6 ms·

> But yeah, if this is the game that the nations are going to play, then you don't want to be the poor schmuck sitting in a Chinese prison for 10 years just so

> But yeah, if this is the game that the nations are going to play, then you don't want to be the poor schmuck sitting in a Chinese prison for 10 years just so they can make a point. Facilitating deals with Iran to deliver US products in defiance of US sanctions seems like something the average schmuck hopefully isn't getting mixed up in. It's not quite the same as accidentally violating some random domestic business laws.

ptero 8y ago
But on general grounds, why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? And why a fourth country is arresting Chinese citizens violating US rules? I am sure most of us break UAE laws on being with members of opposite gender without a chaperone and even post pictures of class reunions, etc. But I'm not expecting to be arrested for this while visiting, say, Sweden.
- wybiral 8y ago
  Somehow they got the US technology in order to sell it to Iran. I'm no legal expert, but there was probably an assumption during that transaction that they wouldn't be selling it to Iran, which they violated. (which is exactly why this is different than them simply doing business with Iran in the first place)
  - fungi 8y ago
    I believe that is what ZTE was pinged for. There were US chips in the equiptment sold to Iran.
    - fspeech 8y ago
      No one at ZTE was criminally charged. Though the indictment could be sealed and we may not know until they travel to a country that complies with American arrest request.
  - briandear 8y ago
    > but there was probably an assumption during that transaction that they wouldn't be selling it to Iran, which they violated. It isn’t an assumption, it’s in the actual export laws.
- williamscales 8y ago
  > But on general grounds, why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? In general, they don't have to. Only to the extent they want to continue doing business with the US do they have to comply.
  - FabHK 8y ago
    Not that easy, as most international trade is denominated in USD, and nominally flows through the US, and makes it subject to US jurisdiction. Which is one reason there is a growing push for denominating trade in EUR or CNY instead.
    - cygaril 8y ago
      USD transactions don't have to flow through the US, either nominally or in actuality. This is obviously true in the case of cash transactions which consist of the physical transfer of small green pieces of paper in places outside the US. It is also true of bank transactions, for example the vast Eurodollar market which has been in existence since the 1950s. If a non-US bank offers USD-denominated accounts and transfers funds from one of those accounts to another, this can and does happen entirely outside US jurisdiction.
- wonthegame 8y ago
  Sweden doesn’t view that as a crime so they don’t have any interest in further oppression. Many western countries will arrest foreigners that attempt to use their country as a hiding place. There are extradition agreements that outline this - the long arm of the law.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? And why a fourth country is arresting Chinese citizens violating US rules? Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology [1], markets products in America [2], has issued dollar-denominated debt [3] and then went and violated sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions. This is a far cry from extraterritorial enforcement for either the U.S. or Canada. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-ag... [2] https://www.huawei.com/us/ https://www.huawei.com/us/ [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-is-under-u-s-criminal-investigation-for-illegal-iran-sales-analysis/#62e32930420e https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-...
  - twic 8y ago
    "Now everywhere is New York": https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-03-13/now-argentina-can-t-even-pay-bonds-in-argentina https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-03-13/now-ar...
  - wtfstatists 8y ago
    > Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology Then Canada gets to do the arresting and jailing. Re next 2 points: If you want to justify violance you need stronger triggers. Those 2 just give the US right to ban the Huawei from country or using the USD. This looks like US doing it because it can. But then US is not facing USSR whose going to die from self-inflicted wounds. China have the most capitalist companies (Apple/etc) defending it.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > then Canada gets to do the arresting That’s...what happened. > if you want to justify violance you need stronger triggers Violating sanctions is a criminal offense under U.S. and Canadian law. Huawei chose to do business in America and Canada. Its executive chose to travel to Canada. This is a difficult story to mangle into a morality play.
- eigenvector 8y ago
  Well for one thing, Canadian (and many other) extradition treaties require the notion of dual criminality - the thing you're being extradited for has to also be a crime in Canada. Second, Canada (and most democracies) does not extradite to countries where the Canadian courts are not satisfied you will get a fair trial, or where the person would face capital punishment. So all these comparisons of being extradited to Russia or China or any other dictatorship are not exactly valid. That kind of thing is not on the table. In fact right now Canada has a major dispute with China because the Canadian government won't return even run of the mill Chinese criminals because they will likely be executed after a sham trial in China.
- FabHK 8y ago
  A lot of the extraterritorial power of US jurisdiction is due to the fact that a lot of international commerce is denominated in USD. Matt Levine writes about this occasionally in his informative and amusing news letter "Money Matters" [1], for example [2]: > The basic system of international trade is: > 1. International trade is done using U.S. dollars. > 2. Any trade done using U.S. dollars is subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government: Dollars flow through banks in the U.S., and if the U.S. government doesn’t want dollars to be used for some purpose—to fund genocide or terrorists or dictators or narcotraffickers—then it can reasonably effectively cut off dollar funding for those purposes, and punish banks, including foreign banks, that disobey it. > 3. The U.S. is a good and responsible steward, and only cuts off dollar funding for bad purposes like genocide or terrorism or totalitarianism or drugs. [...] > If other countries lose confidence that the U.S.’s decisions about who can use dollars are predictable, stable, constrained by the rule of law and responsive to the concerns of other large economies, then those other countries might look elsewhere. Or the beginning of [3]: > There was also a sense of uneasiness with the U.S. using the power of the dollar to enforce its foreign policy: Because all dollar payments are nominally processed through the U.S., moving dollars anywhere in the world effectively puts you under U.S. jurisdiction, even if the dollars are financing purely non-U.S. transactions. Lots of Europeans — bankers but also politicians and businesspeople and regular citizens — didn’t have the same antipathy to, say, Cuba that the U.S. does; they found it unfair that European banks were prohibited from doing business in Cuba not by European regulations but by American ones. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe... [2] Section "Dollar hegemony" of https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-04/trying-to-buy-stuff-you-want-is-not-manipulation https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-04/trying... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-20/u-s-sanctions-hit-european-banks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-20/u-s-sa...
  - abricot 8y ago
    EU seems to want to change the US Dollar hegemony[1] as of late. [1]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6643_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6643_en.htm

ptero 8y ago

But on general grounds, why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? And why a fourth country is arresting Chinese citizens violating US rules? I am sure most of us break UAE laws on being with members of opposite gender without a chaperone and even post pictures of class reunions, etc. But I'm not expecting to be arrested for this while visiting, say, Sweden.

wybiral 8y ago
Somehow they got the US technology in order to sell it to Iran. I'm no legal expert, but there was probably an assumption during that transaction that they wouldn't be selling it to Iran, which they violated. (which is exactly why this is different than them simply doing business with Iran in the first place)
- fungi 8y ago
  I believe that is what ZTE was pinged for. There were US chips in the equiptment sold to Iran.
  - fspeech 8y ago
    No one at ZTE was criminally charged. Though the indictment could be sealed and we may not know until they travel to a country that complies with American arrest request.
- briandear 8y ago
  > but there was probably an assumption during that transaction that they wouldn't be selling it to Iran, which they violated. It isn’t an assumption, it’s in the actual export laws.
williamscales 8y ago
> But on general grounds, why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? In general, they don't have to. Only to the extent they want to continue doing business with the US do they have to comply.
- FabHK 8y ago
  Not that easy, as most international trade is denominated in USD, and nominally flows through the US, and makes it subject to US jurisdiction. Which is one reason there is a growing push for denominating trade in EUR or CNY instead.
  - cygaril 8y ago
    USD transactions don't have to flow through the US, either nominally or in actuality. This is obviously true in the case of cash transactions which consist of the physical transfer of small green pieces of paper in places outside the US. It is also true of bank transactions, for example the vast Eurodollar market which has been in existence since the 1950s. If a non-US bank offers USD-denominated accounts and transfers funds from one of those accounts to another, this can and does happen entirely outside US jurisdiction.
wonthegame 8y ago
Sweden doesn’t view that as a crime so they don’t have any interest in further oppression. Many western countries will arrest foreigners that attempt to use their country as a hiding place. There are extradition agreements that outline this - the long arm of the law.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> why a Chinese company should comply with sanctions between US and Iran? And why a fourth country is arresting Chinese citizens violating US rules? Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology [1], markets products in America [2], has issued dollar-denominated debt [3] and then went and violated sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions. This is a far cry from extraterritorial enforcement for either the U.S. or Canada. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-ag... [2] https://www.huawei.com/us/ https://www.huawei.com/us/ [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-is-under-u-s-criminal-investigation-for-illegal-iran-sales-analysis/#62e32930420e https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-...
- twic 8y ago
  "Now everywhere is New York": https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-03-13/now-argentina-can-t-even-pay-bonds-in-argentina https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-03-13/now-ar...
- wtfstatists 8y ago
  > Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology Then Canada gets to do the arresting and jailing. Re next 2 points: If you want to justify violance you need stronger triggers. Those 2 just give the US right to ban the Huawei from country or using the USD. This looks like US doing it because it can. But then US is not facing USSR whose going to die from self-inflicted wounds. China have the most capitalist companies (Apple/etc) defending it.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > then Canada gets to do the arresting That’s...what happened. > if you want to justify violance you need stronger triggers Violating sanctions is a criminal offense under U.S. and Canadian law. Huawei chose to do business in America and Canada. Its executive chose to travel to Canada. This is a difficult story to mangle into a morality play.
eigenvector 8y ago
Well for one thing, Canadian (and many other) extradition treaties require the notion of dual criminality - the thing you're being extradited for has to also be a crime in Canada. Second, Canada (and most democracies) does not extradite to countries where the Canadian courts are not satisfied you will get a fair trial, or where the person would face capital punishment. So all these comparisons of being extradited to Russia or China or any other dictatorship are not exactly valid. That kind of thing is not on the table. In fact right now Canada has a major dispute with China because the Canadian government won't return even run of the mill Chinese criminals because they will likely be executed after a sham trial in China.
FabHK 8y ago
A lot of the extraterritorial power of US jurisdiction is due to the fact that a lot of international commerce is denominated in USD. Matt Levine writes about this occasionally in his informative and amusing news letter "Money Matters" [1], for example [2]: > The basic system of international trade is: > 1. International trade is done using U.S. dollars. > 2. Any trade done using U.S. dollars is subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government: Dollars flow through banks in the U.S., and if the U.S. government doesn’t want dollars to be used for some purpose—to fund genocide or terrorists or dictators or narcotraffickers—then it can reasonably effectively cut off dollar funding for those purposes, and punish banks, including foreign banks, that disobey it. > 3. The U.S. is a good and responsible steward, and only cuts off dollar funding for bad purposes like genocide or terrorism or totalitarianism or drugs. [...] > If other countries lose confidence that the U.S.’s decisions about who can use dollars are predictable, stable, constrained by the rule of law and responsive to the concerns of other large economies, then those other countries might look elsewhere. Or the beginning of [3]: > There was also a sense of uneasiness with the U.S. using the power of the dollar to enforce its foreign policy: Because all dollar payments are nominally processed through the U.S., moving dollars anywhere in the world effectively puts you under U.S. jurisdiction, even if the dollars are financing purely non-U.S. transactions. Lots of Europeans — bankers but also politicians and businesspeople and regular citizens — didn’t have the same antipathy to, say, Cuba that the U.S. does; they found it unfair that European banks were prohibited from doing business in Cuba not by European regulations but by American ones. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe... [2] Section "Dollar hegemony" of https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-04/trying-to-buy-stuff-you-want-is-not-manipulation https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-04/trying... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-20/u-s-sanctions-hit-european-banks https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-20/u-s-sa...
- abricot 8y ago
  EU seems to want to change the US Dollar hegemony[1] as of late. [1]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6643_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6643_en.htm