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China's global kidnapping campaign may now be reaching inside U.S. borders
- vivaforever 9y agoIs Julian Assange safe in Austrilia, is Edward Snowden safe in the US? Why would they flee to other countries? Those Chinese criminals thought the same way, they flee to the US.
- obblekk 9y agoThe article notes a difference between Chinese "kidnappings" and US "extraordinary rendition": it's different to threaten people's families back in China as a tool of coercion to leave vs. physically kidnapping them. However, in both cases the sovereignty of the hosting state is being violated. I wonder how the US will react to having a competitor in that arena...
- chaboud 9y agoThere's a mild difference, in that China has been kidnapping people to take them back to China, where they can be coerced mercilessly. Because we have Constitutional protections in the US, we sent people to other countries... where they could be coerced mercilessly. Given the relatively recent poisonings of travelling North Koreans and former Russian agents, I don't think that China is the first competitor in extra-territorial clandestine human rights violations.
- threatofrain 9y agoAn interesting difference is that extraordinary rendition is an international cooperation against citizens right. Extraordinary rendition is when several governments find it convenient to break their own laws, but don't want to do it themselves, so they scratch someone's back, and someone else scratches their back.
- FabHK 9y agoAnother difference is that China has kidnapped Chinese nationals, while the US has "rendered" mostly non-US nationals, if I understand correctly.
- csense 9y agoKidnapping may be relatively simple to pull off in dirt-poor third-world countries and lawless war zones. But shouldn't it be harder to kidnap targets in an industrialized country with a functioning local police force, effective control of its borders / airspace, and well-organized, well-funded counterintelligence agencies?
- zuzun 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinh_Xuan_Thanh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinh_Xuan_Thanh
- solarkraft 9y agoIt would be. Luckily for them they're targeting the US.
- hoodoof 9y agoMore dry than the desert.
- ShorsHammer 9y agoAustralia is mentioned in this article, big parts of the economy is dependant on the Chinese, it is the main export destination by far, with the stroke of a pen they could ruin entire industries. Australian governments of any persuasion will happily kowtow over a few people going missing, there's far too much at stake for either to push back against it.
- pjc50 9y ago> industrialized country with a functioning local police force So, not America?
- dang 9y agoPlease keep cheap national swipes off HN. They lead noplace good, regardless of how serious the underlying issues.
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- roenxi 9y ago> But Lee’s alleged recruitment may have also led Beijing’s operatives to U.S.-based Chinese nationals. This part is particularly interesting. If China were to start running a campaign of 'extreme pressure' that adds a dimension to the privacy debate around Facebook and government statistics collection. A powerful counterargument to 'If you've got nothing to hide'.
- arenaninja 9y agoA lot of bad press for China lately: * This article on renditions * IP theft (e.g.: https://www.ip-watch.org/2018/04/04/us-imprisons-chinese-scientist-theft-engineered-rice-seeds/ https://www.ip-watch.org/2018/04/04/us-imprisons-chinese-sci...) * Drug peddling and money laundering (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article207911324.html http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article207911324.html) * Unfair trade practices and trade war (no link needed for this on HN) And this only covers what happens outside of China.
- volgo 9y agoRelevant: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- common_ 9y agoActually, irrelevant. There would be more articles that are critical of China if newspaper publishers weren't paranoid about losing a shot at a payday buyout from a Chinese media firm.
- thanksgiving 9y agoAre you sure? My uninformed guess would be to assume that if you're critical and they can't just shut you down, they'll more likely pay you a reasonable amount to shut up.
- bostik 9y agoSounds unlikely as that would only incentivise being openly (and vocally) critical. If you have the resources and the time to invest in a long game, scorched earth strategy is likely going to be more effective.
- volgo 9y agoWrong. There's negative China articles coming out every day. If you just browse HN you'll find a fair selection of them
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dandare 9y agoOne of the most negative longterm consequence of the G. W. Bush era is the erosion of high moral ground in human rights. The US, and consequently the western democracies, lost the ability to genuinely criticize the bad guys for doing bad things like torture or kidnapping. Of course, the situation in China is not comparable to US, but we lost the argument.
- mac01021 9y agoYou think the US was behaving morally through the 70s, 80s, and 90s?
- dandare 9y agoOf course not, there are several examples of democratically elected governments overthrown and replaced with brutal dictators, Tuskegee, MKUltra, COINTELPRO, Iran Contra, Dark Alliance. But most of these fuckups were illegal - or at least not officially sanctioned. That changed with 9/11 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Until then the US never publicly sanctioned torture and kidnapping of individuals.
- bshepard 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal
- avar 9y ago> most of these fuckups were illegal > - or at least not officially > sanctioned. To people outside the US that are the subject of these campaigns this amounts to nothing more than obscure inside baseball. Unless something like war crime trials are held, or reparations are paid to the relevant countries it doesn't matter in the least for the end result, or for future such operations whether or not these operations were legal or sanctioned. Nobody involved of any significance ever got charged or convicted, and the US certainly didn't help reinstate the governments that had been overthrown. The only thing that happened post-9/11 was that the official narrative started more closely resembling the realities on the ground.
- bagswatchesus 9y agoChina is a dynamic country with a powerful economy, but they also have a enormous demographic time bomb ticking. http://www.fendidiorbags.com/fashion-accessories/fendi/bag-charms.html http://www.fendidiorbags.com/fashion-accessories/fendi/bag-c...
- hownottowrite 9y agoA few additional references: "China: Families of Interpol Targets Harassed", Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-targets-harassed https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-... The story of Guo Wengui "The Chinese Fugitive Living In A $67 Million Manhattan Apartment", Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2017/05/19/the-chinese-fugitive-living-in-a-67-million-manhattan-apartment/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2017/05/19/the-chin... Side Note: Guo Wengui is a weird figure. He's maintained a very public profile since coming to the US. He regularly posts about the Chinese government on YouTube (some might even call them rants). Just a week or so past he filed a lawsuit against Roger Stone for defamation. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/roger-stone-sued-for-defamation-by-guo-wengui-10229139 http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/roger-stone-sued-for-defam... Edit: Story from the WSJ about a visit of Chinese state officials to Wengui's apartment. "China’s Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller" https://archive.is/6Utc7 https://archive.is/6Utc7 Edit 2: Another story from the Economist https://archive.is/2LSLt https://archive.is/2LSLt "China’s law-enforcers are going global" quote below: "Since 2016 Interpol has been headed by Meng Hongwei, who is also China’s vice-minister of public security. That year alone China issued 612 red notices. The worry is that China may have misrepresented its reasons for seeking arrests abroad. Miles Kwok, also known as Guo Wengui, a businessman who fled China in 2015, stands accused of bribery. But it was only when he was poised to give an interview last summer in which he had threatened to expose the misdeeds of the ruling elite that China asked Interpol to help secure his arrest. When America refused to send him home, the Chinese government requested a second red notice, accusing Mr Kwok of rape."
- kernelkadafi 9y agoJust more ratcheting up of the new cold war propaganda justifying a new iron curtain the west is trying to build to shield from intergration with russia and china's multi-polar world, dangerous times ahead be aware that we are now closer to nuclear war than ever before.
- ezVoodoo 9y agoLet's count the number of people assassinated by the Chinese government and the CIA, shall we?
- dang 9y agoPlease don't use HN for national flamewars. They're destructive of the site and off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kombucha2 9y agoExtraordinary rendition[1] Reminds me a lot of that. Just Chinese-style. As well as how the DPRK kidnapped people from Japan[2] and South Korea[3]. One of the abductees from South Korea was a famous director, Shin Sang-ok[4] and his wife. Kim Jong Il hoped he would revitalize northern cinema. It's a fascinating story. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japanese_citizens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Jap... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_South_Koreans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Sou... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Sang-ok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Sang-ok