freedom. Which is also why I oppose governments like China in general

That's the opposite of the problem called out in this article.

My university in the US did the same. They encouraged students to stay put during winter break. Are they evil now?

Similar to when a Tibetan student was elected to student council at U of T in Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/china-tibet-student-e...

It's common, in the open, and Western Governments are too afraid to do anything material about it. That tells you who has power.

It's bad.

What, concretely, would western governments do about this?

Arrest and trade any Chinese spies (that’s what they are. There’s no such thing as foreign secret police. They’re called spies and terrorists) and barter them for Chinese political prisoners coerced in this way.

Do you understand that China will arrest some American citizens afterwards and will trade them for those "spies"?

Some western people are completely out of bounds. You're basically suggesting trading humans. It's called slavery. To arrest someone and trade him for someone. What's going on. You're not the only person suggesting it. I saw similar comments on other websites. For example someone suggested to arrest some random Russian sportsman and trade him for American sportsman girl who was arrested because of marihuana found on her in airport.

It's just wrong. It creates all the kinds of wrong incentives. If you think that someone is a spy and you can prove it, go ahead and put him in jail or deport him or apply whatever measures law requires. But no human trading.

Prisoners of War are not the same as slaves. Words have meaning.

China is not at war with US.

Yet.

I would not be so sure...

You really count on semantics to keep us safe from tyranny?

Not parent's point. The point was not to conflate Prisoners of War (or Prisoners of Spy War here?) with slaves. Slaves are enslaved to provide labor without rights and payments, are treated as commodity, and are traded for other commodities, with explicit monetary value. In the case of spy prisoners, people who are in jail because they broke some law are traded for other people in jail in another country who broke another law, because they are valuable to their country of origin, and they too want to return to their home country instead of being in jail in a foreign country. They are not used for labor and they do not have monetary value that can be used in a market.

I'm sure that there are plenty of crimes these folks could be arrested for, and then subjected to the normal legal process. Kidnapping and intimidation are criminal offenses, at least where I live

intimidation and black mail sound like perfectly good reasons to arrest these people in most countries

What makes you think this doesn't happen if there is good evidence of wrongdoing? In democracies, we don't just randomly arrest people, we need actual evidence that holds up in court.

To be fair, non-immigrant visas can often be revoked on a discretionary basis.

>>In democracies, we don't just randomly arrest people,

There are tons of proof and examples of this being false. Lots of example of police targeting people then finding the law they broke, instead of starting with a crime and finding who did it

And this is a good thing that we should do more of?

>There’s no such thing as foreign secret police.

The US secret service has offices in over a dozen countries, including China.

That's different. We're the good guys.

The NYPD is also in singapore

Unlikely to happen unfortunately. I mean Russia performed assassinations on UK soil and everyone knows it. Nothing really seemed to happen from that.

Remove diplomatic status for anyone involved in such activities, put oversight on the diplomacy, make a big international public stink out of it (this matters), share intel with other governments and create a working body to root out this, implement local programs so that schools/companies etc. are aware that this happens and should report it, consider other forms of action.

But all of that would be pretty hard in the current geopolitical situation, there would be a huge price to pay.

Australia was slapped with huge trade war in the order of billions for pointing out that China was lying about COVID origins.

Individual people can stop purchasing Chinese products. Act locally is small, though it can start a boycott maybe like what pressured S.A. apartheid.

So this is a neat idea, but impossible and it demonstrates the very powerful reach of China.

Major American corporations have deep ties with China and China would pressure them to tamp this down.

Without some kind of institutional support from probably a few media companies it would be very hard.

The 'Tea Party Movement' was basically nothing until Fox News decided to put them up front, for example.

American corporations have incredible influence over media.

In particular, the massive hypocrisy over the NBA, and some players who scream about injustice, and then repeat Xi's talking points when it comes to China. Even NBA players have their marching orders.

Truly grassroots things are really really rare, it usually takes participation from aligned forces.

Do you notice how 'Tibet' used to be all the rage? It was the hip thing in Hollywood about 2000. The Dalai Lama was a thing. China put huge pressure on everyone to "Shut the F up about the Dalai Lama" and so corporations, NGOs, Hollywood, Governments, go the message. It becomes more rare to have him visit, and corporations no longer talk about Tibet.

Marc Benioff of Salesforce fame, is illustrative of this - he's ostensibly a big supporter of Buddhism etc. and the Tibet issue should be front and centre with him if he was in any way legit, but of course he keeps his mouth shut entirely, because, hey: it's just business.

Hollywood dutifully keeps their mouths shut and will happily kill anything in their periphery (i.e. documentaries) with the word 'Tibet'. Actors who want to not be blackballed/banned from China will stay the F away from the world 'Tibet'. Actors are corporations.

And of course the Uyghur issue - can you imagine any other major nation putting people in camps on the basis of their ethnicity? E. China is an open air police state, with stations every few hundred meters, propaganda everywhere etc.. There would be huge uproar over this if it were any other state. But we are told to keep our mouths shut, 'or else' - so we do.

All of this could change however - with a bit of coordinated action and political will, it could flip.

Lastly, Germany, which mostly controls EU, is one of the few nations to be a net exporter to China, and they don't want to mess that up and so they are the most likely to 'acquiesce' on the issue, which means the EU will 'keep their mouths shut'.

Also, let’s make sure to recycle our cans to stop climate change.

Infinite things. Literally infinite. Governments exert influence in countless countless ways.

There's a ton of diplomatic and other forms of protests:

- evict caught spies and other agents (or imprison them, it's no secret China does that as well)

- summon or evict their embassy staff and ambassadors

- harass China-owned companies or make their lives difficult with bureaucracy just like China does

- impose tariffs and trade sanctions

- support CCP-critical groups and dissidents both domestic and in China

- threaten China militarily (e.g. by deploying maritime units just right outside of their maritime borders), just like China does

- support nations whose sovereignty is threatened or violated by China, including African nations where Chinese fish trawlers are stealing fish

- hack Chinese government and corporate entities, just like China does

- impose export bans on technology or resources that China needs (which is already done, e.g. ASML litho machines)

- restrict Chinese citizens from visas, buying real estate

- seizing Chinese-owned assets like real estate (bonus: reduces housing pressure)

A very simple, very easy place to start, would be not allowing the construction of Chinese secret police stations in Western cities.

How does that stop Chinese authorities from threatening relatives of Chinese students protesting in the West?

Step 1 to filling holes is to stop digging new ones.

Enact high import tariffs to discourage economic support for China and move the world's wealth into freer nations.

Bingo. Every nation should implement an 'externalization tax'.

So USA would implement X% tax on China for their authoritarian stuff, Y% for their aggression against Taiwan and Z% for their carbon emissions.

Every nation gets a tariff.

That would push them into line on some things.

Well, any activity that the PRC does not approve of is criminal activity.

Additionally there was the video of that protest in Australia over China related stuff where Chinese people stepped in to assault the protestors.

I am surprised they are even allowed to "operate" in all these cities... especially the USA/Europe.

Saudi Arabia funded 9/11, Israel shot an American citizen, the U.S. continues to operate as usual with those countries.

My point is that, politics is never about the people/victims.

> Saudi Arabia funded 9/11

Well, some conspiracy theories are considered facts now.

> some conspiracy theories are considered facts now.

There are mainstream sources detailing evidence of Saudi funding for Al Quaeda. [1] Whether they approved of/sanctioned 9/11 is another matter.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/evide...

A civil court agrees too.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-sept11/saudi-ar...

No dog in this race

First of all this is a civil case of liability which ranges from indirect responsibility to facilitated thru incompetence/ambivalence

Second this article is about dismissal of the case over jurisdiction for parts of the claim

Third “The judge also dismissed claims … lack … jurisdiction”

Maybe the case is over with a ruling, maybe there is an article proving a link, maybe maybe but this article doesn’t make that Proof

It's conspiratorial and misrepresentation to talk about this - to the point of it being a lie.

If a very rich American went to South America for a decade and then bombed a building in Rio, he would have 'financial relationship' to the US via a number of investments. It doesn't mean that it has anything to do with US foreign policy, the government, or anything.

Osama Bin Laden was a member of a big, sprawling, super rich Oligarchic family in Saudi. Obviously, there were dealings, and obviously some Saudis probably funded some things here and there. Just like a Texan Evangelical Oil Billionaire might fund Christian Schools in Peru, which may even be good schools. But the charity run by a guy with ties to 'American Rio Bomber'.

Everything at that level is intertwined, it's not sufficient to suggest that proves anything.

The 'State' of Saudis is 'mostly a good actor to the outside world, even if they are bad in many ways internally. They allow the free flow of oil at market prices, 'per the deal' and don't align with China, Russia, or some other crazy state, and they are not trying to invade Iran or get nukes (though there are backup plans). And they play nice with Israel, not directly trying to start a war with them, or 'create' one between them and Israel. Most of their vast holdings are invested reasonably.Also, in the 'war on terror' which is actually a financial network and intelligence war, they have been playing 'on the right side' - as 'terrorists' are more dangerous to them than the US anyhow. So that's kind of what we can expect from them. In 100 years, hopefully things will be a bit better.

> It doesn't mean that it has anything to do with US foreign policy, the government, or anything.

The evidence points to the Saudi royal family funding a terrorist organization. That’s a lot more than just a rich citizen, that is their autocratic ruling family and the evidence is very convincing. Their reasoning probably was more about regional concerns rather than attacking the US, however when you fund fanatics they don’t always follow the script.

>It's conspiratorial and misrepresentation to talk about this - to the point of it being a lie.

this is false. there is a great deal of direct and circumstantial evidence that has come out in the last two years. this isn't "bin laden knew people", this is "the 9/11 hijackers received assistance from saudi diplomats in the US"

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabi...

There is no evidence in that article.

The intercepts notions of 'this was possibly a false flag' is literally the definition of conspiracy theory.

While there certainly might be more going on than we know, there isn't evidence of that much.

It's not going to be a surprise that a conduit for clandestine money might have some kind of governmental status or what have you.

It's basically insane to suggest House of Saud would want to do 9/11 or even a 'filed false flag', there is no benefit whatsoever in either. 9/11 did not help the Saudis, and even a 'failed false flag' like a pretend attack on a building in NYC would have the objective of what, trying to get more US troops in the Middle East for who's benefit?

More importantly, the likelihood of such a thing getting found out would be extremely high. The ruler of Saudi Arabia is going to blow up the Trade Centre knowing that the CIA/FBI would be able to nail him, and even all of Humpty Dumpty's men probably could not keep that secret contained? And if the US public found out, literally Saudi Arabia would cease to exist?

For what purpose?

No, this insane.

There are ultra Wahhabi nationalists in Saudi Arabia, they have money. We already know that. They are funding odd stuff around the world, just like many other billionaires. As part of the 'war on terror' a lot of that activity was shut down and now it's really scrutinized.

Even setting 9/11 aside, Saudi Arabia publicly funds numerous madrasah in other countries which have a, shall we say, Wahhabi-aligned curriculum. Which then provide a steady stream of recruits for the likes of al-Qaida (or, these, days, ISIS). This might be indirect enough to evade responsibility, but the countries where such radicalization eventually translates to violence generally don't consider Saudis "mostly a good actor".

This is quote from wikipedia:

Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, has written that al-Qaeda and bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies", and that "Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."

So basically US sponsored 9/11. Is there any moral grounds to blame Saudi Arabia?

> So basically US sponsored 9/11.

The US did supply the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Al Qaeda did eventually arise from the Mujahideen so 9/11 is certainly blowback but the CIA would need to be funding and aiding Al-Qaeda operatives during the late 90s to 2001 for there to be equivalency with Saudi but I’m not aware of any evidence to support that. Besides, the point wasn’t that the CIA was innocent it was that Saudi was guilty.

Well, there's the fact that 95% of the hijackers were Saudis.

"Alqaida" literally means "the base". As in "the foundation [of struggle]", not as in "the database".

The US also funded Al Qaeda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

So this was 2012 in Syria and any support for Al-Qaeda was accidental and unintentional, from the article: “US-backed rebels often fought alongside al-Qaeda's al-Nusra Front, and some of the US-supplied weapons ended up in the hands of the al-Nusra Front, which had been a major concern of the Obama administration when the program was first proposed”

Just because some theories are ridiculous doesn’t mean that there aren’t many real conspiracies.

There’s a reason the CIA pushed the idea of conspiracy theory as something ridiculous, it’s great cover.

The CIA didn't need to do anything: Bigfoot, Loch Ness, Yeti, all sorts of mysterious / conspiracy theories just propagate on their own and at times because they're fun to imagine as real.

What is the "conspiracy" behind Bigfoot. The word "conspiracy" used to have a specific meaning different from "farfetched".

The Democrats are keeping bigfoot secret until they get the bigfoot population high enough to replace the MAGA crowd.

Those damn democrats!!!

They coined the term and publicised it. The things you described used to be called just myths.

No they didn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Etymology_an...

I get where you are coming from and agree. But why would saudi arabia attack the first world superpower, its biggest trading partner and biggest military ally?

People do some really stupid stuff in the name of religion all the time. Perhaps that was motivation enough, and the line in your comment is seen as a means to invoke plausible deniability

Lately it seems the difference between a conspiracy theory and fact is 3-6 months.

Even if we assume they're 100% true, two cherry picked incidents is very far from proving that "politics is never about the people/victims".

National law enforcement agencies often have reciprocity with foreign countries. For example, the FBI has offices in many countries to facilitate things like investigations and extraditions. The common name is "Legat" and they operate in cooperation with and at the pleasure of the host country.

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/international-offices

It sounds like the Chinese police are operating like they're in their home country. Which they are not. Sooner or later, their activities are going to get them PNG'd (made Persona Non Grata) and they'll be asked to leave.

Asked to leave and then swap to another one. How many police they have. Millions. Or 10 millions.

The FBI has an office in Beijing. I’m doubting either government cares that much if they police their own citizens. It’s probably more complex with dual citizens. There’s so many people in each country there has to be some cooperation from time to time.

Big difference between the activity in this report and legal (e.g. extradition) cooperation.

China technically doesn’t recognize dual citizenship for anyone over 18. But they’ve been known to rescind someone rescinding their citizenship before, which is messed up.

> they’ve been known to rescind someone rescinding their citizenship

I'm trying to figure out what you mean here, and wondering if you have a typo. Would you please elaborate?

My take is that even if you rescind your Chinese citizenship, the CCP can choose to un-rescind it, re-exposing you to Chinese authority.

... but this just give you dual citizenship.

That doesn't help you if they have you in China and keep you from getting access to an embassy. Dual citizenship only helps if they actually recognize it, or your host country learns of your plight- neither of which are the case here.

*home country. Host country is the one persecuting.

This might just be my own strange way of thinking.

I haven't actual lived in my parents house in decades, and yet when I go there to visit them I still think of it as "going home".

In the case above, I assume we are talking about people born in China, who have left to live in another country, and are then involuntarily returned to China. In my head, China is still the home country.

All of that said, having read your comment, I just now realized that is and uncommon understanding of the words. Your interpretation is certainly closer to the emotional meaning of them for the people involved.

Generally speaking, if you are a citizen of country X and you are in country X accused of violating the laws of country X then any citizenship of country Y that you might have is irrelevant.

It's true even if you aren't a citizen of X. Griner isn't escaping prison by not being a Russian citizen. Neither are all the kidnapped Ukrainian children.

OK, but Griner at least receives consular assistance from the US government - she wouldn't even get that if she were a Russian dual-national.

And then they can "persuade" you to return to China, where they don't recognize your dual citizenship.

This case: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/25/gui-minhai-det...

> The court in Ningbo acknowledged Gui had become Swedish in the 1990s but added that he had applied to restore his Chinese citizenship in 2018. China does not recognise dual citizenship and restoring his Chinese passport may have been a way to block Swedish diplomats from visiting him, observers said.

That was after he was detained (china kidnapped him in Thailand).

> they’ve been known to rescind someone rescinding their citizenship

...

> he had applied to restore his Chinese citizenship in 2018

Unless I'm misreading this, or if the latter claim is false, these are two very different scenarios, no?

Gui was kidnapped in 2015, so his "application" to restore Chinese citizenship in 2018 was almost certainly not exactly voluntary.

It should not be surprising at all - you are 'allowed' to do what you have the power to do and get away with.

China speaks with one voice, Xi, everyone else a thousand voices. US has 10 000 people at least who make up the power of Xi. President, senator, CEO, senior bureaucrat, judge, heads of NGOs, Universities, police, military etc. all 'put in one group and coordinated with an ambitious 50 year plan' in the West. Even in a single country.

Europe, N. America, Japan, Korea, Australia have to partner with 'everyone else' in a comprehensive way to stand up to this. Trans Pacific was a big opportunity that Trump didn't have the foresight to grasp - he wanted to have 'unipolar power' in a world where the US just does not have the leverage it did after WW2 and no amount of 'wishing' or even exceptional leadership will change that. US could 'solve all it's problems' and it would still be the reality that % of global GDP would be declining because other nations are 'coming on line'.

Oddly, a panacea of 'other voices' may serve to counterbalance. Even if they are acting in self interest, to the extent they are not overrun by China, their own voices add up to something. We are seeing the beginning of that in Africa, with their stance on the Ukraine issue. While they should definitely be taking a more assertive stance via Russia, the fact they are where they are (and partly due to the fact Russia is their 'breadbasket') is an indication of coherent self interest on some level.

I don't think it's cause for world wide alarm, but there needs to be a plan.

The TPP was more complicated than this and there was bipartisan opposition to it. The opposition to it wasn't merely Trump's isolationism but genuine concerns about the economic affects it would have on domestic citizens

>China speaks with one voice, Xi, everyone else a thousand voices. US has 10 000 people at least who make up the power of Xi. President, senator, CEO, senior bureaucrat, judge, heads of NGOs, Universities, police, military etc. all 'put in one group and coordinated with an ambitious 50 year plan' in the West. Even in a single country.

This is an orientalist and simplistic take. The CCP is an enormously complicated system and there are many cliques and ideological debates within it. As any sinologist will tell you, the power struggles at the very top are mostly unknown to us (except years later, to historians) but even in Mao's era there was certainly not a single voice.

I mean, that's technically true of any dictator of a large country, no? Stalin was a dictator but also not immune from political machinations.

I don't think it's simplistic and certainly not orientalist, as it has nothing to do with anything Asian or Oriental specifically.

That the CCP is an 'enormous and complex system with many debates within' doesn't matter if the party speaks very directly and coherently, and the party is very tightly controlled and of course they have all of the power.

The degree of centralization of authority by Xi is unlike we've seen since Mao, and due to universal power of technology, you could say 'more power than any leader in history'.

Xi very quickly and arbitrarily grabbed the nations top tech leaders off of the street. Literally disappeared. He imposed aggressive governmental oversight and controls over those organizations (and others) including government ownership, board seats, CCP members as staffers for internal oversight, censorship requirements, etc. etc.. It's unthinkable outside China, in any normal kind of country.

If any 'outside' leader speaks up against China - be it a Dean, or Prime Minster - the CCP will respond assertively and quickly.

When China does some questionable or malign act - where is the response? Who should respond? Is anyone powerful enough to respond? Can there be a coordinated action?

As the Australian political leadership spoke up against Chinese lies over COVID origins, they were slapped with billions in trade damages, and was attacked in a number of indirect ways. Were Australia to have acted in concert and direct cohesion with USA, EU and UK on that, and were policy and actions to be aligned, it would be a different story.

There's nothing comparable to Xi outside of China (in any normal country - I won't say 'western' country because it goes way beyond that), not even Putin.

There are two different ideas here. The fact that the CCP can act decisively and has an iron grip on China does not contradict the idea that it is still a granular organization with its own internal logic. Xi is not the CCP and the CCP is not Xi. And the iron grip and the decisiveness are not as total as you imagine them to be.

This is in fact where the orientalism comes in: the rejection of granularity. If you think about it for a few seconds, it really makes no sense that a single person would be able to entirely control a structure of 96 million adherents, or that this latter structure would have no internal dissension and tumult. The only reason we might come to these conclusions is if we are deeply unfamiliar with the history, culture, ideology, way of doing things that apply and thus reject the individuality and complexity that are part of these systems. Few Westerners would qualify Western institutions in this way. I don't mean in terms of agreeing or disagreeing with what they do, but analyzing them as just a unified blob and thinking nothing of it.

They are not "operating" in any official capacity. They are just there, doing their "persuasion." Remember the USA and Europe have good free speech laws that will protect those "persuasion."

Even with police cooperation agreements in place, they don't have the usual police power like arresting anyone.

A NYT article from back in 2016 says,

> In 2014 […] That was the year the two countries signed a bilateral police cooperation agreement, the first of its kind between China and a European nation.

> The Chinese officers do not have arrest powers in Italy, but they are paired with Italian officers who could arrest someone, except no arrests have been needed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/world/europe/chinese-poli...

> Remember the USA and Europe have good free speech laws that will protect those "persuasion."

I know the US is a special case, but in most of Europe, free speech does not cover threats, intimidation and blackmail.

Laws are only as good as the prosecutors enforcing them, and with the support of a nation state it’s very easy to evade criminal prosecution. I suspect that few if any European legal systems are set up to effectively deal with an adversary operating in this manner.

Huh? The US is not a "special case" in this way.

I meant in terms of how people view free speech in general

>threats against family members in the PRC, directly approaching and intimidating the fugitive overseas, or outright kidnapping

Wow. Actual gangster tactics.

When we do it: Realpolitik

When they do it: Gangsters

> When we do it: Realpolitik

I haven’t encountered a monolithic opinion in the United States on rendition, mostly disgust and self loathing except amongst the most terminally committed to the “war on terror.” I’ve found many friends in considering it a criminal activity.

The people who think china doing this is bad are generally the same people who think the USA doing the same thing is bad also.

yet again unjustifiably both-sidesing the actions of America and china. i don't like when America does it but it isn't relevant and i'm a lot less worried about her expanding power than china.

spoiler: most of us actually don't like the bullshit war on terror/war on drugs tactics.

and is there evidence we've threatened American citizens at home to get to expats?

The US does not threaten to kill or arbitrarily imprison family members of those they wish to extradite, and does not clandestinely do even remotely such things with US citizens unless there are huge issues of national security, aka a US Passport Holder running a terrorist camp in some place, plotting to blow up buildings.

The moral equivalence argument with China is tiring, and it's actually part of their horrible communications strategy.

The equivalent would be: 'nobody' US citizen 'Joe Smith', living in Paris, mocks Joe Biden on Facebook. As a result, FBI in USA threatens family with prison for arbitrary reasons with fabricated evidence, and clandestinely threatens US citizen in Paris to come home and 'face justice'.

So please.

What is a State, if not a sophisticated gang operating on a large scale?

1. The US doesn’t actually do what’s described here.

2. Even if it did, that would also be bad and it wouldn’t make what China does good.

These tu quoque arguments always crop up in threads describing whatever horror out of China’s genocidal, inhumane government.

So how does this work? Police stations are bases of operation for policemen. And policemen are people who need to have a lawful authority for what they do. These folks roleplaying as policemen have no such authority.

So what do they do? I can't imagine they are detaining people, giving out fines, etc. So what makes them police? Shouldn't we call them spies instead?

Yeah, agree completely. Shouldn't be called police station, more like a spy operations office.

Also, one could imagine, these “Persuasion” tactics, might be more successful than, the Western approach of where extradition treaties exist. Putting social (family?) pressure on someone probably more likely leads to a person giving in, than just being exposed to legal pressure that possibly can't reach them.

Westphalian nation states were established to supercede private armies of mercenaries. If societies now accept extra-legal methods of influence, as vividly illustrated on TV shows like The Sopranos, there will be many organized non-state actors lining up to join the party.

If citizens want a new legal category for extra-territorial operations, beyond extradition, this can be negotiated in a formal international treaty.

What would "not-accepting" these methods of influence even look like?

Step 1: picket/protest and close the overt "police stations". Any would-be kidnappers can run a covert operation like countries have done since time immemorial, at the risk of unscheduled encounters with local city, state and federal authorities. Or they can work through the legal extradition system.

If this is allowed to stand after global public disclosure, it can be taken as implicit "consent" having been granted by citizens and their elected representatives, which means the next phase of extra-territorial activity (e.g. new laws on 1st December 2022) will push boundaries even further.

If some countries want to sell their territorial integrity and citizen safety down the proverbial river, at least they can negotiate a good price, e.g. bounty per head, prisoner exchange, or reciprocal global kidnapping by <foreign-country> of <host-country> targets. Good luck recruiting nomadic tech talent after opening such Dantean doors.

The fact that you think a "formal international treaty" means anything, tells us that you're not ready.

States will do whatever states CAN do. Treaties mean nothing by themselves, especially in this context.

(side note: nearly all treaties are both formal and international by default)

> States will do whatever states CAN do.

Of course. But there's a big difference between doing covertly and doing in daylight with an office.

Should foreign countries open US "Corporate Intellectual Property Donation" physical offices?

Treaties set a floor on behavior. For those who claim laws don't matter, remember that contracts and all global supply chains are based on laws of trade and finance. No law = no economy = war until agreement and law is re-established.

Treaties and international law in general are only relevant for weak states. Powerful states ignore any negative decision against them - especially the most powerful.

This is even official in some cases. For example, the USA does not recognize any authority of the the International Criminal Court (neither do China, Russia and a number of other big states), but that doesn't stop them from occasionally using it against smaller nations.

You can look for a long time, but you'll never find an example of a superpower/empire, or a close ally of one, submitting to any kind of international judgment against it, criminal or in a trade dispute. At most, they may accept a negative ruling to a case they brought against someone else.

> You can look for a long time, but you'll never find an example of a superpower/empire, or a close ally of one, submitting to any kind of international judgment against it, criminal or in a trade dispute. At most, they may accept a negative ruling to a case they brought against someone else.

Since 2020, China's Huawei has been subject to semiconductor supply chain restrictions which have been enforced by multiple countries. This has materially impacted Huawei consumer smartphone revenues.

But in the long term, such restrictions are likely to accelerate technical self-sufficiency, https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/china_smic_7nm_chips/

They are enforced by other countries - it wasn't the Chinese themselves who decided to stop doing something because an international court said so - that is my point. This would be equivalent to a court imposing a fine on you, and your neighbors taking your things in the amount of the fine (instead of the state taking it, or you going to pay).

Self vs. other enforcement is less important than consequences, which are the same in both situations. If a country has the opportunity to negotiate the terms of trade, that is clearly preferable to terms being imposed unilaterally by others.

Yes, countries can break agreements, but good agreements provide benefits to all parties, such that breaking an agreement results in reciprocal loss of benefits. There are always edge cases, but by definition, not everything is an edge case and there are countless routine, negotiated agreements which benefit everyone and are happily followed.

> For example, the USA does not recognize any authority of the the International Criminal Court

This is not true. The USA is not a party to the Rome Statute and asserts that the conditions which would otherwise subject its citizens to ICC jurisdiction categorically do not exist, and has authorized unlimited measures should the ICC disagree with the last point, but does not dispute the authority of the ICC.

> You can look for a long time, but you’ll never find an example of a superpower/empire, or a close ally of one, submitting to any kind of international judgment against it, criminal or in a trade dispute.

Well, states are not subjects of criminal law, so the criminal part is trivially true. As for trade disputes, the US has complied with numerous adverse decisions in WTO proceedings.

You both are saying the same thing, according to US; ICC has no authority over US, but on other countries.

No, they’re not. The ICC has no authority over ANY state, it has authority over people who are citizens of many states, but not citizens of the US, because the US has a functioning justice system that responds to the things the ICC is focused on. Because of this, there is no need to indict a US citizen in the ICC, you can do it in the US justice system, which is why the US points out that their citizens do not need to be subjected to the ICC.

> because the US has a functioning justice system that responds to the things the ICC is focused on.

Well, that’s the position of US law.

There are certainly cases one might point to and make the argument that the US domestic system does not always effectively deal with US war crimes and the crime of aggression.

Aggression is not criminal. There are times when the US has had soldiers commit war crimes, and it’s debatable how effective the US has been at prosecuting such things historically, but it does make a realistic attempt to do so.

Please let me know when we find mass graves of women and children defiled and murdered by US soldiers, which is unfortunately common behavior for the militaries of many other states, which the ICC has been involved in prosecuting.

> Aggression is not criminal

The crime of aggression (aka crime against peace) is, like war crimes and crimes against humanity, a widely recognized crime, prosecuted in the various peri-/post-WWII tribunals, though it took a while for the ICC to settle on its operationalization.

> There are times when the US has had soldiers commit war crimes, and it’s debatable how effective the US has been at prosecuting such things historically, but it does make a realistic attempt to do so.

The standard for ICC jurisdiction isn’t general adequacy, it is specific good faith action in the particular case.

The ICC is not the only international tribunal who's authority the USA doesn't recognize on its own citizens/self. There's also the ICJ, which has found the USA guilty of war crimes and ordered it to pay restitution at least once, for having mined Nicaragua's harbors, which the US very explicitly and publically refused to recognize.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

Do you know if the families are punished (incarcerated?) in lieu of the AWOL citizen if they can't persuade their family member to come back home and face CCP "justice" ?

They must be, in some way, otherwise this "persuasion" wouldn't be effective. If not incarceration or violence, some kind of social or economic punishment.

The Toronto one… seems like the CCP operatives absconded with the funding!

> All were in areas with large Chinese populations, but no one The Globe spoke to was aware of a police service station or had heard of the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau. One address in Markham was a private home, while the other was a mall full of small Chinese businesses and restaurants. The third property, in a business park near a highway, is owned by the Canada Toronto FuQing Business Association, a federally incorporated non-profit.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-police-s...

Almost equally likey are that one or all of those businesses are fronts or covers; it's not like the CCP wants to advertise the existence of these extraterritorial police stations to nosy journalists.

> ... Sao Paulo, Slovakia, Stockholm, ...

Is Bratislava too small?

Oops, I missed Bratislava, it's indeed listed in the table on p. 13, https://safeguarddefenders.com/sites/default/files/pdf/110%2...

Isn't Slovakia too much of a country?

I"m not sure if this is directly related to this particular "initiative" by China or another one: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/five-individuals-charged-vari...

At a time when traditional American values are more desperately needed than ever around the world, they are dying right here in the USA.

This is a confusion of cause and effect. The current crisis you are seeing is in part caused by this very same baked-in self-congratulatory mindset that permeates many American institutions and demographics

That's... a bit of a weird thing to say. For one thing, this idea that our "American values" are so superior to everything else is an insult to a large part of the rest of the world that also has values that we'd consider positive and good. They didn't come by those values "because America" (ok, maybe a few did here and there, but that's far from universal).

For another thing, what "traditional" American values are you referring to, in particular? Slavery? Racism? Institutionalized oppression? Police brutality? The military-industrial complex? The prison-industrial complex -- the fact that we have such a high percentage of our population incarcerated? Our legally-enshrined puritanical fear of victimless "crimes" like smoking a plant? The disenfranchisement of the poor? Income and wealth inequality? The continued weakening of labor movements? A small but loud and influential contingent of religious nuts who seem to believe that their god should be calling the shots in our legal system (hypocritically many of the same people who have wrung their hands over "Sharia law")?

Sure, I'm focusing on the negative here, and as much as I'm a bit cynical these days, there is plenty of good to come out of our country, even today. But this whole "wave the flag", "everyone should be more like us" stuff is pretty gross and short-sighted. The better values "dying" of late bit may be true (or not, I don't know anymore), but also overlooks a lot of bad stuff that has been in our national DNA for centuries.

First of all, I never said American values are superior. So you've started your homily on a false premise.

Furthermore, most of your gripes SUPPORT my point, except of course for the tired catch-alls of "slavery" and "racism." As for the rest of what you cite (mass incarceration, worker oppression, the "religious" oppressing others): THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Then of course there's democracy, and the alleged "resilience" of the American people. What a joke. Voting rights are being rolled back across "red" states nationwide. And "we" once rebuilt destroyed cities like Chicago and San Francisco in a few years... but it took over a decade to replace TWO buildings in New York after 9/11. And what have we built since?

If you want to roll out time-honored issues, how about abortion? Now a significant portion of the USA wants to (and has been given the go-ahead to) use women as baby farms. Even IRELAND abolished this disgusting regime.

Anyway, instead of a strawman, just create your own original post.

Or just down-mod fact-based rebuttals and slink off, weasel-like.

Don't suggest Chinese police overseas are doing covert action. It's silly, those stations are there for helping Chinese tourists, because there are so many in those places.

If Chinese want to do covert action overseas they don't send police to do it I think... It would not be covert.

This mushing together is like a racist smear fear mongering. It's bad.

That’s what consulates are. An actual police station is way different.

No you're getting confused, and have it backwards.

These Chinese police patrol around tourist areas with local police. You don't go to a consulate when you lose your mobile phone or someone steals your wallet.

These are police who operate in concert with local police. The whole point is to help Chinese tourists I think. It's not for anything nefarious...It's too racist to be smearing everything Chinese under the banner of the current Western-'China-bogeyman'-hysteria

Is this sort of thing common? Do other countries place police forces in other sovereign nations with the intent to help their home country's tourists get around in a foreign land? If not, then I think we need to look at this as an aberration, with scrutiny, and assume the worst until proven otherwise.

I personally think it is outrageous that the US government (or state or local governments) allows China to station police officers on US soil, and gives them the right to act in a police capacity. I am not ok with that at all, even if what you suggest as their purpose is correct.

Why would this even be necessary, if they're here for the purpose you suggest? Local police can handle these sorts of cases, and cities where tourists tend to travel certainly have translators on staff. Hell, cities in the US have translators to help with residents whose English skills are poor.

Also: it's not "racist" to dislike this sort of thing if the foreign government in question is not aligned values-wise with your own. I don't think it's remotely appropriate for an authoritarian anti-democratic country to have law enforcement influence on our soil.

I wouldn't have the same reaction if, say, a tight US ally (South Korea or Japan, to pick examples from the same part of the world) were to have an informal police presence in the US. But even then, I would expect them to be working with the FBI (or similar) on higher-level international crime matters (sorta like an Interpol type thing), not working on local crime. Foreign police forces should not have any kind of jurisdiction in "local" crimes.

I know there are British policemen in Thailand, there is even a reality show of it. I am not following this topic, so this is the one I know.

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