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Comment by genmud | Hacker News Reader

> Statistically, a westerner (not ex Chinese national) has less chance of being thoroughly fucked with in PRC than an ethnically Chinese scientist in the US via China Initiative.

That has not been what I have observed with people I am friends with, nor the experience of other people I have worked with who go to China regularly.

You call them useful idiots, but then call them spies. Which are they? Unknowingly assisting intelligence agencies or illegal spies?

Where is the evidence, the PRC refused to provide any... and I'm sorry, but CSIS celebrating the release of a Canadian citizen isn't evidence they are a spy. Look at their feed, it's full of Canada related stuff all the time.

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How many of your associates who goto PRC reguarly have exit bans or in prolonged legal limbo with the PRC security apparatus. I hazard to guess zero. If more than one, that's more reflection of who you are associating with. Charitably we're talking about 0.01% of the mainland expat population, realistically lower because majority of exit bans are ex PRC nationals who aren't connected to actual expat community. The reason why the Michael's arrest was even news is because they were anomolous incidents in the first place.

I'm referring to people who believes western narrative that Michael's weren't spies as "useful idiots" for believing the innocent Michaels propaganda. Spavor was accused collecting info on PRC military on behalf of Korvig who used NGO as cover for intelligence work. That's about normal level of disclosure for national security, comparable to what US intelligence discloses on source and methods whenever they announce capture of PRC national taking photos of US defense installations. So yes, given all the context, CSIS celebrating their release + their NGO background + literal associate/friend admitting they had intelligence background + their subject matter interests all point to them being spies. It takes surpreme cognitive dissonance to assert otherwise in order to support the even less tenuous assertion that PRC security apparatus is so incompetent they have to hostage "innocent" westerners.

One was followed by police while he was in country, then detained by customs officials (I assume it was MSS) on exit, and was told in no uncertain terms not to come back. This is a regular cybersecurity person who was there to speak at a conference. He was given no records and when his company tried to dig into why he was detained, they unsurprisingly had no records of him being detained or questioned.

I also done incident response for a number of companies targeted by Chinese state sponsored actors going after industrial and financial IP.

You keep calling them spies, but in both cases it's not as clear as you make it out to be and there is no evidence they were spying. The US provides quite a bit of information when they charge someone with espionage. Kicking someone out of your country for taking photos of sensitive sites (US) and keeping quiet about sources/methods is different than arresting someone while refusing to show evidence of their crime(PRC).

You act like someone with a regional interest will always be a spy if they have done intelligence work... there are tens of thousands of people who work for intelligence agencies in Canada and many more former employees.

I'm not even denying they might have been spying or providing trip reports afterwards, but without evidence I have a choice between believing the Canadian government or the Chinese government... I'll choose to believe the Canadian government.

Which comports with my statements of kid glove treatment. PRC did not want your associate in the country, invited them to drink tea and then booted them out of the country aka the opposite of hostage risk. Are some fields subject to increased national security scrutiny? Sure but arbiturary detention risk is rarely on the cards vs getting kicked out. No different from US booting out PRC academics/students for association with defense connected/adjacent institutes. Even IP espionage does not detain people to give up goods since that’s counter productive, i.e. thousand talent program works only if targets come to PRC willingly. And they do, because the risk of detainment is virtually non-existent hence the US gov has to deter via shenanigan like China Initiative to disincentivize people to people exchanges. It's not the prospect of PRC punishment but the reward that fuels their indy espionage efforts and why the west is playing up arbitrary detention risk.

The US also doesn't show evidence for PRC nationals prosecuted for photographing sensitive infra. They're not releasing said photos, only allegations/prosecutions because of course not. And per script PRC MFA will deny and claim they're just tourists with bad english who can't read signage. That's how the game is played. Choosing to not believe PRC is assuming the default position that western spies aren't operating or if they are, are never caught which we already know not to be true per CIA debacle. At the end of the day damning quack like a duck associations are as good as these scenarios will permit. And in Michaels case, involve literal people with acknowledged intelligence backgrounds. which is close to smoking gun threshold. Obviously we'll disagree but I choose to believe a surveillance state with a proven record of counterintelligence is good at surveilling.

> The US also doesn't show evidence for PRC nationals prosecuted for photographing sensitive infra. They're not releasing said photos, only allegations/prosecutions because of course not.

That's provably false.

> And in Michaels case, involve literal people with acknowledged intelligence backgrounds. which is close to smoking gun threshold.

Smoking gun in what way? When you look at the geopolitical issues at the time, it's obvious they were arrested with the intent to put leverage on Canada, whether they are spies or not is irrelevant. In fact them not being spies, but related to connected people is actually even better.

>That's provably false.

Please prove it. You'll find is some redacted district court documents which is as credible as PRC MFA statement with respect to counter intelligence shenanigans.

> In fact them not being spies, but related to connected people is actually even better.

Except it's manifestly not, especially if you look at geopolitcal messaging at the time. PRC's retaliation over Meng was specifically calibrated to message business community was NOT targetted. Apart from Michaels ther was the Canadian drug trafficker with proven traffic activy in Canada. And when media was frenzing over some passengers (I think teacher) having issues transitting via PRC airport, there was rapid messaging from PRC end to assure it was procedural and not part of the Meng drama. PRC messaging could not have been clearer. The Michaels being spies mattered precisely because the point of PRC retaliation was to segregate from commercial activities. This was during time when PRC was fighting hard against decouple efforts from US.

Smoking gun in sense that if an ex MSS member got arrested in US, was returned to PRC during exchange, followed by MSS publically celebrating their return and their associate saying they used to conduct intelligence activities, the parsimonious answer is US security apparatus caught a PRC spy. If that's not enough damning context then there's nothing else to say.

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